Ontario tech companies team up to target the connected car

To predict who will play a role tomorrow's connected vehicles, you need to look beyond the usual suspects.

When someone says “automobile,” what’s the first word that comes to mind? Chances are, it isn’t Ontario. And yet Ontario — the Canadian province that is home to QNX headquarters — is a world-class hub of automotive R&D and manufacturing. Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota all have plants here. As do 350 parts suppliers. In fact, Ontario produced 2.5 million vehicles in 2012 alone.

No question, Ontario has the smarts to build cars. But to fully appreciate what Ontario has to offer, you need to look beyond the usual suspects in the auto supply chain. Take QNX Software Systems, for example. Our roots are in industrial computing, but in the early 2000s we started to offer software technology and expertise to the world’s automakers and tier one suppliers. And now, a decade later, QNX offers the premier platform for in-car infotainment, with deployments in tens of millions of vehicles.

QNX Software Systems is not alone. Ontario is home to many other “non-automotive” technology companies that are playing, or are poised to play, a significant role in creating new automotive experiences. But just who are these companies? The Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association (APMA) of Canada would like you to know. Which is why they've joined forces with QNX and other partners to build the APMA Connected Vehicle.

A showcase for Ontario technology.

The purpose of the vehicle is simple: to showcase how Ontario companies can help create the next generation of connected cars. The vehicle is based on a Lexus RX350 — built in Ontario, of course — equipped with a custom-built infotainment system and digital instrument cluster built on QNX technology. Together, the QNX systems integrate more than a dozen technologies and services created in Ontario, including gesture recognition, biometric security, emergency vehicle notification, LED lighting, weather telematics, user interface design, smartphone charging, and cloud connectivity.

Okay, enough from me. Time to nuke some popcorn, dim the lights, and hit the Play button:

The drive to 2015 CES — first stop: Connected Car Conference

Derek Kuhn

The 2015 International CES show is just 6 months away. As a preview of what we’ll see in January, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) recently held its annual CEWeek, which included a special half-day event focused on the connected car and its influence on consumers’ lives.

Chaired by industry veteran Doug Newcomb, the Connected Car Conference (C3) explored some of the most pressing trends for connected automotive technology, including distracted driving, the Internet of Things, and the possibility of a self-driving future.

I took part in the panel discussion on safeguarding driver privacy. Moderated by Roger Lanctot of Strategy Analytics, the panel also included representatives from AVG Technologies, Covisint, HARMAN, and the Intelligent Car Coalition.

The panel covered both security and privacy — two different but intimately related topics — and sparked a lively exchange that ran the gamut from key fobs and VIN numbers to software practices and regulatory agencies. Check it out:



The countdown to 2015 CES has officially started. I’ll see you in Vegas — in 183 days!

My next car will know when I'm in a good mood

It will also know when I'm sad, grumpy, or just plain mad. Okay, it won't quite figure it out on its own — I will have to tell it. How will my car get so smart? Because Gracenote has been working to personalize the music experience in a way that dynamically adapts content to the driver’s mood and musical taste.

It's not just about play-listing locally stored content and displaying album art anymore. The folks at Gracenote can now merge multiple occupants’ music collections and find common ground. They can create stations that incorporate cloud-based content from multiple sources. And they can adapt the nature of the content played in the car to the mood of the occupants through their Mood Grid technology.

This not only makes the music experience intensely personal but it does it automagically, keeping the driver’s eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. Here’s a short video from 2014 CES that provides a quick overview — on a system powered by QNX technology, of course :-)

QNX at CES: a key fob on steroids

Have you ever wished that your key fob could do more than lock and unlock doors, and chirp your horn? If so, you’ll be interested in some great tech that QNX Software Systems has developed in partnership with DotLinker and is demonstrating this week at CES.

To show what this technology can do, we’ve created a custom “key fob” app that connects to our Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG technology concept car. The app is written in HTML5, our cross-platform language of choice, so it will run on any smartphone. Here is the app’s main menu:



Remote repair, over the air
A really cool feature of this technology is that the connection to your car is hosted on a cloud service, thanks to our DotLinker integration. This approach could allow multiple devices owned by you, your spouse, or your kids to access the vehicle's state simultaneously. It could also allow your dealership to access the vehicle’s state online — with your permission of course — without having you bring the car into the shop. The dealer tech could simply pull up a management console on an iPad to see what’s wrong, order the parts you need, and book a single, quick fix-it appointment:



If the problem can be fixed by software, that same technician could make changes over the air. It might be as simple as setting a Bluetooth pairing option that you can’t find (aka remote device management), or downloading new software to the car (aka firmware over-the-air updates):



Dodging the vortex
How about a remote start from anywhere? The Buick Enclave with OnStar shows just how nice this can be when it’s bitter cold outside and you’re beyond traditional key-fob distance. This feature should come in handy this week with the dreaded “Polar Vortex”! Also, you never know when a coworker might need to borrow your ice scraper out of the trunk — stay nice and warm inside while he or she gets it. If it ever does get back to hot summer days (and it will, eventually), this same remote access could let you open your car’s sunroof or windows.

The key fob app supports remote start; remote open/close of doors, windows, roof, and trunk; and, for good measure, remote control of turn signals:




Where did I park that thing?
“Hey kids, meet me back at the car!” Finding your vehicle’s location is a modern necessity, especially when the parking lot is bigger than the state of Rhode Island. Okay, the Las Vegas Convention Center isn’t that big, but it sure feels that way by the end of the show:



Backseat DJ
Finally, what about controlling the car’s media player from the phone? Let your kids DJ the car’s playlist from the back seat from their tablets or smartphones to keep the trip to Grandma’s entertaining. Just remember you gave them that power when they dish up their favorite screamo band, “A Scar for the Wicked”.



What if?
Now imagine... what if your next car came with a key-fob app? What features would you hope to see? And what do you think would be the killer key-fob feature of all time? Over-the-air updates? Remote location tracking? Or something completely different?

The wraps are off! First look at the new QNX technology concept car

A quick tour of one of the vehicles that QNX is unveiling at 2014 CES

You know what? Writing this post isn’t easy. All I’ve got are words and pictures, and neither could ever do justice to the user experience offered by the new QNX technology concept car. They cannot, for example, recreate the rich, luminous sound of the car’s full-band and wide-band hands-free calls. Nor can they evoke how the car blends speech recognition with a touch interface and physical controls to make navigation, Internet radio, and other applications wonderfully easy to use.

But on second thought, words and pictures aren’t that bad. Especially when the car — and the in-dash systems that the QNX concept team created for it — are so downright gorgeous. So what are we sitting around for? Time for a tour!

Actually... hold that thought. I just want to mention that, if you visit our Flickr page, you can find full-resolution versions of most of the images I've posted here. Because why settle for low res? Okay, back to the tour.

The car
I've got two things to say here. First, the car is based on a Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG. If you guessed the model correctly based on the teaser images we published on the QNX website, I bow in homage to your eagle eye. Second, while we snapped this photo in the QNX garage, don’t think for a minute that the garage is ever this neat and tidy. On any given day, it’s chock full of drill presses, tool boxes, work tables, embedded boards, and QNX engineers joyously modding the world’s coolest cars — exactly the kind of place you expect it to be. And want it to be! But to humor the photographer, we (temporarily) made this corner clutter-free. We're nice that way.



The dash
Let's get behind the wheel, where you can see the car's custom-built digital instrument cluster and infotainment system. The bold design, the clean layout, the super-easy-to-access controls — they all add up to systems you want to interact with. Just as important, the look-and-feel of the instrument cluster and infotainment system are totally different from the corresponding systems in our previous concept car — an excellent illustration of how the QNX platform can help customers create their own branded experiences.



The multi-talented cluster
Time to zoom in on the digital instrument cluster, which helps simplify driving tasks and minimize distraction with an impressive array of features. Turn-by-turn directions pulled from the navigation system? Check. Video feed from front and rear-view cameras? Check. Notifications of incoming phone calls? Check. Alerts of incoming text messages, which you can listen to at the touch of a steering-wheel button? Check.



The Android app support
Automakers want to tap into the talents of the mobile app community, and the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment helps them do just that, with built-in support for Android, OpenGL ES, and HTML5. In the concept car, for example, you'll find an Android Jellybean version of iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s digital radio service, running in a secure application container. The QNX CAR Platform takes this same sandboxed approach to running HTML5 apps — perfect for protecting both the HMI and the overall system from unpredictable web content:



Helping you get there in more ways than one
We designed the QNX CAR Platform to give automotive developers the greatest possible choice and flexibility. And that’s exactly what you see when it comes to navigation. For instance, the car supports navigation from Elektrobit:



and from HERE:



and from Kotei Informatics:



If that’s not enough, a demo system in the QNX booth at CES also demonstrates a navigation system from Aisin AW — more on that in an upcoming post.

Pardon me while I barge in
As I alluded earlier, what you can't see in the new concept car is just as important as what you can see. For instance, if you look at this image, you'll see the infotainment system's media player. But what you can't see is new acoustics technology from QNX that lets you "barge in" and issue voice commands even when a song is playing. How cool is that?



When you find yourself in times of trouble...
... don't let it be, but rather, check and see. And to do that, you can use the infotainment system's virtual mechanic, which keeps tabs on your car's health, including fluid levels, brake wear, and, in this case, low tire pressure:



The cloud connection
Hold on, what's this? It looks like a smartphone app with an interface similar to that of the virtual mechanic, above. In fact, it's a lot more than that, and it touches on some cool (and very new) technology that can help cars become fully managed citizens of the cloud. More on that in an upcoming post.



That's it for now. For more details on what QNX is showcasing this week at CES, check out the press releases posted on the QNX website. And stay tuned to this channel for further updates from 2014 CES — including a profile of our very new QNX technology concept car for acoustics.

Is this the most jazzed-up Jeep ever to hit CES?

The fourth installment in the CES Cars of Fame series. Our inductee for this week: a Jeep that gets personal.

Paul Leroux

It might not be as hip as the Prius or as fast as the Porsche. But it's fun, practical, and flexible. Better yet, you can drive it just about anywhere. Which makes it the perfect vehicle to demonstrate the latest features of the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment.

It's called the QNX reference vehicle, and it's been to CES in Las Vegas, as well as to Detroit, New York City, and lots of places in between. It's our go-to vehicle for whenever we want to hit the road and showcase our latest infotainment technology. It even made a guest appearance at IBM's recent Information On Demand 2013 Big Data conference, where it demonstrated the power of connecting cars to the cloud.

The reference vehicle, which is based on a Jeep Wrangler, serves a different purpose than our technology concept cars. Those vehicles take the QNX CAR Platform as a starting point to demonstrate how the platform can help automakers hit new levels of innovation. The reference vehicle plays a more modest, but equally important, role: to show what our the platform can do out of the box.

For instance, we updated the Jeep recently to show how version 2.1 of the QNX CAR Platform will allow developers to blend a variety of application and HMI technologies on the same display. In this case, the Jeep's head unit is running a mix of native, HTML5, and Android apps on an HMI built with the Qt application framework:



Getting personal
We also use the Jeep to demonstrate the platform's support for customization and personalization. For instance, here is the first demonstration instrument cluster we created specifically for the Jeep:



And here's a more recent version:



These clusters may look very different, but they share the same underlying features, such as the ability to display turn-by-turn directions, weather updates, and other information provided by the head unit.

Keeping with the theme of personalization, the Jeep also demonstrates how the QNX CAR Platform allows developers to create re-skinnable HMIs. Here, for example, is a radio app in one skin:



And here's the same app in a different skin:



This re-skinnability isn't just cool; it also demonstrates how the QNX CAR Platform can help automotive developers create a single underlying code base and re-use it across multiple vehicle lines. Good, that.

Getting complementary
The Jeep is also the perfect vehicle to showcase the ecosystem of complementary apps and services integrated with the QNX CAR Platform, such as the (very cool) street director navigation system from Elektrobit:



To return to the question, is this really the most jazzed-up Jeep to hit CES? Well, it will be making a return trip to CES in just a few weeks, with a whole new software build. So if you're in town, drop by and let us know what you think.

The first-ever QNX technology concept car to hit CES

Paul Leroux

I bet you thought it was the Porsche. Or perhaps even the Bentley. But no, the first QNX-powered technology concept car to appear at CES was a digitally modded Prius — aka the LTE Connected Car. In fact, the car appeared at two CES shows: 2010 and 2011.

If you've never heard of the LTE Connected Car, it was a joint project of several companies, including QNX Software Systems and Alcatel-Lucent. The project members wanted to demonstrate how 4G/LTE networks could transform the driving experience and enable a host of new in-vehicle applications. This kind of thinking of may seem like old hat today, but when the car was created, telecom companies had yet to light up their first commercial LTE towers. The car was definitely ahead of its time.

One of the four infotainment
systems in the LTE Connected Car

Almost everyone saw the entertainment potential of equipping a car with a 4G/LTE broadband connection — the ability to access your favorite music, applications, videos, or social media while on the road had immediate appeal. But many people also saw the other value proposition this car presented: the ability for vehicles to continuously upload information they have gathered about themselves or surrounding road conditions, providing, in the words of WIRED's Eliot Van Buskirk, "a crowd-sourced version of what traffic helicopters do today." Awesome quote, that.

QNX provided the software foundation for the LTE Connected Car, including the OS, touchscreen user interfaces, media players for YouTube and Pandora, navigation system, Bluetooth connectivity, games, and handsfree integration. But why am I blabbing on about this when I could show you? Cue the screen captures...

Google local search
First up is Google local search, which displayed local points of interest to help drivers and passengers find nearby restaurants, gas stations, movie theaters, ATMs, hospitals, and so on. And because this was an LTE-enabled car, the system could fetch these POIs from a cloud-based database:



Pandora Internet radio
For those who prefer to listen to what they like, and nothing else, the car also came with a Pandora app:



Home monitoring and control
Are you the kind of person who forgets to engage the burglar alarm before going to work? If so, the car's home automation app was just the ticket. It could let you manage home systems, such as lights and thermostats, from any of the car’s touchscreens — you could even view a live video feed from home security cameras:



Vehicle diagnostics
Now this is my favorite part. If you look below, you'll see the car's main screen for accessing vehicle diagnostics. At the upper right is the virtual mechanic app, which retrieved OBD-II codes from the vehicle bus to display the status of your brakes, tires, power train, electrical systems, fluids, and so on. (The current QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment includes an updated version of this app.)



Low oil pressure... yikes!
The virtual mechanic wouldn't fix your car for you. But it could tell you when things were going south and help you take appropriate action — before the problem escalated. In this case, it's saying that the engine oil pressure is low:



What to do? Well, if you were mechanically challenged, you could tap the fuel pump icon at the bottom of the screen to display a map of local service stations. Or you could tap on the dealership icon (Toyota, in this case) and find directions to the nearest, well, dealership:



The virtual mechanic would also let you zoom in on specific systems. For instance, in the following screen, the user has tapped the brake fluid button to learn the location of the brake fluid reservoir:



On the subject of zooming, let's zoom out for a second to see the entire car:



Moving pictures
Screen captures and photos can say only so much. For the back story on the LTE Connected Car, check out this video, which digs into the "philosophy" of the car and what the project members were working to accomplish:

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An LTE Connected Car reader

• Scientific American — Hot Spot Hot Rod: The Internet Invades the Automobile
• Wired — Next-Gen Car Dashboard Talks to the Cloud
• Engadget — LTE Connected Car redefines the 'mobile' in mobile broadband
• John Day’s Automotive Electronic News — Alcatel-Lucent launches LTE Connected Car from QNX platform
• GIGAOM — LTE Connected Car: Dude, Where’s My Display?
• AutoSpies — Is THIS The Future Of Auto Tech?
• PCMag.com Blogs — What Do You Want in a Web-Connected Car?
• The Inquirer — Alcatel-Lucent talks up connected vehicles
• Stuff.tv — ng Connect turns Prius into living room

OTA software: not just building castles in the air

Tina Jeffrey

After attending Telematics Detroit earlier this month, I realized more than ever that M2M will become the key competitive differentiator for automakers. With M2M, automakers can stay connected with their vehicles and perhaps more importantly, vehicle owners, long after the cars have been driven off dealer lots. Over-the-air (OTA) technology provides true connectivity between automakers and their vehicles, making it possible to upgrade multiple systems, including electronic control unit (ECU) software, infotainment systems that provide navigation and smartphone connectivity, and an ever-increasing number of apps and services.

Taken together, the various systems in a vehicle contain up to 100 million lines of code — which makes the 6.5 million lines of code in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner seem like a drop in the proverbial bucket. Software in cars will only continue to grow in both amount and complexity, and the model automakers currently use to maintain and upgrade vehicle software isn’t scalable.

Vehicle owners want to keep current with apps, services, and vehicle system upgrades, without always having to visit the dealer. Already, vehicle owners update many infotainment applications by accepting software pushed over the air, just like they update applications on their smartphones. But this isn’t currently the case for ECUs, which require either a complete module replacement or module re-flashing at a dealership.

Pushing for updates
Automakers know that updates must be delivered to vehicle owners in a secure, seamless, and transparent fashion, similar to how OTA updates are delivered to mobile phones. Vehicle software updates must be even more reliable given they are much more critical.


BlackBerry’s OTA solution: Software Update Management for Automotive service

With OTA technology, automakers will use wireless networks to push software updates to vehicles automatically. The OTA service will need to notify end-users of updates as they become available and allow the users to schedule the upgrade process at a convenient time. Large software updates that may take a while to download and install could be scheduled to run overnight while the car is parked in the garage, making use of the home Wi-Fi connection. Smaller size updates could be delivered over a cellular connection through a tethered smartphone, while on a road trip. In this latter scenario, an update could be interrupted, for instance, if the car travels into a tunnel or beyond the network area.

A win-win-win
Deployment of OTA software updates is a winning proposition for automakers, dealers, and vehicle owners. Automakers could manage the OTA software updates themselves, or extend the capability to their dealer networks. Either way, drivers will benefit from the convenience of up-to-date software loads, content, and apps with less frequent trips to the dealer. Dealership appointments would be limited to mechanical work, and could be scheduled automatically according to the vehicle’s diagnostic state, which could be transmitted over the air, routinely, to the dealer. With this sharing of diagnostic data, vehicle owners would better know how much they need to shell out for repairs in advance of the appointment, with less chance of a shocking repair-cost phone call.

OTA technology also provides vehicle owners and automakers with the ability to personalize the vehicle. Automaker-pushed content can be carefully controlled to target the driver’s needs, reflect the automaker's brand, and avoid distraction — rather than the unrestricted open content found on the internet, which could be unsafe for consumption while driving. Overall, OTA software updates will help automakers maintain the customers they care about, engender brand loyalty, and provide the best possible customer experience.

Poised to lead
Thinking back to Telematics Detroit, if the number of demos my BlackBerry colleagues gave of their Software Update Management for Automotive service is any indication, OTA will transform the auto industry. According to a study from Gartner ( “U.S. Consumer Vehicle ICT Study: Web-Based Features Continue to Rise” by Thilo Koslowski), 40 percent of all U.S. vehicle owners either “definitely want to get” or at least are “likely to get” the ability for wireless software updates in their next new vehicle — making it the third most demanded automotive-centric Web application and function.

BlackBerry is poised to lead in this space, given their expertise in infrastructure, security, software management, and close ties to automotive. They were leaders in building an OTA solution for the smartphone market, and now again are among the first entrants in enabling a solution that is network, hardware, firmware, OS, software, and application agnostic.

Finally, I can throw away my 8 tracks

Okay, maybe I'm not old enough to have owned 8-track tapes. But I do remember that my uncle had an 8-track player in the dash of his station wagon when I was a kid, and I am old enough to have owned a car with a cassette player.

Music has been fundamental to the driving experience for about as long as cars have been on the road. Terrestrial radio dominated forever, supplemented by tape and then CD. XM radio came along in 2001 and connecting your iPod started to show up in the late 2000s. That's 5 formats since the Model T was introduced in 1908 (okay, so it didn't  have a radio) and 3 formats in the first 90 years.

Now, with connected cars becoming a reality, the rate of change is shifting into overdrive. Want Pandora – check. Want to listen to the top alternative radio station in Dublin while driving in California – check. Want to keep listening to your Songza programming as you move from the house to the car – check.

Today's announcement from QNX and 7Digital adds a whole new dimension. Having 7Digital in the car will unify the music ownership experience across the big three: car, pocket, and home. Want to listen to your own music programming in the car – check. Want to buy a song you just heard on that Dublin radio station – check.

Read the press release for details. And when you're done, check out the 7digital blog.

Hello, Bentley: Using Sensory speech technology to create a natural user experience

By Bernard Brafman, Sensory Inc., and Justin Moon, QNX Software Systems

In-vehicle infotainment systems are becoming more and more complex, and integral to the overall driving experience. As this trend continues, it will become increasingly important to create systems that support multiple forms of user interaction. If you’re driving, the last thing you want to do is enter a destination manually, or search for your favorite artist in a playlist by using a touch screen, jog wheel, or other manual input method. Drivers want and require a user experience that is both simple and natural; integration of speech recognition technology goes a long way toward achieving that goal.

In fact, speech recognition is a key component of the latest QNX technology concept car, a modified Bentley Continental GT. The speech rec system lets you plot a route or select your favorite artist using natural speech, but it goes even further by letting you simply ask the car to perform an action. Leveraging Sensory’s FluentSoft SDK, more specifically the TrulyHandsfree^TM Voice Control technology, the QNX concept development team implemented keyword spotting techniques to interact with the vehicle.

So how does this work? Well, let’s say you’re in Vegas and need directions to the Wynn Casino. To engage the cloud-based Watson speech system, you simply say “Hello Bentley” — no need to push a button. You then complete the request by saying “Take me to the Wynn Casino.” FluentSoft, along with the architecture of the advanced speech recognition system included in the QNX CAR platform, allowed the team to create this seamless, easily implemented, and well-executed voice interaction experience.


When you say “Hello Bentley,” the QNX concept car displays a visual prompt at the top of the screen, indicating that the speech rec system is now listening for natural speech or directed commands.

Multiple triggers
The team plans to further utilize Sensory technology in future concept car releases. The current implementation has the single “Hello Bentley” trigger, which engages the speech system. But TrulyHandsfree Voice Control supports multiple active triggers as well as a robust recognition vocabulary to create a rich command-and-control user experience that doesn’t require prompts or pauses. Thus, it’s possible to create a hybrid system that is seamless and transparent to the user. For instance, “Hello Bentley air 68 degrees” or “Hello Bentley what time is it in Tokyo?” can both be executed flawlessly, regardless of which speech rec system is engaged.

A matter of choice
For an even more personalized experience, this technology can allow drivers to create their own custom trigger with a simple one-time enrollment process that verifies their identity as a voice password or identifies one of several previously enrolled. This creates a custom experience not only by letting you choose your own trigger phrases (come on now, who hasn’t named their car at some point?), but also by recalling individual preferences such as seat position, steering wheel position, and multimedia presets.

Look for these enhanced features in concept cars to come!

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Bernard Brafman is vice president of business development for Sensory, Inc., responsible for strategic business partnerships. He received his MSEE from Stanford University. Contact Bernard at bbrafman@sensoryinc.com

Justin Moon is a global technical evangelist for the automotive business development team at QNX Software Systems.

It's a Bentley! A guided tour of the new QNX technology concept car

"Bend it, shape it, any way you want it"
— Headline from a QNX advertisement, circa 1987

I’m about to show you some pictures of a car. Not just any car, but a powerful, luxurious, and stunningly beautiful car. A car that has undergone a technological transformation.

If you’re like me, you'll be fascinated by the car’s features, some of which have never been seen in a vehicle — until now. But if you can, remember that it isn’t just about the cool features. It’s also about the platform that enabled them.

I’m speaking, of course, of the QNX CAR application platform.

We created the new QNX technology concept car — a modified Bentley Continental GT — to demonstrate that flexibility and customization form the very DNA of the QNX CAR platform. If you’ve seen the QNX reference vehicle, you already know that the platform provides an extremely rich environment for in-car infotainment, complete with HMI frameworks, smartphone integration, an HTML5 engine, a mobile device gateway, and a host of pre-integrated partner technologies — everything to kickstart our customers' projects. But in the automotive world, differentiation is everything. So it’s just as important that the platform enables customers to add their own branding, features, and sizzle. And to do it quickly.

Ease of branding and
personalization is just one

of the capabilities of the
QNX CAR platform.

Which is where the new concept car comes in. To create it, we used the same base QNX CAR platform that we offer our customers. But when you compare the Bentley to the Jeep, which uses a stock version of QNX CAR, the differences are dramatic: different features, different branding, and a different look-and-feel. In effect, the Jeep shows what QNX CAR can do out of the box, while the Bentley shows what QNX CAR lets you do once you start bending it to your imagination. One platform, many possibilities.

Which brings me to the slogan at the top of this post. It's amazing to think that a core value of QNX technology in the 1980s — giving customers the flexibility to achieve what they want to do — remains just as true today. Some values, it seems, are worth keeping.

And now, the car…
I know that you’re anxious to peek inside the car and see what we’ve done. But before we go any further, take a moment to savor the car’s beautifully sculpted exterior. This is one classy set of wheels. In fact, if you ask me, the wheels alone are worth the price of admission:



The awesome (and full HD) center stack
Okay, time to hop in — but get ready to prop up your jaw. Because the first thing you’ll notice is the jaw-droppingly beautiful center stack. This immense touchscreen features a gracefully curved surface, full HD graphics, and TI’s optical touch input technology, which allows a physical control knob to be mounted directly on the screen — a feature that’s cool and useful. (In the photo below, the clock display appears within the knob.)

The center stack supports a host of applications, including a 3D navigation system from Elektrobit that makes full use of the display. Just check out this bird’s-eye view of the Las Vegas Strip:



So how big is the display? Big enough to provide access to other functions, such as the car’s media player or virtual mechanic, and still have plenty room for navigation. Check it out:



The awesome (and very polite) voice rec system
Time to talk to the car. Just say “Hello Bentley,” and the car’s voice recognition system immediately comes to life and begins to interact with you — in a British accent, no less. You can now tell the media player what you’d like to hear and the navigation system where you’d like to go.

To provide natural language speech recognition, the system uses the cloud-based AT&T Watson speech engine, as well as an “intent framework” from QNX. It also uses keyword spotting technology from Sensory so you can start the system simply by talking to it.

The awesome (and nicely integrated) smartphone support
The Bentley also showcases how the QNX CAR platform enables automakers to offer advanced integration with popular smartphones. For instance, the car can communicate with a smartphone to stream music, or to provide notifications of incoming email, news feeds, and other real-time information — all displayed in a manner appropriate to the automotive context. Here's an example:



The awesome (and just plain fun) web app
I know, I know: the car looks cool, but you’re not at CES this week to see it first-hand. But how about the next best thing? Just connect to the web app and keep tabs on the Bentley in real time. (Note: The car will go online later this morning.) The app lets you view a variety of data that the car publishes to the cloud, such as what song the infotainment system is playing and whether someone has just opened a door. It also displays information that would be extremely helpful if this were your personal car, such as fluid levels and tire pressure. (This is a preliminary screen for the app, so I'm not sure if the tire pressures are realistic.)



UPDATE: The web app is now live, and the desktop version features a live camera feed of the Bentley and Jeep. Check it out!



The awesome (and very configurable) digital instrument cluster
The instrument cluster is implemented entirely in software, though you would hardly know it — the virtual gauges are impressively realistic. But more impressive still is the cluster’s ability to morph itself on the fly. Put the car in Drive, and the cluster will display a tach, gas gauge, temperature gauge, and turn-by-turn directions — the cluster pulls these directions from the center stack’s navigation system (cool, that). Put the car in Reverse, and the cluster will display a video feed from the car’s backup camera.



There are other options as well. For instance, the cluster can display information from the media player or display the current weather:



The awesome everything else
I’ve only scratched the surface of what the car can do. For instance, it also provides:

• Advanced multimedia system — Offers direct support for Pandora radio and the first embedded in-car implementation of the Shazam music discovery service.
   
• Video conferencing with realistic telepresence — Separate cameras for the driver and passenger provide independent video streams, while high-definition voice technology from QNX offers expanded bandwidth for greater realism, as well as stereo telepresence for making the remote caller sound as if they’re sitting right next to you.
   
• LTE connectivity — The car features an LTE radio modem, as well as a Wi-Fi hotspot for devices you bring into the car.

Super size those images
Want to see the center stack and instrument cluster in all their high-resolution glory? Just check out our QNX Flickr account.

That's all for now, but stay tuned: We’ll have plenty more news for you today and all through this week.