Chrysler Brings 'Infobahn' to Autobahn

[KB1OKL]

Chrysler wants to turn your car into a rolling WiFi hotspot where you check your Facebook profile, upload pictures to Flickr, and eventually be part of a nationwide traffic-control network.

The UConnect Web system Chrysler will unveil Thursday -- and introduce next year -- marks the start of the dot-car era and puts Chrysler in front of BMW in their race to bring wireless internet access to your dashboard. Most of the other automakers, not to mention Microsoft, are right behind them, and there's a push to bring some standards to the hardware.

read more at:

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2008/06/car_internet

[vsa]

Chrysler wants to turn your car into a rolling WiFi hotspot where you check your Facebook profile, upload pictures to Flickr, and eventually be part of a nationwide traffic-control network.

The UConnect Web system Chrysler will unveil Thursday -- and introduce next year -- marks the start of the dot-car era and puts Chrysler in front of BMW in their race to bring wireless internet access to your dashboard. Most of the other automakers, not to mention Microsoft, are right behind them, and there's a push to bring some standards to the hardware.

read more at:

http://www.wired.com/cars/coolwheels/news/2008/06/car_internet

HD RADIO.......R.I.P.

Mark Ramsey writes about this on how this affects radio. Reader comments are included at the link:

http://www.hear2.com/2008/06/chrysler-announ.html#comments

[rbrucecarter5]

Some issues facing this are:

- Availability of the service away from metro areas - is it satellite based or terrestrial cell based?
- automatic reconnection if the stream is dropped without requiring driver intervention.
- A plethora of incompatible streaming formats from different stations
- stations that demand registration before you can hear the stream
- stations that frequenty change the web address or service of their stream.

Until streaming stations get their act together and provide a uniform experience for listeners, it will probably remain a possible, but troublesome thing for people to use and consumer acceptance will be low.  The last thing a driver needs to do is constantly reconnect if the stream drops out, or to type in a user name and password for a stream while driving.  Which is also an issue with pay for HD-2 services!  Nobody will log in from the car, and re-login after an HD signal drops out.

Law of evolution:  The fittest survive.  If station X requires log in and station Y does not, whether it is streaming or HD-2, drivers will migrate to station Y.

[clouseau]

Some issues facing this are:

- Availability of the service away from metro areas - is it satellite based or terrestrial cell based?
- automatic reconnection if the stream is dropped without requiring driver intervention.
- A plethora of incompatible streaming formats from different stations
- stations that demand registration before you can hear the stream
- stations that frequenty change the web address or service of their stream.

Until streaming stations get their act together and provide a uniform experience for listeners, it will probably remain a possible, but troublesome thing for people to use and consumer acceptance will be low.  The last thing a driver needs to do is constantly reconnect if the stream drops out, or to type in a user name and password for a stream while driving.

Agreed.  This all goes back to the current revenue model for streaming which is a little confusing at the moment.

Which is also an issue with pay for HD-2 services!  Nobody will log in from the car, and re-login after an HD signal drops out.

As I've posted elsewhere, I have never heard of an ACTUAL Pay For Play HD-2 broadcast.  HOWEVER...

The HD selective access system uses the "Addressable Converter" model, I'm told.  That is,  you "Preregister" and then you receiver is "permissioned".  Therefore there is no HD login required,  it's all done by customer service, online or whatever.  No radio required.  It's still going to be the rarest of rarities, though.  More like used for reading services and stuff.

Law of evolution:  The fittest survive.  If station X requires log in and station Y does not, whether it is streaming or HD-2, drivers will migrate to station Y.

Agreed.  This actually might be good news for streaming on both of those fronts.  I hate logging in.  (And rarely do)

Clouseau

[tankedsecondchance]

benz has the same deal coming, based on the very same underlaying technology which is planned to be satellite based in part and offered via hughes telematics and they will include satellite radio in a bundle of services from chrysler, also read where they are well into talks with another auto oem.

based on what i read this will replace the mygig type units via chrysler.

reading the past prs from hughes it speaks of even targeted/measured local advertisments and response based on gps and vehicle location, being tied to the users online search for retail information to select the adds. followed up by a quick questionaire to confirm the users stop at  the mentioned retail location which would generate a discount for the user the next time they would shop at the same store.

looks like hughes teamed up with alcatel/lucent on the concept the same people that furnished the electronics payloads for the first generation of sirius and xm birds.and i think xms replacement birds.

one of the hughes documents even directly stated they could use sirius to provide video feeds.

the hughes telematics site shows some of the user features in the tool section and it list sirius under satellites.

[tankedsecondchance]

the last line should read "the mygig information on wkjeeps site" reads like the device was really bug infested when lauched....