Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp are about to do what many automakers have been trying to avoid: Let Google into the dashboard.
The French-Japanese auto alliance announced a technology partnership that is to make its vehicles among the first to use Google’s Android operating system in the dashboard, letting Alphabet Inc’s software control mapping and navigation, infotainment and a suite of apps directly installed in the car.
Most automakers allow Android Auto and Apple Inc’s CarPlay into the dashboard only by plugging in a smartphone and projecting a limited number of apps onto the vehicle’s touchscreen.
Most automakers have tried to keep Google and Apple at arm’s length, hoping to keep control of valuable data as a driver’s whereabouts, driving patterns, shopping preferences and infotainment use.
Automakers have also sought to forge their own commercial partnerships to sell connected services, rather than let tech players cash in.
“We’re merging our forces to build a better system,” said Kal Mos, global vice president of connected vehicles for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.
“If you forget your phone, it will work perfectly fine in the car,” he said of Google’s system.
Volvo Cars has announced that it would start using Android in 2020, but no other automaker has, Gartner Inc research director Mike Ramsey said.
With Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, drivers would be able to have their favorite Android-based apps, music and other services piped directly into the car. They would also be able to control them by voice using Google Assistant.
Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi customers who have Apple iPhones can continue to project apps onto the touchscreen the way they do now, Mos said.
It would be up to each automaker to craft its individual in-car experience using Android’s operating system and to plan when they would offer it in specific models, starting in 2021.
Control of driver and vehicle data has been a sticky issue for automakers. While Google makes billions of US dollars by tracking Internet search patterns for advertisers, automakers have walled-off diagnostic data about the vehicle’s performance from infotainment systems. Some use their own navigation systems that give drivers an alternative to Google’s or Apple’s maps.
When Android is incorporated into Alliance vehicles, navigation would be done with Google Maps, but diagnostic data would be in a separate system.
As with any app on a phone, Android users in Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi models are to have the option of agreeing to share their data or not using the app, Android vice president of engineering Patrick Brady said.
“In the majority of cases, the Android platform user has to give consent,” Brady said in a telephone interview.
Volvo’s plans to install Android into the head unit puts pressure on bigger automakers to give their drivers the same experience and access to more Android-based apps, Ramsey said.
Automakers can still preserve vehicle diagnostic data and allow Android or Apple’s iOS operating system into the car, he said.
“Car companies have wanted to maintain use and feel, branding and data, but the development of the Android ecosystem into the head unit is going to happen,” he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day