Today Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced, at CTIA, Sprint® Drive FirstTM . The android based app created by Location Labs will cost $2/month and is designed to: Lock the driver’s cell phone screen and redirect calls to voice mail. Block text-message alerts and auto-respond to the message sender that the driver is currently unavailable. Allow [...]
Archive for the ‘Apps + Products’ Category
Sprint Offers Android Based Distracted Driving App err… App to Reduce Distracted Driving
March 22nd, 2011 
Jeff Shariat 
Posted in Apps + Products, Safety + Security, Telematics 
Tags: android, apps, automotive, distracted driving, DoT, Emerging Tech, safety, Safety + Security 
Comments OffFord Sync Release AppLink to 2011 Fiesta; Apple iPhone Supported
December 21st, 2010 Jeff Shariat At the recent Content and Apps for Automotive Conference (by Telematics Update), we talked a lot of about voice controls and the important role they will play in creating a safe and usable in-car infotainment experience. A lot of the major products out there already feature voice controls of some sort, but today Ford announced the availability [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Ford Sync / Touch, Telematics Tags: android, apple, applink, blackberry, Ford, ford sync, iphone, News, openbeack, pandora, stitcher, tech, Telematics, voice controls Comments OffContent and Apps for Automotive by Telematics Update Wrap-Up
December 13th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Over the two days of Telematics Update’s Content and Apps for Automotive Conference there was a lot to be learned about the state of the industry and where people think it’s going. We covered the industry from end to end and touched on all the leading technology frameworks and business models. The event as a [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Featured, Telematics Tags: 2010, apps, automotive, convergence, distracted driving, DoT, driver distraction, Emerging Tech, infotainment, tech, technology, Telematics Comments OffLaHood Still Looking at Cell Jamming Technology for Cars
November 30th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Ray LaHood has once again shown a tendency to want to completely block technology in the car. “There’s a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones and we’re looking at that,” Raymond LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation said during a discussion during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” This will never happen. Ever. There are to [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Etc..., Featured, News, Safety + Security, Telematics Tags: apps, automotive, DoT, driver distraction, Emerging Tech, infotainment, iphone app, mobile, News, safety, Safety + Security, security, Sync, tech, Telematics Comments OffContent and Apps for Automotive 2010
November 30th, 2010 Jeff Shariat It’s day one here in sunny San Diego and we’ve got over a hundred members of the automotive, telematics and smartphones industries in the room. The agenda is jam packed with interesting and relevant discussions about the future of the automotive telematics industry. In particular we’re focused on the boom in smartphone applications and what [...]
App Spotlight: SafeCellApp – Get Paid to NOT Use Your Phone While Driving
October 14th, 2010 Jeff Shariat SafeCellApp (not to be mistaken with the ‘radiation blocking’ SafeCell) has taken an interesting approach to smartphone app usage and distracted driving. Instead of blocking features, the SafeCellApp will pay you $1 per 100 miles (it’s really 1 point per mile and 100 points per $1 aka $.01 / mile) you drive without violating texting [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, News, Safety + Security, Telematics Tags: apps, automotive, distracted driving, driver distraction, mobile, News, tech, Telematics 2 Comments »Twitter Chats and Digital Cars
October 13th, 2010 KevinShannon Social media, particularly Twitter, is about listening, learning, sharing, and connecting with others. In many cases, people with like interests form around specific topics, themes or ideas. Using hashtags (#), some people group conversations around a relevant topic and focus the discussion. Many groups form and take the discussions further by establishing regularly timed twitter [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, News, Telematics Tags: chat, digicar, news twitter chat, tech, Telematics, twitter 1 Comment »MyFord Touch Review From Mossberg
October 11th, 2010 Jeff Shariat We’ve spent a lot of time covering Ford Sync and the upcoming MyFord Touch systems. Grandpa Mossberg had an opportunity to spend sometime with the new MyFord system and his thoughts can be summarized in two lines from the article. The layout of most of the displays is clear and logical, and the voice-command system [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Etc..., News, Telematics Tags: automotive, Emerging Tech, Ford, Ford Sync / Touch, infotainment, mobile, mossberg, MyFord, MyFord Touch, News, review, technology, Telematics, wsj Comments OffFord Sync Fact Sheet
October 4th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Download the Ford Sync Fact Sheet PDF 1-Pager or read it all below. Overview Ford SYNC®, co-developed with Microsoft and using Nuance Communications voice recognition technology, allows customers to bring digital media players and Bluetooth®-enabled mobile phones into their vehicles and operate the devices via voice commands or with the steering wheel’s redundant audio controls. SYNC is an agnostic [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Featured, Ford Sync / Touch, Safety + Security, Telematics Tags: automotive, convergence, Emerging Tech, Ford, ford sync, Ford Sync / Touch, Sync, technology, Telematics Comments OffQNX, chumby Bring Personalized Internet Experience to the Car
September 24th, 2010 Jeff Shariat QNX has announced support of the Chumby application environment. The QNX Car Application Platform will allow users to access apps in the same way Chumby users can. If you don’t know what a Chumby is, it’s a standalone open source internet enabled widget device (i know, that doesn’t mean anything to anyone)…basically it’s a little [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Etc... Tags: apps, automotive, chumby, convergence, Emerging Tech, infotainment, mobile, real-time data, wireless 1 Comment »Aha Mobile Acquired by Harman
September 16th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Aha Mobile, is a provider of “on-demand mobile and location-based Internet content services,” that we spotlighted here back in March and has now been acquired by Harman International in an effort to bolster their mobile offerings. Aha Mobile launched its “Aha Radio” application for the Apple iPhone® earlier this year, which has since become popular [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, News Tags: aha mobile, apps, harman, location based services, mobile, News, on-demand, tech Comments OffOnStar Expands Mobile App Availability
September 14th, 2010 Jeff Shariat OnStar will be offering smartphone control over some basic vehicle functionality to a broader range of 2011 model year vehicles including most of the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC models. Functionality will include key fob functionality (door locks, remote start) as well as the standard OnStar Remote Vehicle Diagnostics etc. It does feel like this [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Telematics Tags: apps, gm, mobile, onstar, remote diagnostic, smartphone, tehc, Telematics 1 Comment »Status Update: Onstar likes Facebook
September 8th, 2010 Jeff Shariat BusinessWeek.com reports that OnStar will be adding Facebook to it’s bag of tricks GM owners can use while driving. Nothing official from OnStar yet, but it sounds like this is going to happen sometime this month. Clearly OnStar has to up it’s infotainment services to compete with Ford Sync (and the other players bringing up [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Telematics Tags: apps, automotive, convergence, Emerging Tech, Ford, Ford Sync / Touch, onstar, tech, technology, Telematics Comments OffiPhone Most Popular Camera On Flickr, Can Cars Learn Something?
April 26th, 2010 Jeff Shariat It’s no surprise that the iPhone is the most popular camera used to take pictures hosted on Flickr. It’s probably the single most popular consumer device that has a camera, the quality has improved, and it’s connectivity as a phone allows it to upload directly to Flickr (rather than meaning to upload all those pictures [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Etc..., Telematics Tags: apps, camera, flickr, geolocation, geotagging, gps, iphone, iphone 3g, News, social networking, tech, Telematics Comments OffFord Announces AppLink
April 20th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Today, Ford announced AppLink, the in-car application that will reside on the Sync system and enable developers to take advantage of voice and hard-button controls to interact with applications on Android and Blackberry smartphones. We’ve already covered the Sync Apps and APIs extensively so click through to the original post to read more. You can [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Ford Sync / Touch, News, Telematics Tags: android, apps, automotive, Ford, ford sync, News, Sync, tech, Telematics 2 Comments »iPhone OS 4.0 Has Automotive Implications
April 19th, 2010 Jeff Shariat The recent release of the iPhone OS 4.0 included at least a few new features that will benefit the automotive industry. Multitasking has gotten the headlines and rightfully so. It is a powerful addition and something that has been significantly lacking from the iPhone arsenal (much like copy and paste was lacking for so long). [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Telematics Tags: automotive, infotainment, iphone, iphone app, mobile, News, tech, Telematics 2 Comments »Making Foursquare Work for Business. Could Dealerships Learn Something?
April 7th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Mashable.com has 5 ways brands are using Foursquare to boost their business. The article talks about how the Wynn Las Vegas, City of Chicago, Lucky Magazine, Tasti D-Lite, and Starbucks are using Foursquare to increase customer engagement, loyalty and satisfaction within the check-in and badges framework of the location based application. Maybe this type of [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, News Tags: apps, automotive, convergence, Emerging Tech, foursquare, games, infotainment, LBS, location based services, Telematics Comments OffApp Downloads Will Near 6Billion in 2010
April 7th, 2010 Jeff Shariat ABI Research reports they expect just under 6 billion mobile application downloads in 2010 (more than double 2009 volume). To be clear, this is a forecast of downloads, not the total number of applications that will be available. The iPhone is expected to continue leading the charge (> 3Billion downloads) by a large margin with [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, News, Telematics Tags: android, apps, automotive, convergence, Emerging Tech, google, gps, infotainment, iphone, iphone app, technology, Telematics Comments OffProduct Spotlight: Continental AutoLinQ
April 6th, 2010 Jeff Shariat AutoLinQ is Continental’s Connected Services Platform for the car. Based on the Google Android OS the system will allow users to create and download applications directly to the in-vehicle system. Continental’s ‘Always On’ concept is built around allowing the user to interact with the vehicle through various ‘views’: Mobile View The user’s view from their [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Telematics Tags: android, api, apps, autolinq, continental, convergence, Emerging Tech, google, infotainment, navigation, navteq, open source, technology, Telematics 1 Comment »Where Do Kids Fit Into Telematics Strategies?
April 5th, 2010 Jeff Shariat Where do kids fall into the world of in-car apps? In the April 2010 edition of Fast Company Anya Kamenetz talks about how technology is impacting childhood creativity and the way kids learn. It’s a great read and you should definitely click through the link at the bottom, but first I want to talk about [...]
Posted in Apps + Products, Emerging Tech, Etc..., Telematics Tags: android, apps, automotive, convergence, Emerging Tech, infotainment, iphone, iphone app, LBS, Sync, technology, Telematics 5 Comments »
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