To all - article on those in-car, radio/PC/phone things.
Does anyone remember what we thought was brewing over in Japan with some car manufacturer and CDMA stuff ?
January 9, 1999
Car PC Adjusts Radio, Checks E-Mail
Filed at 1:48 p.m. EST
By The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Without taking their hands off the wheel or their eyes
off the road, motorists can now check their e-mail, look up and dial telephone
numbers, tune the radio and find directions to the nearest gas station.
It's just a matter of talking to your car computer.
A big attraction Saturday among the 100,000 attendees at the Consumer
Electronics Show was the Clarion AutoPC, the first personal computer
designed for a car.
It combines software by Microsoft Corp. and hardware by Clarion Corp. of
America.
The $1,299, voice-activated units were shipped to West Coast dealers last
month and are expected to be available nationally this spring.
AutoPC recognizes 200 voice commands. Along with operating the cellular
phone and controlling music, the little computer will read your e-mail to you,
record information like radio clips or telephone conversations, and provide
turn-by-turn directions to a specific address or the nearest gas station,
restaurant, hotel or bank.
It is installed in the dash, taking the place and functions of the radio.
''These AutoPCs are basically turning your radio into what could be a
communications system,'' said Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin of
Campbell, Calif. ''It's a very smart advance.''
During a recent demonstration drive, the driver spoke in these short
commands: ''AutoPC, Radio, Preset, Two, Volume, Normal.''
The computer turned on the radio, tuned it to the No. 2 station on its preset
list, and set the volume.
You can also program in new commands to do the same thing: ''Hey, Gimme
some classics. Let's crank it.''
Kevin Hause, an International Data Corp. analyst from Framingham, Mass.,
said he's looking forward to see where this leads.
''It's an interesting concept, but it needs a little bit of refinement,'' he said.
''To date, Microsoft's first products are great technology demonstrations and
the second or third revisions are actually useable. That's probably going to be
the most likely scenario here.''
An upgrade is already in the works for mid-1999.
The Hansen Report on Automotive Electronics estimates that by the year 2005
the worldwide market for in-vehicle, multimedia computers that rely on
speech recognition will top $1 billion.
Clarion, based in Tokyo with U.S. headquarters in Gardena, Calif., expects to
sell more than 10,000 units in the United States this year, and many more in
Japan, before the competition gets up and running.
Microsoft is making AutoPC software available to all developers, enabling
them to compete with Clarion or to make accessory devices and software that
can work with it.
Vetronix Corp. of Santa Barbara, Calif., launched an accessory last week that
allows AutoPC to communicate with the vehicle's own internal computer and
electrical system. This will allow the driver to monitor how well the car is
running, or even how it was driven by borrowers.
Still, there are skeptics.
Mauricio Frajlich, president of Miami-based Amaury International Corp., said
he thought that fiddling with a personal computer, even with voice control,
might be a distraction.
''I think drivers should, perhaps, just drive,'' he said.
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
