About Electronics

Electronista: Hitachi turn around involves new president, company split Hitachi on Monday announced it has named a new president to head up the company’s turnaround plan to return to profitability.

At the same time, the company will split up its automotive supply and consumer television operations.

About two months ago, Hitachi announced the biggest loss ever among Japanese manufacturing companies and is expected to post a 700 billion yen ($7.1 billion) loss for the year at the end of March.

The loss-making businesses will be made into wholly-owned subsidiaries but become independent in July.

Names and other details for the new spun-off companies are not yet known, though they will both have a more evident accountability for making profits.

The smaller companies will also be able to make quicker decisions, thereby more efficiently serving their indented markets. The new automotive company is expected to retain the division’s 7,600 workers and annual sales of 280 billion yen ($2.84 billion). The focus of the new company will be on automotive systems for environmental and safety purposes. This includes lithium-ion battery, inverters, motors and related hardware used in hybrid vehicles.

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BBC Click: The opening months of every year are a good time for technology conferences. CES takes place in January, the Mobile World Congress is in February and if it is March then it is time for Cebit.

Held in the German city of Hanover, the giant trade fair is typically has more than 400,000 attendees who come to see, try and buy the latest in hardware and software.

The difficult economic conditions means that some of the larger players, such as Samsumg, are not attending. But their absence has given smaller companies a chance to show off their innovations.

Pocket-sized 3D laser scanner
One such firm is David Vision Systems which is fighting for a place in the 3D scanning market. “Others are expensive because they require complicated and precise mechanics, our scanning systems consists of standard components that are available at a low price,” said Sven Molkenstruck from David Vision Systems. The company has come up with a pocket-sized 3D laser scanner.

Internet car radio
Another innovation on display at Cebit was the world’s first internet car radio by Blaupunkt. The device has come out of a collaboration between Blaupunkt and Australian internet radio platform miRoamer.

Drivers need a 3G mobile phone that is Bluetooth-enabled to listen to 35,000 radio stations from across the world. This encryption device can can be connected to mobile phones

Voice encryption
Feeding off the trend for handset gadgets at Cebit, those conscious of phone eavesdropping can turn to voice encryption devices. Rohde & Schwarz has developed a small device that can be connected to mobile phones and encrypts a user’s voice.

“To protect your transmission, your speech, you have to do it end to end,” said Henning Krieghoff from the crypto tech firm. “On the other end we have a decrypter mobile as well, or we have some boxes which can be connected to normal telephones, be it analogue or digital telephones.”

Full article at BBC Click.

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Guardian: Car makers may be in trouble, but that’s not stopping them rolling out new green ideas at the Geneva Motor Show, writes motoring journalist Richard Aucock.

1. GM hasn’t killed the electric car: In 2006, a documentary film Called Who Killed the Electric Car alleged that American automakers, including General Motors, had limited the technology. But GM has actually given it life. The Opel Ampera “extended range electric vehicle” – E-REV – is massively significant.
2. Volvo prefers to work better: with what we already have With no expensive hybrid technology, Volvo has produced a conventional diesel that matches the CO2 emissions of today’s Toyota Prius. The C30 DRIVe is much cheaper, will sell more, and lead to a far greater cumulative CO2 reduction.
3. Blue Volkswagen turns the best-selling car sector green: Thirty-five per cent of all the new cars sold in Britain are superminis. A new version of a best-seller, the Volkswagen Polo, is out this winter, including one that does 74mpg and emits 96g/km of CO2. Next year, we’ll get the Bluemotion II variant, which will do 85mpg and emit just 87g/km of CO2. It will still cost around £12k, seat five and have decent performance from its 1.2-litre 75hp turbodiesel.
4. Citroen asks how fast do we want to go, anyway? “We need to move from always having more, to always having better. The simple solution to greener cars,” says Citroen’s Vincent Besson, is to have smaller ones. These are lighter, need less fuel, so give out less from the exhaust. But this “reduction” policy will go much deeper and says that custommers are more willing to accept “less” for lower-emission cars.
5. Bentley takes the moral high ground: By introducing the “well to wheel” fuel efficiency argument into the mainstream, Bentley isn’t expecting to greatly reduce world CO2 emissions. Its entire range already emits “inconsequential” levels of CO2, says sales head Stuart McCullough. Making such low volumes of cars more ecological won’t alter global warming one jot. No, with the Continental GT Supersports, which runs on 85% bioethanol, it’s opening up the ethical debate over biofuels.
6. Toyota makes the celebrity’s eco-darling even greener: The consciences of Leo DiCaprio and Arnie Schwarzenegger will remain clear. When conventional cars are calling themselves Prius-beaters, you need to respond. Toyota has done so, with this summer’s all-new model. It’s got a fifth more power, is 10% more economical, yet also emits just 89g/km of CO2. That’s way down from even the slower current car’s 104g/km.
7. Peugeot solves the logical flaw in the hybrid argument: Petrol hybrids are very economical, but few return anything a conventional diesel model can’t. Obvious solution? A diesel hybrid. Making this an economic reality is another matter. Diesel engines are costlier than petrols. Hybrid componentry is another added cost. But Peugeot will become the first manufacturer to solve this dilemma in 2011, with it’s hybrid Number 4 swift 200hp people carrier that averages 109g/km – similar to a tiny city car. O
8. Open source thinking creates the first wiki-car: Following the logic that many minds are better than one, German engineering experts EDAG unveiled the Light Car. This is a small electric car with lightweight construction and novel features. The company wants many more besides, including those from non-automotive companies. It’s therefore made it “open source”. Companies can approach EDAG with their ideas. If viable, they’ll be incorporated onto a concept for next year’s show – so long as EDAG can have the rights to then put the solution into production.
9. Renault is quietly making the electric car a reality: Renault is working on plans to introduce Europe-wide electric car infrastructures by 2012. It has a headline Better Place project in Israel, that will see a nationwide recharging infrastructure installed. What’s been less well publicised is that similar developments are occurring Europe-wide – including the UK. Key to this is treating batteries as you do SIM cards in mobile phones. You lease them off a “mobility operator”, which immediately solves the problem of electric car range. How? You have a “filling stations network”, where you swap flat battery packs for full one, in minutes. Good network coverage in cities is the first priority, with London already signed up.
10. Auto giants offered off-the-shelf electric car: The Magna Steyr mila ev is a bespoke electric car concept showcased by Austrian coachbuilders Magna. It is a five-seat supermini-sized car, with lithium ion batteries providing decent performance and a potential 170-mile range. It has a distinctive composite body that can quickly be designed into any shape required – and that’s the story. For, Magna is offering this to large car makers to buy into. They can have a family-look, off-the-shelf electric model, built in numbers up to 20,000 a year, in as little as 2 years’ time.

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Electronista: Mitsubishi Electric recently announced that it plans to bring its single-DIN automotive Blu-ray Disc player to the market. The player is just a third of the volume of the company’s home theater Blu-ray disc player.

The prototype of the unnamed player (shown) will fit into a car’s standard, 1-DIN radio fitting, and the player supports BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RE discs. Mitsubishi reached the small size by increasing board density by 150 percent and reducing the thickness of mechanical parts while improving the anti-vibration performance.

The unit’s spin disturbance was reduced to 20 percent that of its home products, and a damper was deemed unnecessary after carefully reviewing the mechanical design of the player. The BD player is expected to be part of the Mitsubishi navigation systems in cars, despite it using a Linux operating system in contrast to the navigation systems’ Windows CE OS.

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AVReview: Sony Ericsson has launched its AB900 Bluetooth car speakerphone that may look like a simple handsfree mobile add-on, but is actually a speaker that plays and streams music over a car’s audio system.

It features RDS, which Sony Ericsson claims means no complex installation, easy frequency searching and quick access to your phone numbers should you need to make a call.

Streaming music wirelessly via Bluetooth, the AB900 is ideal for anyone who spends plenty of time in the car but is sick of listening to local FM radio stations.

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PR Newswire: Webwag, a France-based expert in mobile Internet widgets, announced they have created the first widgets for the automotive industry.

This solution allows access to the Internet from the multifunction screen of a car or from any portable Portable Navigation Device (PND).

Already some car and PND manufacturers are working on the integration of widgets into their products. The widgets platform is available to of the automotive business players.

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TWICE: Ford said its Sync radios reduce driver distraction compared to using MP3 players and other devices while on the road, according to research conducted by Ford.

The Sync is a voice-controlled car radio that also uses voice commands to call up music on devices that link to the car radio, such as iPods or cellphones. The study participants spent an average of 25 seconds with their eyes off the road to select a song on an MP3 player compared with two seconds to perform the same task via the Sync.

The study included 25 regular Sync users who were tested using a driving simulator. The participants were asked to dial a number on their cellphones and retrieve a name from their cellphones’ phonebooks and other tasks. Ford then measured any deviation in their lane position, speed changes plus eyes-off-the-road time.

Ford said its voice interface reduced distraction. Reading a text message on a handheld phone typically required 11 seconds of eyes off the road compared to 2 seconds with the Sync, which “reads aloud” text messages from a cellphone.

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Engadget: Anyone’s who’s bought a car with a built-in nav system knows the pain of seeing their expensive accessory totally eclipsed by even the cheapest external GPS units just a year or two later — everything from UI to multimedia integration progresses so fast it’s almost not worth it.

That might change soon, though — Harman and Mercedes are working on a “hybrid” nav system that combines the easy replaceability of an external PND with the integration and sleek looks of a built-in system.

The goal is to build a standard design that can upgraded quickly so the screen and controls will be mounted on the dash in a cradle, while a second hidden “processing box” will handle the actual GPS system, music storage and playback, and Bluetooth connectivity.

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TotalPDA: TomTom recently released two new accessories to complement their latest TomTom GO 540, GO 740 and GO 940 sat nav units.

The new Active Dock Mount Kits both feature an iPOD connection to allow you to listen to music from your iPOD and control it through your TomTom GO. They also feature an audio out connection so you can listen to your music and voice connection through your car stereo.

The more expensive of the two kits features an inbuilt RDS-TMC traffic receiver, allowing you to receive traffic updates straight to your device via the dock, without the need for additional antennas.

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GPS Business News: In an online chat with the French press , TomTom and Renault have unveiled more details about their common low-cost in-dash navigation system: Renault Carminat TomTom.

This navigation solution completely integrated into the dashboard will feature a non touch 5.8 inch display activated by a central command or a remote control (depending on the vehicle).

Unlike what many might have expected, this navigation device will not be connected in real-time. All online services will be available through a SD card and a computer software called Renault TomTom Home, the equivalent of the existing TomTom Home. Traffic information will be downloaded via RDS-TMC, where this service is available.

The first car to offer this navigation system will be the new Clio.

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TechDigest: Pioneer revealed its latest in-car entertainment solution for the businessman trapped in a snow drift with no mobile signal or radio reception – the DEH-P4100SD.

The big selling point of the P4100 is its SD Card slot, allowing you to do away with the middle man (DJ, CD writer, iPod, cable) and load up your MP3 collection to a cheapo SD Card and whack it straight into your car via the slot hidden behind the removable faceplate.

Pioneer’s “rotary commander” dial-slash-joystick lets you navigate through tunes while still managing to pay some attention to the road, while there’s also full support for iPod playlists if you’re the sort of person who likes to spend your spare time painstakingly sorting all your music into very tightly-organised groups…

The P4100 also has a USB2.0 cable connector, letting it read music from any MP3 player you have that uses standard USB format, plus there’s support for that old whirly silver “compact disc” hardware music format.

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GPS Business News: Switzerland-based SVOX, a provider of text to speech (TTS) solutions to the automotive and wireless industries announced today the acquisition of the Professional Speech Processing Group of Siemens AG. This unit, specializing in speech recognition and Voice dialog engine, has a staff of about 20 people and was working for customers such as Volkswagen and Continental.

The intellectual property acquired from Siemens was developed over 25 years and include more than 60 patent families.

“In the past SVOX has only been providing technology for making cars and portable devices talk
to you,” explained Volker Jantzen. “As a result of this deal, we are now able to make those devices also understand what you are saying. A real dialog between you and the machine is therefore now possible”.

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