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Automotive news: Smartphones present drivers with both a useful enhancement and a dangerous distraction.

Consumers accustomed to being connected wherever they go don’t want to give that up when they get into a car. Drivers stuck in traffic want to put that time to productive use.

So automakers and suppliers are devising innovative and safe ways to pair cars and smartphones so consumers can monitor the condition of the vehicle as well as new postings on Facebook.

“The automobile is no longer a communications dead zone that prohibits drivers from staying connected to friends and family,” said Anna Buettner, an analyst at iSuppli, a consulting firm that specializes in automotive electronics.

“With the expanding array of communications options, many drivers are willing to take the risk of an accident simply because they want to read or reply to a text message or check and update their preferred social media site,” Buetner wrote in a recent report. “Finding and implementing a way to safely integrate social networking and other apps in the car is more feasible than fighting the trend.”

Differing strategies

Multimode wireless connectivity–Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular–governed by flexible programmability is speeding the integration of smartphones into vehicles. But even when the goal is the same, approaches differ among automakers. The integration strategies of General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., for example, are dramatically different.

Ford’s strategy centers on its Sync voice-activated system. Sync, developed with Microsoft Corp. and launched late in 2007, provides multiple hard and wireless connections with smartphones and other mobile devices that drivers might bring into the vehicle.

Sync revolutionized the control of MP3 players and cell phones by allowing drivers to control them through the vehicle’s existing audio controls and structured voice commands. Ford says its research has shown that Sync makes using these devices less distracting. The automaker has improved and expanded the Sync interface several times.

“We know we can do better things for our customers by allying with the companies that provide the devices and services customers already use,” said Derrick Kuzak, Ford group vice president for global product development. “What we see emerging is a mutually beneficial collaborative community where our shared customer–anyone who drives a car and owns a smartphone–is the true beneficiary.”

Ford also has introduced an application programming interface for smartphones that allows smartphone apps to run and be controlled through Sync.

The first programs to use the new Sync API are OpenBeak, Pandora and Stitcher. The vehicle’s center screen mimics each app’s smartphone appearance and function. OpenBeak provides a direct link to the Twitter social media site, while Pandora and Stitcher are popular Internet radio applications that compete with satellite radio.

Additional apps are expected to become available through the online stores operated by Apple, Android and BlackBerry.

Built-in, not brought

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GPS Business News: In a new report, market research firm iSuppli expects the inclusion of GPS technology in cell phones to explode, reaching 79.9 percent of cell phones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2011 (amounting to 318.3 million units), against 187.8 million units or 56.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

GPS adoption driven by Smartphones
“The smart phone is the key product driving the technology industry today—and social networking services and applications spurred by GPS-related features are critical elements in the smart phone market today,” said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. “This is illustrated by Google Inc.’s decision to make turn-by-turn navigation, LBS and mobile ads the central features in its bid to take on Apple in the smart phone market, and make up the central pillars of its strategy to increasingly monetize mobile search.”

iSuppli also sees an increased penetration of embedded GPS in a range of consumer and compute electronic devices by 2014. For example, iSuppli estimates that 18 percent of laptops and 42 percent of portable handheld video game players will have embedded GPS in 2014.

Altogether, the boom in mobile handset navigation will benefit suppliers of GPS semiconductors such as Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corp., Infineon Technologies and CSR.

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GPS Business News: Nokia and CE4A (Consumer Electronics for Automotive) working group have released the Terminal Mode technology specification as a proposed industry standard for the integration of mobile applications into the car environment. The German CE4A group includes Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen.

Developed in co-operation with Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto and CE4A, Terminal Mode integrates smartphones into an in-vehicle infotainment system. Once connected, the full range of smartphone features, services and applications, such as navigation and music from Ovi by Nokia can be made available through screens and audio systems embedded in the car. It also enables information exchange between the smartphone and the car systems.

In addition to the CE4A participants, Nokia has also established collaborations with Alpine Electronics, Continental, Fiat, Harman Becker and Magneti Marelli to use this technology.

A “Terminal Mode Summit” is expected to take place in June 2010, but no more information was made available by Nokia on this topic at this stage.

The specification documents (Terminal Mode v0.9) are available here:
http://www.nokia.com/terminalmode

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Popgadget: The Plattans feature an in-line microphone and remote compatible with the iPhone and Nokia, HTC and Blackberry phones along with two extra cable extensions making the headphones compatible with a majority of all devices. Also featured is the “zound plug” which allows you to daisy-chain another set of headphones to let a friend listen in. This set also folds up to a neat, compact size for convenient transport. And, finally, the best part: 14 fashionable colors to choose from, with everything from basic black to ocean blue and salad green.

Great listening at a great price.

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Navigadget: According to an analysis firm in Sweden the number of GPS enabled handsets shipped worldwide increased 92% in 2009 to 150 million. If it continues with its 39% compound annual growth rate this number will be up to 770 million in 2014.

The articles acknowledges that almost all smartphones have GPS feature standard and the same is about to happen to even low-cost smartphones. It also says that feature devices will be able to analyze signals from GPS, Glonass, and Galileo at the same time but this still won’t be able to provide a reliable location info when indoors. To circumvent the problem measurements from cellular networks, and WiFi signals will have to be used together. Read more…

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Register Hardware: Palm’s next-gen operating system will be finished by the end of the year, the company promised late last week.

The company said the Linux-based system software known as Palm OS II and ‘Nova’ is “on track” for completion by the end of calendar 2008. Handsets based on the OS will following the first half of 2009, it said.

Palm announced back in April 2007 that it would develop the next generation of the Palm OS itself, a move made to ensure it was not tied to a third-party, either Japan’s Access, the current owner, or anyone else should Access choose to offload it.

Access took on the Palm OS when it acquired PalmSource – the OS developer spun out of Palm in 2003 – back in 2005.

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Guardian: The smartphone market is a hard one to track because of devices sold under a wide variety of names, and because research firms have different definitions of smart phones. It’s also subject to change when new products take off (like the Apple iPhone) or fade. In other words, don’t bet your house on anybody’s “real” market share.

Still, according to Gartner, Nokia is still by far the market leader with 47.5% of the smartphone market on 15.2m units sold to users. RIM has done well with BlackBerry sales growing by 126.4% to 5.6m units, year over year, and it has now overtaken Windows Mobile.

Apple did not star in this quarter because it was in a product transition. Gartner comments: “in the second quarter of 2008, Apple’s share of global smartphone sales to end users decreased to 2.8% from 5.3% in the first quarter of 2008. The significant drop in sales was mainly due to the company having to clean the channel of first-generation iPhone units before the arrival of the iPhone 3G in June”.

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PC World: Smartphones are seen as a more of a security risk than laptops and mobile storage devices, according to new research.

Some 94% of senior IT staff fear PDAs present a security risk, just above the 88% who highlighted mobile storage devices as a worry.

Nearly eight in 10 said laptops were an issue. Only four in 10 had encrypted data on their laptops, and the remainder said the information was “not worth” protecting.

The results come from a survey of 300 senior IT staff conducted by endpoint data protection supplier Credant Technologies.

A key danger with PDAs was that over half of IT executives surveyed were “not bothering” to enter a password when they used their phone.

Nine in 10 of the smartphones were being given access to company networks without extra security, even though the phones were individually owned by users. There were no access restrictions being applied to 81% of the phones.

Credant Technologies said smartphones had become “easy pickings” for any opportunists trying to steal them and access information.

Peter Mitteregger, European VP at the company, said: “Companies need to regain control of these devices and the data that they are carrying, or risk finding their investment in securing the enterprise misplaced and woefully inadequate.”

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Electronista: Nokia yesterday announced that it had sold just over 100 million cellphones this spring, extending its dominance of the global cellphone business. The results were a 29 percent jump over the same period last year and gave the Finnish company a record 37 percent of the 273 million cellphones sold worldwide. Much of the growth was on the back of strong smartphone sales, the company said: over 9 million N-series and 2 million E-series were sold, with specific devices such as the 5-megapixel N95 cameraphone faring especially well. Most of this was in areas such as Europe, Nokia added.

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