The Age of Smart Technology

Big car manufacturers present “smart cars” in 2014 Consumer Electronics Show

by: Marc Posth, staff writer

ARTICLE IN A GLANCE:

• 2014 Consumer Electronics Show stage was dominated by “smart cars”
• New entertainment ideas, real-time traffic analysis and remote control implications for portable smartphones will feature in vehicles.
• All of the software for this upcoming generation of intelligent vehicles will be dominated by the Android and/or Apple operating systems.

When it comes to new technologies, inventions and innovations, we are presently in a very exciting time. Moore’s Law is in full effect as new tech ideas and implementations are exploding at exponential rates. In fact, we as consumers sometimes find it difficult to keep up with what’s new and what works.

However, to help us navigate is the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), which this year occurred from January 6^th to the 9^th in Las Vegas, where tech companies from around the world came together to display their idea of what the future will bring. This year, the stage was dominated by “smart cars.”

Big industry names, such as Mercedes Benz and Audi, plan to equip their next generation of vehicles with the same possibilities that we today hold within our portable smartphones. Access to large libraries of shows, movies, radio stations, and songs will soon be easily accessible within certain vehicles as presented by Harman Industries with their new Aha in-car cloud-based entertainment software package. However, new features in entertainment are not the only things that came out of this year’s CES.

Possibilities in traffic analysis and other on-road service related help are also present, enabling consumers to not only remotely control their car, but also their homes (thermostats, garage doors, smoke and carbon monoxide monitoring, and any other environment controlling systems).

All of the software for this upcoming generation of intelligent vehicles will be dominated by the Android and/or Apple operating systems. Android already dominates a large percentage of the market share. With their open-source platform, they will enable developers to live in exciting times, as soon they will be able to create applications not only for their tablets and smartphones, but for their cars.

The future holds better traffic analysis for individual drivers, which will eventually de-congest common traffic jam areas due to foreseeable bottlenecks and traffic lights at intersections will soon be predictable to the second. The future is convenient, safe, and already here.

Marc Posth is a writer based in Montreal with a background in science and an interest in emerging technologies.

Photo courtesy of driving.ca & BusinessKorea