Slides - Rita and Dave Curbow

User Benefits of Connecting
Automobiles to the Internet
Dave Curbow
Sun Microsystems
iPlanet Human Interface Engineering
Agenda
• Why
a Car?
• Business opportunities for automakers
• My reason for working on this
• Review
of First Generation
• Applications
• Pre-recorded content
• Synthesized content
• UI to services
• Demo
• Integration
with other services
An Internet Car
What Everyone Imagines ...
Why A Car?
Cars are everywhere...
• Huge
Market!
• 200M+ cars in the US
• 15M new per year!
• Similiar numbers for rest of world
• OnStar
alone has about 1 million cars online today
• Today provide safety (e.g., airbag detection) and convenience (e.g. unlock car)
• Want to provide more services
• Other
car companies racing to catch up!
Business Opportunities
• OEMS
SEE A GOLD MINE IN TELEMATICS.
• Automakers are beginning to figure out where the real money is in vehicle electronics. ... The big
bucks lie in the services customers will get -- and pay for over the life of their vehicle -- through
those nifty telematic gadgets.
• It’s a multi-billion-dollar market waiting to happen. Service providers know it. And judging by OEM
interest in this year’s Convergence 2000 automotive electronics conference, the manufacturers see
the gold mine too. ...
• Just about everyone agrees on the four areas where telematics will shine: vehicle safety,
information, communications and entertainment. Autobeat Daily, October 16, 2000
• TELEMATICS
SET TO ZOOM
• ... market worth somewhere between $3 billion and $13.4 billion, depending on how well such
features can be made non-distracting to the driver.
• The Roland Berger study ... says Americans spend 540 hours a year in their cars -- twice as long
as Europeans do -- and are rapidly growing more interested in mobile communications.
• The study cautions that four factors must converge to make telematics successful: more
bandwidth, better voice recognition, smarter human-machine interface logic and global
positioning. Another hurdle: coming up with standards that enable everything to connect smoothly.
Autobeat Daily, Oct. 13, 2000
Auto Companies as ISPs
They want to maintain control over their cars because -• Profit
in being an ISP, perhaps more than selling some cars!
• Helps maintain better relationship with customers -• Higher customer satisfaction => repeat sales
• Understand problems before they become major ...
• Safety
is paramount -- don’t want Outlook virus causing wrecks!
Our Project Charter
Explore future of portals
Why This Project Is Different
• It’s
In A Car -- Not Many Projects In This Domain (Yet)
• It’s An End-To-End problem
-- Backend Server, Network, Car Subnet, Radio
• We’re
looking at delivering services that are different from
what’s interesting on the desktop.
-- Browsing the web isn’t a priority for drivers!
Our Vision
Car + Internet = Browser on Wheels?
That’s what everyone thinks of
• Our
first car used this approach (as did most concept cars!)
• But, safety concerns require different approach
The First Generation
Saturn EV-1 (electric vehicle)
LCD Panel on Dash
What Services Are Unique To Automobiles?
Drivers are more interested in...
• Navigation
Assistance
• Traffic
Reports
• News and Entertainment
Here’s what one survey found...
Source: Jupiter Communications Survey
of 2100 Summer 1998
Navigation
Many Others Are Working On This (so we aren’t)
• Very
desirable in metro areas, critical in some
(e.g., In Tokyo the addresses aren’t sequential on a street.)
• Seems to require a display
•I
can talk more about it, but it’s not our focus.
Some example maps of Tokyo buildings and streets.
Traffic
Key Findings of Stanford CS247b Project With SunLabs
• People
commute very long distances! (4+ hours a day not uncommon)
• Listen to radio for traffic reports, but report they’re “often wrong.”
• Want
info that’s appropriate for them and their location
-- “Notify me of traffic jams nearby, not 20 miles away!”
• Data supports driver making decisions, dislike being told what to do.
• Want to be entertained while waiting.
• Want this tied to navigation -- advised of alternate routes.
• Willing
to pay $500-2K for system plus service charge.
Infotainment
• Let
me listen to what I want to hear when I want to hear it!
• Tivo
for radio
The Radio As UI To Services
• Today
it provides broadcast traffic info, news and entertainment.
• Our project uses a “radio” to deliver personalized versions.
• And more...
• Alerts -- traffic, weather, calendar changes
• Other Info -- IM, voice mail
Radio Goals
• Stop
missing programs
• Listen only to programs you want to.
Programs, not stations are key.
Location specific info, such as traffic, weather, ads
Radio Design
Goals of the design...
• Give
user control over content -- which program now, pause, rewind..
• “Seem” to be a radio only better to ease learning.
• Take
advantage of added capabilities from digital content (e.g. visible
program logos, program interuptions for important messages)
Console (old radio)
New Radio Design
Demo
Logging Into My Car?
Many cars already have unique keys
• Remember
• Why
different driver’s seat, mirror positions, radio stations, etc.
not other things?
• Using a backend server to synchronize to allows moving this info to
other family or rental cars.
• Might want to synchronize to different systems, but companies want
“walled garden”
Selecting Programs
Clearly not by typing URLs!
•A
Safety Issue!
• Speech might work, but who remembers URLs?
• One
workable alternative is a web UI on the desktop PC.
• An area for more study.
Integration With Other Services
• Convenience
Features
• Unlock car remotely, help me find my car in parking lot...
• GPS
• Used by navigation systems
• Location can be used on backend to filter traffic alterts
• As mobile data sensor can report traffic speeds
• Valuable in fleet vehicle management
• What
might it mean to dock the car at home, at work, at gas stations..
Tie into Awareness System
Since you’re logged into the server...
• Why
not let know family & colleagues know? (Awareness)
• Why
not receive notifications from calendar system?
• Why not connected to Audio Instant Messaging?
• Why not notify the house that you’re on your way home?
Perhaps future work...
Other Applications...
You could track how your car is driven...
• e.g.
your teenager or the valet!
From Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Bandwidth
Probably not a problem
• Six
months ago Nokia was predicting 64K wireless networks,
actually 144K is being rolled out now.
The Team
Thanks
email: [email protected]