by Lidia Paulinska | Aug 1, 2019
August 2019 – The MWC LA Conference is once again bringing
the latest technology and information on 5G, connected cars and everything
wireless to the US. The MWC LA
conference is the North Amercian centered show of the industry leading cellular
MWC Barcelona conference in
February.
The Conference in LA shows off the new technologies for the
ever ongoing advanced in cell phone and the associated wireless
connectivity. While the big title may be
5G, it also means connected cars, new experiences for entertainment and gaming,
and security for all these connections..
For Entertainment, the long awaited higher performance for
mobile games is on the way. This will
allow the cell phone and table platforms to have similar gaming graphics as
console games offered just a short while back.
It also means that PC and console games can enjoy new wireless
controllers and connectivity bringing a new gaming experience.
The 5G technology is also supposed to be the last piece of
the puzzle to allow Virtual Reality to become the mainstream viewing
environment for all gaming and content.
It has been hypothesized by several VR makers that while their sales
targets have been behind for over a decade, with 5G deployment their sales will
beat all expectations and replace TVs and cell phones as the primary screens in
peoples lives. This are pretty big shoes
for 5G to fill.
The conference will also cover entertainment content which
is about streaming media in a cellular and wireless environment. These discussions pertain not only to being
able to enjoy your favorite movie and live sports with a better quality of
experience, but also for being able to
participate in high quality video conferences and intranet based video message
delivery.
The conference has keynotes from many leaders including FCC
Chairman Ajit Pai, Executives from Verizon, Intel, US Cellular, Ericsson, Nokia
and Open Table.
The 3 day event is returning to the LA Convention Center
October 22-24, 2019.
by Angel Scott | Apr 27, 2019
The first
decade of the 21st century was known for introducing smartphones to the masses,
as well as introducing the first smart TV. Ten years later starting in 2010,
the world became socially connected thanks to companies such as Facebook,
Twitter and Netflix. We are now rapidly approaching a new period of consumer
technology called the Data Age.
This “Data
Age” comes to life under the shadow of the tremendous flow of data security and
privacy concerns becoming the number one issue across the entire globe.
Different countries are dealing with these complex issues with different
solutions and with The European Union for example, implemented strict rules and
regulations, last year, called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
China, on other hand, has no government organized privacy and security
regulations.
Both
companies and individuals are at risk.
“With computing processing power increasing dramatically, even passwords
that are 14 to 20 characters long will be readily crackable and largely
ineffective for protecting high-value, high-risk assets and transactions by
2020”- warns Forrester, an American market research company that provides
advice on existing and potential impact of technology to its clients and the
public.
As risky as
this as can be, the world must stay
connected because only this connectivity allows us to live in smart cities, in
intelligent houses, drive connected cars and very soon be driven by autonomous
vehicles.
This next
generation of data connectivity will require wireless technology from 5G that
can connect devices with the next generation fast speeds. Those in the race to
bring the technology to marketplace and get a foot int the door for the
business that goes with it include China Telecom, KDDI in Japan, SK telecom in
South Korea, through Verizon and AT&T in the USA, Shaw and Rogers in
Canada, to Ericsson all over Europe:
Vodafone and BT in United Kingdom, Deutsche Telecom in Germany, Orange
in France and Telefonica in Spain. As 5G becomes a crucial component of
technology development, the entire world needs to adapt to it.
In the last
few years, home security cameras, thermostats, and connected lighting equipment
have become more common in homes and sales continue to increase. Just imagine
how the IoT (Internet of Things) environment is going to explode with the
rollout of 5G.
For example,
for smart home development into existing homes, consumers usually don’t buy all
those devices from the same platforms or at the same time. This brings the
challenge of how the consumer can connect all these different products, brands
and platforms together as well as the devices that haven’t even been invented
yet. The idea of a practical smart home is like bringing together different
instruments to create a symphony orchestra that need to play in unison. Following connectivity, the Smart Home’s
Next Trend will be Interoperability and Intelligence.
It is
difficult to imagine the smart home without some type of digital assistance
activated by voice and equipped with Artificial Intelligence. Three truths
about voice/AI assistant are: 1.) Digital assistance is going into everything:
devices, appliances and cars 2.) Support for digital assistance has become
table stakes: services, brands, commerce 3.) Voice is quickly becoming the
“go-to” interface – it allows you to keep doing what you are doing as well as
have the digital assistant do something that normally requires your hands.
For example,
Amazon Alexa has nearly 60,000 skills and 20,000+ compatible devices. The way
how we interact with digital assistance shown the study done by Consumer
Technology Association (CTA) in August 2018. US online adult study shows how
people make a use of Amazon Alexa(in%): Ask questions – 63, Check the weather – 58, Listen
to music/radio/podcasts – 50, Set a timer or alarm – 45, Call someone – 32, Check
the news/sports – 30, Send a message to someone – 25, Search for
recipes/cooking information – 23, Check personal calendar – 22.
We also
beginning to understand the limits of automation. AI intelligence and
automation are really transform the way we access data, we use data. AI is
helping us to understand the data. The
first generation of voice control required people to learn “command words” and
“special phrases”. With AI in the
system, it can now understand conversation and what actions to do next. For example, without AI and data analysis you
would say “Alexa, turn up the thermostat by 2 degrees” now you can say “Alexa,
I am cold”. The system will recognize
who “I” is and the context for the word “cold” based on what location you were
talking from and the system can respond “would you like me to turn up the
thermostat by 2 degrees”.
This
direction of connectivity, interoperability, high speed data and analytics as
well as “personalized models” is what is driving the next generation of Smart
Home. The “personalized models” are the
core of the privacy concerns. It means
the computer has to both know that it is you, and more importantly know
everything about you – what you eat, where you shop, what temperature you like
the house, what shows you watch and what music you listen to, who you visit and
talk to, what your schedule is, what your interests are, To be able to be helpful, the computer has to
know how to help. By knowing how to help
you be more comfortable, it means that all of that data has to be stored
someplace, and hopefully used only for your benefit. Governments, companies, and technology are
all working together, finally, to try and insure the next decade is a
beneficial Data Age to make your life better.
by Lidia Paulinska | Dec 3, 2016
November 2016 , Automobility LA – Where are we going with the cars? Brian Cooley in his keynote speech at the 2016 Automobility show in Los Angeles described the main characteristics for the automobile industry as follow: cars are doing more, the driver is the differentiator, many ways of electrification, the new performance and big data.
There are three forces changing cars today: Electrification – likely in 2025 EV will reach a tipping point. 35% of new sales by 2040? Connectivity – 75% of 90M+ new cars sold annually connected by 2020. Autonomy – 10M+ full/partial autonomous cars on the road by 2020.
The world is getting serious about EVs. MIT study pointed out that 0.83% of US car market is BEV/PHEV and 87% of cars are replaceable by current BEV/PHEV. In addition the electric vehicles are easy for car sharing what is considering as the future of the industry. The young people’s attitude towards cars has been changing and they not necessary feel a desire to own a vehicle. Bloomberg predictions are very optimistic: 40% of global new car sales by 2040 will be BEV/PHEV.
Car connectivity is necessary because of constant need of communication (web messaging, social media sharing), navigation (search to destination), entertainment (streaming music and video) and telematics (remote status and control). Cars come home. Two main spaces: home and car are connected.
Autonomy is the future. The autonomous cars advantages are as follow: accident reduction, personal time recapture, congestion reduction, better road utilization and fuel efficiency.
by Lidia Paulinska | Dec 16, 2015
The Connected Car Expo took place in November 17-19 at Marriott Hotel in the downtown Los Angeles. The Press and Trade event that unites automotive and technology professionals in the connected car industry this year again gathered the major top players and media.
In his openings remarks the mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti stated that people are waiting for time that technology liberate them from daily traffic daily and increase the safety they seek on the streets. And, it is the right moment when the technology is embracing the future instead of chasing it away.
Michelle Avary, VP Automotive Product & Strategy at Aeris and CCE Advisory Board member presented Top Ten Automotive Startups. Michelle is also a Founder of Women in Automotive Technology startup, Silicon Valley based networking group. She shared the outline of the selection criteria that CCE Advisory Board use to choose the notable startups in connected cars field. That are four broad categories: safety, mobility, connectivity and autonomous. The Winners of 2015 Top Ten Startups of the New Automotive Industry are: Capio, High Mobility, TriLumina, Getaround, Elio Motors, Sober Steering, Driversiti, Quanergy, Nebula Systems and HopSkipDrive.
Then CCE Emcee Brian Colley, Editor-at-large and host of CNET On Cars, took the stage to address the status of connected cars industry. What is the future of our streets and our cities? It can be called the connected cars era.
For the first time in 2015 an autonomous car drove across U.S. coast-to-coast road trip. On the panel The Long and Winding Road to Autonomous three experts: Prof. Dr. Thomas Form, Head of Electronics and Vehicle Research at Volkswagen, Brian Droessler, VP of Software & Connected Solution at Continental North America and Ph.D. Gary O’Brian, Global Director of Advanced Engineering at Delphi Electronics and safety discussed what the industry has done and what still need to be done in the road to highly automated driving.
What is the future of our streets and our cities?
As we have seen the last few years, it is conversion to digital and electronics devices that have been flowing into the cars. In the next 10 years we will be seeing a change in the information, entertainment, navigation and logistics in our vehicles. There are changes on how we relate to the cars, how we fit with them and what we expect from them. The connected cars are taking their seat at the table in electronic digital connected world and are a part of the Internet of Things (IoT).
When we think about technology, the mental picture that comes to our mind is: smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets. It should be so, because we have many types of devices in our lives. The reality is, the electronics and electronics devices are not technology. Technology is a word that we can find in dictionary, a word that pre-dates the era of electronics and pre-dates of the era of electricity. Technology by a definition is: “A branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment”. Technology in simply words means how we get things done. In the vehicles it means how we get where we want to go; how we do it efficiently, comfortably, and safely with the vehicle serving us, as oppose to us have to alter our life around the need of transportation.
There are 4 great challenges and requirements that we need to overcome and meet for connected cars:
Transparent – limit distraction via using the clean interface on the dashboard. In the past we had the remote controls that were extremely complicated and the customers were lost and did not use many of the functions. Simply too much was too much. That cannot be the case for the car, the connectivity has to allow for focus on the driving, not the interface.
Intuitive – Easy to understand how to use and why, because the connected cars speak to the entire population: people in different professions, tech geeks, TV enthusiasts, etc. Why means they need to understand– what is a benefit for a customer to have connected car, autonomous car, why they need that future.
Intimate – the internet is the future of the car. When we look at the cars now, the relationship between us and car is dumb in many aspects. The car doesn’t worry about you, the car doesn’t care about you, it doesn’t know more about you from the day bought and brought it home to the day you sell it. It is itself. The car is just kind of a cold machine for the most part. In the future, the personalization will be flowing into the car through the connectivity, and make it better today than was yesterday. More about me the driver, better tuned to what I need from it. This experience as well as services that we bring in, as the driver, I need them to follow me into the car, not just have them live on my phone, my desktop, my tablet, my TV or my home.
Constant – Reflecting the kinds of services that are second nature outside the car. At present, the car is an island. You have a routine of behaviors in your life, then, when you get into the car, the behaviors change, it is different. The view is different for the navigation dash, it use different media services. In the cars we feel a little cut off from our regular life, sort of an awkward little connection to those things we do outside of the car. This will be changed when we have constant heartbeat of all our services, relationships, personalization and digital world following us into the cars consistently. This will make the transportation aspect of our life consistent with the rest so it feels like the same space we live in, just one that is moving.
This is the goal of the connected car and what it brings, a new portion of our life that is now a continuation of the way we live, not a break from the real life or being held hostage and in limbo in traffic. Work, social interaction, entertainment, enjoyment of the trip, recognition of who you are and what you do will all be part as the new experience for getting from point A to point B in a car in the next few years.
Text by Lidia Paulinska and Tomasz Kolodziejak
