News - Google, Nvidia and Audi work together on in-car technology

[HEXUS]

Trio pit their tech against Apple iOS toting BMW, Mercedes, GM and Honda autos.

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[herulach]

Honestly, I don't want all this stuff in my car - sat nav, parking sensors, radio etc fine, put it on a screen but apps? Why? with the possible exception of something like torque I can't think of one sensible reason you might want an app on your dash.

Presumably this is for the new A4 if they're talking about it now, which will probably run till 2014ish, are you still going to want to run android 4.4 in 2020? I know I won't.

[Animus404]

I'd rather not have this as a distraction when driving. My last car had a touch screen media centre and I couldn't use it while driving due to the lack of tactile buttons.

[pastymuncher]

Why the hell are they putting these things in cars? A car is for getting from A to B, nothing else. You are also supposed to concentrate 100% on the driving not being distracted by rubbish like this. It's bad enough now with idiots all over the road texting on mobiles without having to dodge even more idiots who are fannying around with bloody apps in a car.

[Animus404]

It'll probably be over priced and generally crap just like the manufacturers satnav solutions.

[Funkstar]

Isn't the point of this to take responsibility for this away from the manufacturer, so they don't end up with a crap non-updated system? If Google are going to push this they should make it Nexus like, meaning you get updates direct from Google, or at the very least Audi would become first tier partners so updates are swift.

A car might be just for getting from A to B for some, but for others if is something they spend more time in than anything else. Or what about the passengers? There are a of of media options that they could take advantage of when you are driving. the irst thing that comes to mind would be the use of Spotify, or BBC iPayer Radio.

I can totally see the point in this, and I really hope that either Google approach a third party head unit manufacturer, or one of them approach Google.

Some have suggested that the governments u-turn on the digital radio switch over has as much to do with mobile internet usage exploding as it does with the slow take up of DAB is cars.

[zdn1042]

Interesting. I'd like to see how this technology will play out. We'll see...

[najiro]

Interesting... still, will probably be limited to first world countries.

[crossy]

This is - imho of course - incredibly bad news. And no, I'm not an iOS fan boy either - that's also bad news.

What I'd want is some simple standard system to pair up my phone with my car so I can stream music on the phone, use an in car hands free and that's it. Imho anyone who feels the "need" to have their moving car do Twitter, Facebook, etc is just an utter prat. Heck, there's maybe even an argument against Spotify and other streaming services. Anything that's distracting the driver is a bad idea - heck, there's calls to ban mobiles in cars completely and the manufacturers do this?

So instead we get a whole load of unnecessary (and expensive - they won't do this for free!) gewgaws. Worse still it's restricting consumer choice. As in, if I want to buy a car am I now going to have to think "ooh, is this car compatible with my current phone?". Utter nonsense!

If you MUST run apps, then what's wrong with the car merely providing remote controls, power and perhaps some kind of heads up display. At least then you can use an iPhone in an Audi, a Nexus in a Merc, and an Windows Phone in both ... device neutral!

Oh, and I do run apps in my car - namely a sat nav (because in car ones don't seem that good) and something that allows me to stream my music via Bluetooth to my car radio.

[Animus404]

Good point crossy, a standard system would be the way to go. I don't want my car too tightly coupled with my phone. It's already bad enough having to pick which computing ecosystem to integrate my life with.

[exoticgamerarcelan]

You should never concentrate on this technology....the point of fact is the car is just for easy transport from point A - B but yes a GPS would do good but not more is needed of it.

[exoticgamerarcelan]

Why the hell are they putting these things in cars? A car is for getting from A to B, nothing else. You are also supposed to concentrate 100% on the driving not being distracted by rubbish like this. It's bad enough now with idiots all over the road texting on mobiles without having to dodge even more idiots who are fannying around with bloody apps in a car.

Thats very much true! Exactly what i wanted to say :|