At work, at home–even at play–so many of us appear to be “connected” by a cell phone, a pager or a personal digital assistant. Before long, we’ll also be hooked into the Internet while motoring on commutes or vacation.
With in-car Internet connections, drivers will be able to check e-mail, keep abreast of stock holdings and retrieve up-to-the-minute news and information, based on their personal profiles.
There’s nothing new about the concept. Plenty of electronic devices that first saw use in homes or offices–radios and eight-track, cassette and compact-disc players, for example–have found their way into automobiles.
The latest electronic step is made possible by telematics, the ability to install interactive electronic devices into moving vehicles.
People will be “always on, always connected,” said Joseph Guglielmi, executive vice president at Motorola Inc., which is becoming increasingly involved in telematics. “Some people think that’s good.
“People today are used to being connected, [and] no one accepts anymore that they have to be disconnected from information while riding in a vehicle.”
General Motors is taking the lead in motorized connectivity, offering two systems for selected 2001 models.
One evolves from OnStar, the company’s emergency/communication service. Drivers of the 32 GM models with three-button OnStar will be able to receive hands-free, voice-activated Personal Calling and a Virtual Advisor, the Internet connection.
Personal Calling, a hands-free, voice-activated system, will be the first OnStar extra service available, in the first quarter of 2001. The Virtual Advisor arrives later in the quarter. With Personal Calling users will purchase “minutes” from OnStar and need no other cell-phone service. Calls are “dialed” by speaking the individual digits, or requesting that the number for a previously stored name be dialed. Pricing has not been announced.
While you’re driving, the electronic advisor can read e-mail to you and provide requested information. The system converts Internet text to speech, relaying that information via a synthesized voice.
The Virtual Advisor lets the customer access personalized Internet information, said John Middlebrook, GM’s general manager of vehicle brand marketing.
Information is supplied “in the order you want it, whenever you want it,” said OnStar Virtual Advisor director Mike Peterson.
To initiate the service, you’ll spend a few minutes at the company’s Web site, choosing the desired information. You get an OnStar e-mail box, but the Virtual Advisor can retrieve e-mail from any other service (except America Online).
A touch of the OnStar button summons the Virtual Advisor. After providing a personal identification number, like those used at an automated teller, simply tell the system what to deliver. You can ask it to “get my weather,” or “fetch my e-mail,” or “bring my stocks.” The advisor complies.
Exact wording isn’t necessary. The system is designed to respond whether you say “Get my weather,” “Yo, weather,” or just “Weather.”
After listening to the first message, you can ask it to “get the next one.” And if you forget the commands, all you need to say is, “What are my choices?”
Nine out of 10 people will be able to use the system verbally. Accents or speech impediments, however, may prevent the system from understanding clearly.
These OnStar extras also will be available in several non-GM products, including Lexus this fall, the Acura RL in March 2001 and possibly Toyotas.
GM’s more advanced system is called Infotainment Radio, available in 2001 Cadillacs. Late in 2000, the Seville STS will have it as an option. Soon afterward, it will be available in the DeVille DHS and DTS for around $2,000.
After creating a personalized Web site through Cadillac.com, Infotainment Radio will let you retrieve e-mail and Internet information via a small dashboard screen, like that on navigation systems, which will be included. So are a Bose Radio Data System radio and CD changer. An RDS radio displays the station frequency, type of station and possibly other information such as the name of the song being played.
An infrared port lets you beam information between the unit and a Palm Pilot or other personal digital assistant. A voice memo recorder is included, recording up to 15 minutes of your thoughts in three-minute segments. A memory Flash Card fits into a slot, and the system comes with 12 megabytes of flash memory.
“It’s not a Web browser,” said Mark Clawson, assistant DeVille brand manager. The system will “get the information [the user] said was important,” added Karenann Terrell, GM’s director of e-vehicle product management.
Drivers’ hands need not leave the steering wheel. E-mails and information are accessed verbally because the video screen will be dark, as a safety measure, whenever the vehicle is not parked.
In the prototype Infotainment unit, the video screen is surrounded by small buttons, five of which operate like a computer mouse. Four keys along the bottom serve different functions at different times. A keypad is at right.
Activate the system and find icons for “e-mail” and “news.” An “update” button gathers all your recent e-mails or the latest news items in the categories you’ve established. Then, ask the system “read,”‘ and it does so aloud. To get the next e-mail, you would say “next.” To return to a prior choice, say “previous.”‘ And if you forget how to make requests, just ask: “What can I say?”
Internet access is coming to high-end cars first, said Friedrich Christeiner of IBM, whose Global Automotive Industry group is developing the technology. “This will soon go down, reaching the mass-volume market.”
Mercedes-Benz is launching an optional Web-based information system for models with a video screen. It will deliver information safely, said spokesman Fred Heiler, and you can “read it while you are stopped.” However, the driver can watch the low-mounted screen while the vehicle is moving.
“We are looking at an explosion of wireless devices,” GM’s Terrell said. Thirty-seven percent of car buyers own PDAs. Tomorrow, said IBM’s Barbara Churchill, we will each have “portable personas” based on “location-based services” and infotainment.
“We don’t have the imagination to see where it’s going to go,” said Peter Holland, president and chief executive of InfoMove, a provider of Internet-based, in-vehicle applications (the software, rather than the hardware). They say they are the first company offering driver-specific content to vehicle manufacturers and aftermarket companies, which make that content available to motorists in cars with the appropriate hardware.
This could let vehicles receive location-based ads, real-time traffic and vehicle-maintenance data.
“We’re looking at this as a launch and learn opportunity. Seamless access to information is not yet there,” said GM’s Terrell.
IT’S ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU TO DISTRACTION
Think you can do two things–or more–at once?
Better think twice, warns Thomas A. Ranney, Ph.D., of the Transportation Research Center Inc. Vehicle Research and Test Center. TRC, in East Liberty, Ohio, is an independent auto proving ground that provides research and development, and testing for safety, fuel economy, emissions, durability and crash simulations.
Ranney is an expert on driver distraction. Such inattention causes crashes when it coincides with an unexpected threat.
About 13 percent of crashes have to do with identifiable distraction. Another 10 percent, according to Ranney, stem from the fact that a driver “looked, but did not see.” Two or 3 percent are caused by the driver’s falling asleep.
Distraction, according to Ranney, can be visual, cognitive (being “lost in thought”), biomechanical (with some sort of physical movement) or auditory.
“Driving by itself is a divided-attention task,” Ranney added. Because it’s over-learned and automatic, we “don’t pay attention to vehicle control.”
Driving is supposed to be the primary task. In-vehicle activities such as using the phone are supposed to be secondary. But as secondary tasks increase, the attention paid to driving diminishes.
In the 1930s, experts fretted that radios might prove dangerous.
Ranney says though radio tuning and conversations with passengers are not ordinarily considered unsafe, “both have been associated with increased crash risk.” No definitive figures are available.
Are there acceptable levels of distraction?
Listening to audio instructions from a navigation system, for instance, might be no problem. Even a quick down glance to see where a next-turn arrow is pointing might be tolerable.
But can you imagine surfing the Internet, watching a screen and banging buttons while roaring down the Kennedy Expressway?
“We believe that voice-based systems are critical,” said Joseph Guglielmi, executive vice president at Motorola, which is increasingly becoming involved in telematics.
Guglielmi and others emphasize the need to have the driver use displays and controls that are used for other functions. At high driver workload, such as at high speeds, the system could be put on hold.
Ranney warns that Internet access is “likely to be more distracting than cellular phones.”
A 1997 study by the New England Journal of Medicine reported that a motorist on a phone was four times more likely to be involved in an accident. And hands-free operation does not ensure safety.
