Apple, Android… and Tizen?
Siren Song
What’s Going On: Drivers may need to rethink that radar
detector. At last year’s LA Auto Show, the 10th annual Design Challenge gave visitors a glimpse of what might be rolling down the road—in 2025. The theme of biomimicry and mobility inspired some unique designs. Mer- cedes Benz offered an advanced, fuel-efficient
SUV for police forces. General Motors showed its “Volt Squad,” a three-vehicle manned system based on the technology of the Chevy Volt. Honda’s entry was an Auto-Drone mobile cruiser that deploys smaller unmanned two-wheeled motorcycles called Mo- to-Drones. Both cruiser and its robots can chase down offenders.
What’s Going On: Mobile phone users and car own-
ers haven’t heard of Tizen yet, but Samsung Electronics hopes to change that in the near future—possibly as soon as the first quarter of 2014. The company is laying the groundwork to make its Tizen operating system part of the technology dictionary—a word as familiar as Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS.
How It Can Affect You: Nine out of every 10 smartphone users are hooked into Google’s An- droid or Apple’s iPhone ecosystems. It generates a profit for Google and Apple every time someone purchas- es a game or application on their smartphone—and it’s one of the huge reasons why Samsung wants to expand its control beyond hardware to software and build its own mobile operating system. Ultimately, Sam- sung wants to have its own ecosys- tem. The first developer conference for Tizen was held late last year, but how long it could be before this is relevant—if realistic—option remains to be seen.
How It Can Affect You: With so much hype about self-driving cars, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that
highway policing of the future could be done by autopilot. BMW’s concept illustrates that for car chases 20 years from now, the officers driving its E-Patrol would be able to deploy both aerial drones or single-wheeled unmanned ground vehicles to pursue other vehicles or gather information and report back to the hub. If policing actually goes this route, it might make today’s radar detectors obsolete.
Game On!
What’s Going On: Gamers got their fix during the
holiday season of 2013 as Microsoft and Sony both rolled out their new systems. More than one million Xbox One consoles were sold in the first 24 hours of availability, according to Microsoft, which released its console on November 22. Sony’s PS4 which launched last November 15 sold the same number of consoles in its first 24 hours.
How It Could Affect You: This sector of the tech world has taken a hit, but this next generation of con- soles could reinvigorate the category that has lots of crossover consumers with mobile electronics and car enthusiasts. According to The NPD Group, the console market shrank 32 percent to $13.3 billion from 2008 to 2012. These two mega- companies are vying for top share in what has been a sluggish video game market in hopes of reviving it.
Phone Fixation
What’s Going On: Florida is the latest state to make it illegal to text while driving, but the state’s version of the ban still leaves a lot of lee- way for cell phone use in the driver’s seat. It’s still legal to text at a stop light or while stopped in traffic—not to mention talk on the phone while driving. Bottom line: Dis- tractions in the vehicle aren’t going away
anytime soon—and there is no standard regulation among states to keep things simplified and in check.
How It Can Affect You: The findings of a new Nielsen study, presented at the LA Auto show last December, showed that people are already shopping from their cars—with
Amazon.com the fourth most browsed site. People are doing more in their cars than ever before posing an even greater challenge for regulators. While it is relatively simple to ban talking and texting while driving, it’s more difficult to draw the line with so many of the newer technologies. “We’re not close to a standard on this,” said Kevin Vincent, chief counsel for America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHT- SA), adding that it is a long way from coming up with new laws.
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