Vehicle infotainment systems change the world of driving

Note from Stevens Creek Toyota

Technology is changing fast. Like the author states in this article it was not long ago that the only thing we could do in our cars was switch from AM radio to FM radio. Look what we can do now…make reservation to have dinner from the dash board of our vehicle or check out movie times. That is crazy. What next? I say bring it on but make it safe. There are a lot of distractive driving going on, so lets make the new technology with that in mind. Make things easier for everyone but not at the cost of losing another life.

By:Metro Creative Connection

Long gone are the days when a person hops into the driver’s seat and only has AM or FM radio at his or her disposal. Although standard radio is still popular, today’s motorists are faced with a bevy of options in an always-evolving “infotainment” industry.

Infotainment, also known as in-car entertainment or ICE, and in-vehicle infotainment, or IVI, is a collection of hardware devices installed into cars and trucks to provide navigation services and audio and even visual entertainment.

Many of today’s cars allow drivers to map routes with ease through intricate navigation systems tied to location-narrowing satellites. Children can boot up a favorite DVD and watch it in the backseat to make a trip more agreeable, while passengers can stream satellite radio and have thousands of different musical options at their fingertips. And thanks to Bluetooth or USB connectivity, drivers and passengers alike can verbally message friends and family by linking their phones to car computer systems. While many of these infotainment sources are channeled through a smartphone, even that technology is changing.

General Motors is the first major automaker to announce that most of their 2015 vehicles will offer embedded 4G modems for constant connectivity. This eliminates the need to pair infotainment systems with a phone and wait for a connection. This may put online radio on par with what is available at home or via wireless hot spots.

Apple recently started bringing a special version of its Siri — a speech-recognition assistant that is built into iPhones and other products — into cars. Siri integration will be coming to at least nine automakers in the future, including BMW, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Land-Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chrysler, and Honda. Other manufacturers, like Ford, which already has a Microsoft-based Sync, have their own voice-recognition software that ties to a larger information “cloud.”

From ordering dinner to cuing up movies, infotainment offers drivers many benefits. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, such systems can pose a potentially dangerous distraction.

A AAA study points out that there really isn’t a fully safe infotainment system. Of all the typical in-car activities studied by AAA, speech-to-text systems were found to be the most cognitively distracting. When assigned a specific numeric rating by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, with 1.0 being no distraction at all, listening to the radio earned a 1.21 rating, talking on a phone ranked 2.45, while listening to and responding to email using speech-to-text technology received a rating of 3.06.

AAA’s president and CEO, Robert Darbelnet, says that text-to-speech capability in cars and many other infotainment features could present a safety crisis.

“It’s time to consider limiting new and potentially dangerous mental distractions built into cars, particularly with the common public misperception that hands-free means risk-free,” says Darbelnet.

With the ability to send and receive tweets, update social media sites, get directions, and make restaurant reservations all through a vehicle’s infotainment system, drivers have many features at their disposal. It remains to be seen if these features will be a boon to drivers or result in more distracted driving.

Vehicle infotainment systems change the world of driving