GM Is Shoving Facebook and Voice Texting Into Your OnStar-Equipped Car [Onstar]

GM’s OnStar system has just taken a leap into connectivity, adding audio Facebook updates, voice texting, and apps that control your car from your phone. Suddenly, your most costly gadget could possibly be your car.

There are a couple of components to GM’s announcement today, including next-generation hardware and an overhauled IT infastructure. But what really stand out are the inclusion of Audio Facebook and text-to-toice, along side a brand of phone apps which will manage to start your car and work your horn, lights and door locks remotely.

Here’s how the former works: When you’ve got an incoming SMS and your phone is hooked up to OnStar via Bluetooth, the automobile will read that text back to you. Simple enough! You may as well send a voice-activated response, but you’ll only be capable to choose between among the pre-programmed responses. As an example, say ” I’m driving” and your car will send back a text about how you’re busy driving at this time. You may’t dictate a text back yet, and it’s possible one can never be capable of due to safety concerns. Likewise, Audio Facebook can read back your news feed to you and should will let you update your status with an audio recording. Texting is in beta, Audio Facebook in early tests.

The family of phone apps, often called MyLink, will hit Android first, with iPhone not far behind. It’ll hit Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC, and has already been shown off within the Chevy Volt.

One of the more surprising aspects of today’s announcements is that GM is opening up their OnStar voice API to developers. The speculation of open-source apps for a car will probably be a bit intimidating-especially given worries about a system like OnStar’s potential vulnerabilities -but nothing would ever reach your vehicle without being strictly vetted by GM.

It does speak to the larger question, though: is your car a gadget? And will or not it’s? As a growing number of ” infotainment” populates our cabins, it causes an increasing number of distraction. Which in turn causes more accidents. It’s clearly a line that GM is quite cautious about, ensuring OnStar avoids features-like text dictation-which might be potentially dangerously distracting. Let’s hope they stay that way.

OnStar Relaunches Its Brand with Focus on
” Responsible Connectivity”

• New telematics computing platform includes social media/voice-texting capability and potential for open development
• New OnStar MyLink sub-brand for smart phone applications for Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC
• Ninth-generation hardware improves navigation and user features
• New services extend OnStar’s safety leadership
• All new marketing campaign and business strategy

(Long island) Sept. 15, 2010 – OnStar launched new services, capabilities and technology for its nearly six million subscribers as component of a top-to-bottom realignment of the company’s long-term strategy built around ‘responsible connectivity’.

OnStar plans to pilot major innovations that significantly increase drivers’ in-car connection to the area, while extending its safety leadership within the automotive industry.

” These initiatives are all about OnStar’s role in keeping drivers and passengers connected and safe,” said OnStar President Chris Preuss. ” Building on the rock-solid foundation of OnStar’s safety and security platform, we were given a clear directive to develop OnStar as one of many chief pillars in defining General Motors’ business going forward.”

” With the extremely high awareness and respect for the OnStar brand, we’ve created an extended-term vision that comes with new in-vehicle hardware, an all-new IT infrastructure and a bunch of latest partnerships and services that supply the root for growth,” Preuss continued.

Simultaneous events were held in Big Apple, Austin, San Francisco and Miami to relaunch the OnStar brand.

New Technology Testing
OnStar subscribers and technology insiders got a first check out OnStar’s new technologies which can be enabled throughout the ninth generation hardware:

• Audio Facebook Updates: OnStar showcased in-car social media interactions which can be being tested. If implemented, Audio Facebook Updates would allow OnStar subscribers to verbally update their Facebook status message through audio recordings and/or hearken to their most up-to-date news feed messages throughout the OnStar Virtual Advisor service.
• Voice Texting: OnStar revealed beta tests for voice-based SMS (short message service). This selection would enable customers to have their text messages read to them using Bluetooth.
The Bluetooth technology allows users to attach their mobile device to their vehicle and receive automated text messages. With one button press, on the steering wheel, users can reply to a text by verbally selecting a preset response.

OnStar MyLink
OnStar announced the OnStar MyLink sub-brand for cellphone applications. Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac mobile apps powered by OnStar will allow owners to remotely activate all functions available on a conventional key fob, including remote start, horn and lights and door locks and unlocks securely from select smartphones. Versions have already been shown for the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle with extended range capability and the all-new Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan.

Redesigned IT Infrastructure
OnStar revealed its Advanced Telematics Operations Management System (ATOMS) computing platform, one of the powerful and comprehensive machine-to-machine telematics systems on the planet. ATOMS permits advanced geo-boxing and voice-texting engines, including Audio Facebook Updates. OnStar services are rigorously tested to verify they may be according to GM’s safe driver principles and help reduce distracted driving.

OnStar Developers Challenge
The OnStar Developers Challenge invites students from leading universities, to design the subsequent voice-based technology that would keep drivers safely connected after they are on the road. The audio-focused Application Programming Interface (API) competition for select universities will allow Engineering, Interaction Design and Human Computer Interaction students to submit original and compelling voice-enabled applications. The OnStar Developers Challenge website, www.onstardeveloperchallenge.com, launched today.

9th Generation of Hardware
OnStar also unveiled its ninth generation hardware that improves the user experience with new natural voice recognition, Bluetooth phonebook, improved navigation, the power to work with advanced traffic management and severe weather alert services, often called geo-boxed notification services.

Furthering Its Safety Leadership
Additionally OnStar continues to augment its core safety focus:

• In coordination with the GM Foundation, OnStar is providing a grant of $500,000 to the International Center for Automotive Medicine (http://automotivemedicine.org) at the University of Michigan Health System for research with regards to the prediction of harm severity level after a crash. This grant, which includes three years of tangible OnStar crash data, will enable OnStar and the University of Michigan Health System to link crash data to actual physical injuries sustained in vehicle crashes. The revolutionary research, conducted over approximately 18 months, will take a look at 1,000 incidents and ultimately will allow OnStar to predict not only the severity of a crash, but assist emergency care providers by providing the probability of particular types of injuries sustained by crash victims.

OnStar, in coordination with the GM Foundation, also is providing $100,000 to the CDC Foundation to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to convene knowledgeable panel to develop a multi-site study design in various states. The study’s purpose can be to assess the correlation of real-time injury predictions sent directly from crash data with actual injury severity. The study will set the stage for broad collaborative research directed at optimizing the possibility of automatic crash notification technologies to avoid wasting lives.

• OnStar unveiled First Assist, an enhancement of its existing emergency services. The First Assist service allows certified Emergency Advisors to procure critical information and provide important instructions to subscribers until first responders arrive. Emergency situations can include the aftermath of a car crash or the birth of a baby. After determining the nature of the location, Advisors supplies rapid guidance, which can lead to potentially lifesaving actions. OnStar Advisors providing this service are specially trained and licensed by the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch™ (NAED) using the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) protocol. This service, available at no additional cost to active OnStar subscribers, will complement the efforts of public safety professionals.

A New Marketing Campaign
OnStar revealed a new marketing campaign that aligns with its new business strategy.

” The most recent campaign retains all the core strengths of safety and security that OnStar is famous for, but in addition adds the belief of ‘powerfully simple connectivity,’” said OnStar Chief Marketing Officer Sam Mancuso. ” The creative showcases how we provide our customers connectivity to everything that matter most to them, like family, friends, social media tools and our OnStar Advisors.”

The campaign, created by OnStar’s ad agency Campbell-Ewald, will specialise in the theme ” Live to tell the tale” – Safely connecting you in ways you never thought possible.” Print, broadcast and online executions of the campaign launch Monday, Sept. 20.

OnStar’s new business strategy is built around a highly successful subscription model and leaves open the prospect for expansion beyond the automotive industry.

” One aspect of our business to be able to never change is our live Advisors who are just a straightforward button press away,” said Preuss. ” They’re what set us apart, and they’ll remain available 24 hours a day, seven days per week.”

For additional information on OnStar’s innovation, the company’s recently launched marketing campaign and photos from the events, visit: http://media.gm.com/product/public/us/en/onstar/news.html

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This post is tagged: generation hardware, infotainment, onstar system, open source apps, safety concerns, vulnerabilities