Hasta La Gadget!

Remember Autonet? The company — which is best known for providing manufacturers like Chrysler with in-car WiFi hotspot solutions — is launching a new product designed to replace the key fob and enable low-latency remote vehicle control and diagnostics from any smartphone. Of course, this is nothing new — car makers have been featuring apps to unlock doors, start the engine and monitor vehicles for some time now. Still, most existing solutions rely on satellite or 2G connectivity and often require the car’s computer to be fully booted before responding to commands, which makes for a slow an unreliable experience. Autonet’s new system combines in-vehicle hardware, mobile software and cloud services to streamline this process for both manufacturers and owners. More after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Software, Mobile

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With more and more vehicles featuring telematics and built-in wireless connectivity, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing a new ecosystem emerge around the technology, with M2M specialists providing everything from radios to apps. BlackBerry wants a piece of this pie, and today at the Telematics Detroit conference, the company is showing a new OTA (Over The Air) service for automakers. The solution lets car manufacturers manage and deploy software updates to vehicles in the field and takes advantage of BlackBerry’s push expertise and secure infrastructure. Other remote capabilities include installing apps on a car’s infotainment system and getting status information on vehicle components. Let’s just hope there’s no service outage in the middle of that ECU update, okay? PR after the break.

Filed under: Transportation, Mobile, Blackberry

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