Girls and Car: In good company: QNX partner solutions at 2014 CES

Guest post by Peter McCarthy of the QNX global partnerships team

Peter McCarthy

If anyone thinks that creating an infotainment system is easy, they obviously haven’t thought about it hard enough. It is, in fact, a massive undertaking that requires seamless integration of navigation engines, voice technologies, app environments, HMI tools, Internet music services, smartphone connectivity, automotive-hardened processors — the list goes on.

No single company could possibly offer all of these technologies. And even if it could, it still wouldn’t address the needs of automakers and tier one suppliers, who need the power of choice. Any company building an infotainment system needs the flexibility to combine Navigation Engine A with Processor B and Bluetooth Solution C.

Enabling customers to enjoy such choice without worrying about integration issues is something that QNX works very hard at. For evidence, look no further than our latest technology concept car, a modified Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG, which debuted this week at our CES booth. The car integrates an array of partner tech, including:

voice recognition from Nuance
navigation engines from Elektrobit (EB), Kotei Informatics, and HERE
automotive processors from Texas Instruments
MirrorLink smartphone-to-vehicle connectivity from RealVNC
Android Jellybean version of iHeartRadio

Meanwhile, the head unit in our reference vehicle, also featured in the QNX booth, integrates several partner apps and holds the distinction of being the world’s first in-vehicle implementation of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Automotive Solutions. And if that’s not enough, our booth contains demos of a navigation engine from Aisin AW and a digital instrument cluster built with HMI tools from HI Corporation.

Mind you, the action isn’t restricted to the QNX booth. Several partners have also gotten into the act and are demonstrating QNX-based systems in their CES booths and meeting rooms. For instance:

Elektrobit — Demonstrating a new concept electric vehicle that sports an instrument cluster and infotainment system based on the QNX Neutrino Realtime Operating System.
Freescale — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment on its i.MX 6 Applications Processors for Automotive.
Gracenote — Demonstrating how its technology can personalize the in-vehicle music experience, using a system based on the QNX Neutrino OS.
NVIDIA — Demonstrating Audi's newest infotainment system featuring the NVIDIA Tegra processor and the QNX Neutrino OS.
Qualcomm — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform on Snapdragon Automotive Solutions.
Red Bend Software — Demonstrating virtualization technology that runs the QNX CAR Platform and a digital instrument cluster on dual displays driven by a single processor.
Texas Instruments — Demonstrating the QNX CAR Platform running on its latest Jacinto processors

For the fully skinny on QNX partner technology at CES, I invite you to check out our press release, along with joint announcements that we have issued with Aisin AW, HERE, HI Corporation, and Qualcomm.

About Peter
When he isn't talking on oversized mobile phones, Peter McCarthy serves as director of global partnerships at QNX Software Systems, where he is responsible for establishing and fostering partnerships with technology and services companies in all of the company's target industries.