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advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), which monitors, records and assesses the surroundings of the entire vehicle. Multiple ultra-high resolution displays that can be used in varying configurations to support the best infotainment and entertainment intelligent use case scenarios; in the Etos that means two curved, 4K 21.5” widescreen monitors and a central HD display that present relevant information to the driver and their copilots.
And as the car is autonomous it also offers a complete office suite so you can remain productive even while you're in the cabin, including the ability to video conference.
And as cars become better connected we started to ask more questions about safety and anti-hacking systems. To this end Harman's 5+1 safety architecture with hypervisor and firewall could come into its own allowing for over-the-air updates, which help to protect the connected car from outside threats. (There'll be a lot more from Harman in the next issue of AutoConnect_Magazine).
But there were other companies with lots on show too. Visteon, perhaps someone you've never heard of, considers CES to be its most important show of the year, and because of that the company has a whole host of technologies on show from a full range of digital instrument clusters and head-up displays to a scaleable cockpit controller that can house processor technology with anything from two- to 16-cores. (This is another company to look out for in future issues of the magazine.
Two more companies stand out from this year's show. The first, Bosch, more people will know about as they develop a huge range of technologies including white goods such as washing machines. But for the future of infotainment have possibly designed the most obvious of technologies, especially considering the number of touchscreens in cars nowadays – haptic feedback.
Touchscreens are a real bugbear of mine; they work fine on your phone because you're devoting all your attention to it, but when you're driving you need to look at the road so you need to know where your fingers are, and if you are pressing buttons, otherwise you may be tempted to look down. That could be overly distracting and dangerous.
When touched, the display responds with haptic elements as well as visual and acoustic signals. Drivers can feel the keys on the touchscreen without looking thanks to variances in the surface structures – and without immediately triggering an action. Rough, smooth, or even patterned surfaces stand for different buttons and functions. The virtual button is not activated until the operator presses it more firmly. Users have the feeling that they are pressing a normal, mechanical button. In appearance, however, the touch screen with haptic elements does not differ from a conventional display.
Lastly, Nvidia, brought its Drive PX 2 autonomous vehicle super computer to the show, (see pages 14-15), highlighting how powerful processor technology is going to help take the stress out of driving. Imagine a system that can learn how to drive, so every time you're out on the road in your autonomous car, it gets smoother. Volvo will be using the technology in 100 fully autonomous XC90 SUVs on the streets of Gothenburg soon, and interest in the system is huge.
"Visteon has a scaleable cockpit controller that can house processor technology with anything from two- to 16-cores"
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