Clever car technology in years to come will either be annoying or amazing – but two of the world’s biggest corporates are hoping for the latter.
Toyota and Microsoft are joining forces to expand the Japanese giant’s data access and management abilities, mix in some scientific technical stuff and deliver us a tool that we never realised we couldn’t live with out.
It’ll either come off perfectly and be the killer piece of automotive tech that everyone wants, or the first thing we turn off when we get in the car.
With faultless algorithms and next-gen artificial intelligence it certainly has huge potential.
For example, AI features could be added to cars that allow them to predict where the car is going and offer services drivers might want along the way. Going to the rugby league game over the weekend? The car might detect the route a driver normally takes and recommend restaurants for a pre-game lunch.
According to a press release announcing the joint venture, the services provided by Toyota Connected will be “predictive, contextual, and intuitive.”
Zack Hicks, head of Toyota Connected and chief information oficer at Toyota Motor North America, said that could mean anything “from telematics services that learn from your habits and preferences, to use-based insurance pricing models that respond to actual driving patterns, to connected vehicle networks that can share road condition and traffic information, our goal is to deliver services that make lives easier.”
Already, drivers in some markets are able ask a car’s infotainment for restaurant recommendations, but many locations often would require that a driver turn around. But with Toyota Connected, the system might be modified to only recommend restaurants on the highway ahead — and then only the kinds of food that the driver usually prefers.
The services offered can be tailored to individual customers. “We don’t want to dump everything on everyone,” says Sandy Lobenstein, executive vice president of Toyota Connected. “The whole is idea is getting to know our customers better.”
Road information can be delivered to drivers based on driving patterns, knowing the routes they usually take. Car insurance could be priced more accurately because the system could report on a driver’s actual kilometres and routes traveled.
Those with medical conditions could have sensors added to the mix – like heartbeat or blood sugar monitors.
Toyota Connected hopes to have its first products within a year. The ultimate objective is to “help to humanise the driving experience while pushing the technology into the background.”
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