Honda is offering more connected car connections, apps and research. It is working with AT&T. The company showed how it working to pay for gas or parking from the vehicle as well as better ways to communicate with infotainment systems.
The AT&T 4G LTE network will connect HondaLink apps and services for vehicles, including navigation, streaming radio, diagnostics and remote lock/unlock.
Paying for Parking & Gas Through Honda
Honda conducted the first proof-of-concept demonstration of in-vehicle payments with infrastructure parking and fueling partners at 2017 CES in Las Vegas as part of its ongoing partnership with Visa Inc. The demonstration used fuel pumps from Gilbarco Veeder-Root and smart parking meters from IPS Group, Inc.
Developed by the Honda Developer Studio, the fuel and parking proof-of-concepts offer a quick and seamless in-vehicle payment solution, delivered through smartphone integrations. Honda and Visa first joined forces last year and they are now joined by Gilbarco Veeder-Root and IPS Group, Inc. in collaborating in the effort to transform the way consumers make in-vehicle payments for every day services such as gasoline and public parking.
Drivers are notified that they can pay for fuel or parking when they are near a smart parking meter or fuel pump. Depending on the services, the purchase amount is displayed in the dashboard and drivers confirm payment with the touch of a button. Honda is currently in discussion with a number of other companies that will continue to help ease the various innovative payment processes of other car-based transactions.
IPS Group, Inc. (ipsgroup.com) is an innovative Smart Parking leader best known as the developer of the patented IPS credit card-enabled, solar-powered smart parking meters seen on public streets in hundreds of cities throughout North America and Europe. Honda, Visa and IPS Group, Inc. have partnered to make locating and paying for parking fast and easy, so that drivers will never have to scramble for change or even exit the vehicle to pay for parking at a meter.
The process begins when the driver is notified of available smart parking. The driver then simply selects the time increment needed and pays for parking, and the meter displays the time purchased. Drivers will also be able to add additional time to the meter from the convenience of their mobile phone.
Gilbarco-Veeder-Root has also joined the partnership to enable drivers to pay for fuel from their vehicle, making the experience more secure and convenient while also creating opportunities for retailers to reach consumers in new ways to drive enhanced consumer loyalty and sales.
Once the car is parked next to a pump, drivers are notified that they can pay from their car. The driver selects the amount of gas they would like to fill up and the cost to fill it up is automatically calculated by the app. Focusing on security and convenience, this refueling concept is easy-to-use.
The goal of Honda’s partnership with the Visa, Gilbarco Veeder-Root and IPS Group, Inc. is to create an innovative in-vehicle experience focusing on making daily life more efficient and comfortable for customers.
Better Voice and Views
Voice Separation
One of the big challenges with today’s infotainment systems is the ability of onboard computers to understand the driver’s voice commands. Current acoustic microphones listen to everything in the car, including ambient noise. But through its optical microphone it can actually interpret the physical vibrations generated by a speaker’s voice. Then Vocal Zoom can separate the speaker’s voice from the ambient sound to improve the accuracy of voice commands.
VocalZoom’s Human to Machine (HMC) optical sensor takes the risk and inconvenience out of today’s connected car experience by delivering seamless, near-perfect voice-control performance even with background noise from open windows, engine noise, music playing, passenger conversations and other interference. VocalZoom demonstrated the benefits of installing a single VocalZoom optical sensor in a car’s rear-view mirror, dashboard, seats or ceiling, where it can be used to acquire data from tiny vibrations in a driver’s facial skin while issuing voice commands. This data is measured and converted to an isolated, near-perfect reference signal that automotive voice control systems can understand and quickly respond to, regardless of noise levels. Tests have shown performance improvements of at least 50 percent compared to traditional speech-recognition technology in a quiet automotive environment, and even better in noisy environments. Visitors were able to hear the difference for themselves as they listened to and observed voice-control performance in various driving environments, both with VocalZoom optical sensor technology and without.
3D HUD
LEIA 3D and Honda collaborated to develop a prototype for a new driver-display meter that can provide seamless transitions between different viewing angles for warnings and driver-assistive systems. 3D is tricky and if designed incorrectly, it can be distracting.
But with LEIA’s nano-technology approach, when you move your head while looking at the screen, the perspective subtly adjusts in a way that feels natural. From navigation to traffic information, there are a number of potential applications for LEIA 3D.
LEIA is a technology spin-off of HP Labs and a provider of the leading holographic display solution for mobile. The LEIA 3D display provides a comfortable, natural form of 3D that is easier to look at, which is important for the in-car experience. It also gives designers and developers a new tool for building a more appealing user experience..
“LEIA uses nanotechnology to control the emission of light from its displays,” said David Fattal, LEIA Inc.’s Founder and CEO. “This is a brand new technique that produces multi-view 3D – holographic – content with an unprecedented level of quality and visual comfort for several viewers at a time. Moreover, the displays are entirely switchable to standard 2D viewing mode so there is virtually no downside in using them.”
Honda sees a number of potential applications for this technology, from navigation to traffic information, that can be leveraged to provide a more intuitive, convenient and safe in-cabin experience for customers.
Just keep making it easier to steal our money and sweat equity.