Three weeks ago RCR covered the upcoming Ford Developer conference in Las Vegas. The first event of its kind.
The event has come and gone and the finalists are in. So how did it go?
More than 170 developers from around the world participated to reach the ten finalists selected to go to the next round. Participants really came from around the globe — United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, Slovenia, Hong Kong and Japan, to name a few locations. During the event, participants were able to learn how to develop apps to integrate with Ford’s SYNC AppLink. AppLink became open source last year to enable all automakers to participate in the program. The technology is already deployed in more than 1.5 million vehicles in North America and launching in Europe and Asia by the end of this year.
The finalists included small startups and large established firms. They addressed a number of different topics and there were four primary categories where these apps focused.
Safety
There were two apps in this category. Both look at driver behavior and provide feedback. One is more of a game-like function where you compete against other drivers to behave well behind the wheel and the other focuses on not only tracking and sharing with others, but alerting via car-to-car functionality of road hazards ahead.
Personalized recommendations based on routing
There were also two apps in this category. Both provide personalized driving experiences based on preferences input from the drivers. This can include entertainment, food, weather, traffic and safety.
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Productivity tools
Three apps focused here. One was all about automated mileage tracking for linkage to expense systems, handy for the mobile worker. The last two in this category focused on bringing your scheduling and messaging functions into the vehicle in a safe fashion.
Vehicle diagnostics
The next two I would categorize as vehicle diagnostics. The first focused on your fuel usage. Running low notifications with routing to the closest gas stations, discounts on gas and pay at the pump via integration with mobile wallet functionality. The second is designed to issue alerts based on standard vehicle diagnostics and schedule service appointments as required.
My personal favorite is called 3sACrowd and offered by Alcatel-Lucent. It utilizes Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to detect if there are passengers in the car beyond the driver and provides the option to decline calls automatically to enable a private call at a later time. The driver receives a private message regarding the missed call. Cone of Silence anyone?
The full release can be seen here.
The finalists will present at the LA Auto Show November 18 – 20 to compete for the grand prize of accompanying Ford to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2015.
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