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NEWS
Volvo's Car2Infrastructure translated to bikes
Keeping road users safe is about to factor in cyclists, thanks to Volvo and POCVolvo is not to be outdone with new innovations at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The Volvo Car Group has teamed up with the home-grown Swedish Sports apparel developer POC. POC develops high-tech protective gear for those athletes taking part in some of the more dangerous sports on the planet.
“POC’s products blend functional design with lightweight, high-performance materials that offer the ultimate sense of freedom and protection when things really get rough. This is perfectly in tune with our aim to make functionality and safety an emotional experience,” says Thomas Ingenlath, Senior Vice President Design of Volvo Car Group.
“Just like their high-tech sport gear, our cars blend sophisticated design with strength and intelligent capability. Having the right gear – in our case the car – builds peace of mind and confidence. This in turn enables you to fully enjoy your drive and your adventure,” adds Thomas Ingenlath.
Exploring common themes of safety and design, the new teammates of Volvo and POC’s first focus is on the relationship between cars and cyclists.
“Communication with cyclists around the car is a possible extension of our ground-breaking Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection technology. Providing the cyclist with confirmation that he or she is seen by the vehicle can make interaction between cars and cyclists smoother and safer in urban areas,” says Jan Ivarsson, Senior Manager, Safety Strategy and Requirements at Volvo Car Group.
Volvo aims to have some sort of cyclist warning system presented towards the end of 2014.
“With POC’s mission of doing the best we can to possibly save lives and reduce the consequences of accidents for gravity sports athletes and cyclists, it's a treasure to interact on cycling safety together with Volvo Cars. They have the vision, competence and experience, and have been leading the development within road safety for more than 80 years,” says Stefan Ytterborn, CEO and founder of POC.
At CES 2014 Volvo also launched a new cloud-based connected car service.
Like Audi, who presented a keynote address at CES, Volvo claimed much about the new suite of connected services is based on customer feed-back and requests.
In a partnership that is now well over a year old, Volvo is teaming up with another fellow Swede, Ericsson to enhance the interconnectivity and cloud provided services that the telco can leverage.
Volvo says all in all, the ‘cloud’ offers great flexibility to adjust capacity and local presence of content based end-user demands. Ericsson’s systems integration capabilities have been critical in solution design and integration into Volvo Car’s IS/IT environment, and to the head-end unit in the car. The solution covers all Volvo Cars markets around the globe.
“This partnership is another proof-point that Volvo Cars is in the vanguard of innovation, with a clear understanding of the importance of the car in an increasingly connected society,” said Lex Kerssemakers, Senior Vice President Product Strategy and Vehicle Line Management at Volvo Cars.
“This is a strategic step forward for us that [provides] our customers with cloud-enabled applications and services as never before, thanks to Ericsson’s world-class services platform.”
CES 2014 saw Volvo launch Sensus Connect; the brand name for the developed cloud-based services Volvo has been working on with its partners.
“Technology should make your life easier,” says David Holecek, Connectivity Brand Manager at Volvo Cars. “That’s why we listened carefully to our customers when creating Sensus Connect. It’s not about offering a thousand apps; it’s about giving you precisely what you need, before you even knew you needed it.”
Pre-heat or cool your Volvo, enjoy tens of thousands of radio stations streamed to the infotainment system. Find out exciting information about your surrounds via Wikipedia or pre-pay for parking at your destination. Park&Pay is the world-first integrated solution for finding and paying for parking from within your car. The application is based on car2infrastructure communication and according to Volvo, points the way of new possibilities when the car starts to ‘communicate’ with its surroundings.
“It’s all about giving everyone an enjoyable, easy to use and intuitive experience,” continues David Holecek. “There is no point in filling a car with technology if it comes off as overwhelming, so our main focus is always to give our customers the best experience available and make it easy to digest. Our cloud-based apps update seamlessly. Sensus offers the optimal combination of input/output methods and allows the driver to turn the entire car into a Wi-Fi hotspot for all of their connected devices.”
Partnering with the aforementioned Ericsson and parking service providers, cloud-connecting Volvos will also be able to access services from Pandora internet radio, HERE, Yelp and Glympse.
“We are particularly proud to announce at CES the inclusion of Pandora Internet Radio in our launch of Sensus Connect. Sensus Connect offers the first ever embedded solution supported by Pandora, the internet radio service with more than 76 million active monthly listeners,” says David Holecek.
Sensus Connect will allow Volvo drivers to stream Pandora via a data connection provided by the built-in modem or their smartphone. Control of Pandora features like station creation and thumbs feedback are now available via the head unit, making access to personalised radio in the car as easy as FM radio.
“The driver can now seamlessly switch between their favourite music on high-end speakers and having their text messages read out loud without taking their hands off the wheel,” David Holecek adds.
“And as from now, your car will not only tell you when it’s time to visit the garage but also will suggest an appointment for you at your Volvo dealership. Our brand new Connected Service Booking app is only the first step in making the dealer workshop fully integrated into the digital eco-system, enabling even more services in the future. Say goodbye to expensive or out-dated maps, our Sensus Navigation includes lifetime map upgrades. There’s really no reason it should be more difficult than that.”
“Two of my favourite parts of the new Sensus Connect are Glympse – an app where you can share your position with others to see on their phones, perfect when carpooling or visiting a friend’s house for the first time – and the fact that the entire car works as a Wi-Fi hotspot for all your connected devices, using an integrated roof-top antenna to ensure the best possible signal reception,” David Holecek concludes.
Volvo says that this is a globally managed cloud-based solution; however, checking with Volvo locally, motoring.com.au confirmed that only limited – yet to be designated – services of the updated Sensus Connect will be available to Australian Volvo owners as 2014 nears its end.
For the rest of the world, Sensus Connect will be available from May this year.
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Written byMike Bantick
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