Nokia is trying to make it easier to integrate your phone with your in-car entertainment system and it has teamed with the Consumer Electronics for Automotive (CE4A) consortium to develop a standard to make your phone play nice with your automobile.
The Terminal Mode technology specification goes beyond using Bluetooth to makes calls with your car’s speakers. Ideally, it will let you use apps on your in-car display. This could be incredibly powerful for programs like turn-by-turn navigation, weather widgets, or apps that read your texts and e-mails. Nokia has also inked deals with Alpine Electronics, Continental, Fiat, Harman Becker, Valmet Automotive, and Magneti Marelli regarding mobile integration with in-car systems.
“Nokia is an active member of many open standardization initiatives and forums globally and is keen to enable open collaboration and broader use of innovation for the faster adoption of new services and products for the benefit of consumers,” said Nokia’s Timo Ali-Vehmas, in a prepared statement.
The move comes as in-car integration with mobile phones is becoming a hot topic. Chevy just announced that its upcoming Volt will have deep Android integration that will utilize Google Maps Navigation. Microsoft’s Sync software for Ford vehicles will soon have its own application store, as well.
One of the cooler in-car mobile examples we’ve seen is BMW’s ConnectedDrive system that will pop up with the company’s next generation of cars. This hooks up your BlackBerry smartphone with the in-car display to sync your address book, let you make calls via the speakers, and it will soon have text messaging and e-mail integration. When you get a BlackBerry notification, it’s pushed to the car’s display and notifies that you have a message to read. Don’t worry, as you’ll only be able to read those messages when the car is stopped.
The really cool thing about the ConnectedDrive system is that it can read your text messages and e-mails out loud. It will even scrub your messages for phone numbers and let you call those with a touch of a knob. We had a chance to test this out at Research In Motion’s WES conference last month and the text-to-speech was rock solid. Check out the video below for a full demonstration.
[Via Nokia]