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Delphi and Verizon partner on car tracking, remote unlocking

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify the differing roles between Delphi and Verizon, and the name of the service.

LAS VEGAS--With a black box the size of a pack of playing cards plugged into a car's OBD2 port, Delphi gives owners a variety of control and information features, from tracking to remotely locking and unlocking the doors. Delphi partnered with Verizon to offer the Vehicle Diagnostics device and its associated Connected Car service, which emulates many of the features available from modern telematics services.

After plugging the Delphi Vehicle Diagnostics device into a car's … Read more

TeleNav Auto 2.0 sends addresses from phone to car

TeleNav's new navigation platform promises to link cars and smartphones.

Drivers frequently find themselves consulting a phone for an address, then typing it into a car's navigation system. At the Telematics Munich conference, TeleNav announced a solution to this problem, seamless interactivity between smartphones and TeleNav-equipped cars.

A use case described to CNET by Mark Scalf, director of automotive products for TeleNav, involved a user getting an appointment notification on his cell phone, and easily sending the address for the appointment to the car's navigation system. After parking, the TeleNav system transfers navigation back to the phone, … Read more

Rear-view cameras become a front-runner in sales

Rear-view cameras are beginning to do more than just giving a driver eyes in the back of his head.

In the most basic form of the technology, a digital camera mounted in the rear captures what's behind a vehicle when it's in reverse and displays the image on the navigation screen.

After being introduced in the late 1990s, the technology has become one of the most popular options with consumers, said Mike Marshall, senior director of automotive product quality research at J.D. Power and Associates. In a J.D. Power survey of emerging technologies, released in June, rear-view camera systems ranked No. 5 in consumer interest.

The popularity of central screens has helped the technology become much more widely available. Today, rear-view cameras are offered on lower-priced vehicles. For example, the 2011 Kia Sportage crossover features a rear camera system in a $1,500 option package available on its LX trim level, which includes a navigation system.

As the technology spreads to lower-priced vehicles, higher-priced nameplates are starting to feature more advanced systems. Infiniti introduced the Around View Monitor on its 2008 EX35 crossover. The system stitches together images from four cameras to create a 360-degree view that is displayed on the vehicle's navigation screen when parking. The system is also offered as an option on the 2011 Infiniti FX crossover and QX SUV.

Meanwhile, R&D labs at suppliers are developing systems that go beyond showing what drivers cannot see. … Read more

Delphi's Wi-Fi? Cutting cord for EV charging

Delphi Automotive has been cutting its umbilical cord to General Motors ever since the parts maker was spun off from the automaker in 1999. In 2005, sales to GM still represented half of Delphi's business. But today, CEO Rodney O'Neal says, 82 percent of Delphi's revenue comes from sales to automakers other than GM.

Now Delphi wants to help electric vehicles cut the cord, too, by developing a wireless charging system for hybrid and electric vehicles.

The system would allow a driver to park an electric or hybrid vehicle over a pad that transfers power wirelessly to … Read more

Study: Japan firms are best in infotainment

TOKYO--Japanese suppliers of information and entertainment systems score highest in quality, says a recent study by J.D. Power and Associates.

These systems, including satellite radio and navigation devices, are increasingly must-have features in vehicles. About 66 percent of drivers now have satellite radio, up from 59 percent in 2009. Factory-installed navigation systems are in 30 percent of vehicles, up from 25 percent.

The findings, from J.D. Power's 2010 U.S. Multimedia Quality and Satisfaction Study, underscore the rapid penetration of such infotainment technology into the U.S. market.

High-tech onboard entertainment and navigation systems got an early … Read more

Group promotes savings with open-source software

For about a year, a group of heavyweight automotive and technology companies has been working on a way to hasten development of in-vehicle entertainment systems. Their solution: share basic software development using the open-source Linux operating system.

Among the nearly 50 members of the group, called the Genivi Alliance, are automakers General Motors, BMW AG, Nissan Motor, and, as of February 17, Renault SA. Suppliers include Visteon, Delphi Automotive, and Continental AG.

The Genivi (pronounced jah-NEE-vee) Alliance is focusing on developing "middleware"--the layer of software that allows various kinds of information and entertainment applications to work together … Read more

Cooling breakthrough for computers, car electronics

Researchers at Purdue University have had a breakthrough that may completely change how engineers design cooling systems in everything from computers to electric and hybrid cars.

Using special computer chips from Delphi Electronics, Suresh Garimella, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, and doctoral student Tannaz Harirchia, have developed and tested new mathematical formulas concerning the properties of boiling liquids in "microchannels."

It's no secret that engineers, particularly chipmakers and computer manufacturers, have been striving for years to design cooling systems with highly efficient heat-transfer rates.

Microchannels are tiny channels … Read more

New virus infects programs built with Delphi

Researchers said on Tuesday that they are seeing something unusual in the malware world--a virus that targets a development environment.

The virus, dubbed Win32.Induc, was written to infect applications built with Delphi, according to Nick Bilogorskiy, manager of antivirus researcher at Sonicwall. Delphi is used to write Windows programs, including database applications.

When an infected program is run on a machine running Delphi, the virus infects any software that gets compiled on that machine. The virus spreads the executable file of itself as well as the source code. It looks for a compiler on the infected system and re-compiles … Read more