Nokia partners with automotive industry to introduce Terminal Mode - a new industry standard for connecting smartphones to in-car infotainment systems Tweet

Nokia believes it should be easy to share information and content between your smartphone and other devices you use everyday such as your PC and the web. This way it is easy to keep everything synchronized and ensure you always have access to the things you love, such as your music, and the services you use, such as navigation, whenever and wherever you need them.

The average person spends between one and two hours per day in their car. Given that their smartphone not only holds their favorite music but now, if it is a Nokia smartphone, comes with free worldwide navigation services (Ovi Maps), the next logical step is to provide an easy way to connect their smartphone to their car. This way services and content from the mobile can be fully integrated with the in-car speakers, displays and control systems. Just as importantly, though, this connection should be two-way so that the smartphone can access performance information from the vehicle itself and provide more relevant information to the driver.

This is what ‘Terminal Mode’ sets out to achieve. It is being proposed as an industry standard to connect all smartphones that adopt it, not just Nokia smartphones, to support in-car infotainment systems. This is what Nokia and others are talking about at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show.

Nokia and NAVTEQ have been working with a range of automotive partners to demonstrate this new connectivity technology. Nokia has also been working with the Consumer Electronics for Automotive working group (CE4A). The technology to connect the mobile device to the car infotainment system has been developed in collaboration with Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto.

At the show Nokia is part of the following announcements:

- Partnership between Nokia and Alpine Electronics to highlight integration of smartphone music and media services with in-car audio systems using Terminal Mode
- Partnership between Nokia and Harman Becker to demonstrate integration of navigations services with in-car infotainment systems using Terminal Mode
- Valmet Automotive shows electric concept car called Eva that includes Terminal Mode technology
- Integration of Fiat’s Blue&Me platform with Nokia smartphones

Nokia sees ‘Terminal Mode’ as a technology to fuel industry innovation as it allows manufacturers and developers to build new kinds of services by interlinking car information with smartphone applications. For example, Nokia will bring Ovi Services such as navigation and music in to the car via its smartphones. By potentially integrating car information such as speed and fuel consumption with navigation services on the smartphone the driver can get a more personalized and relevant service. He can also play music from the smartphone on the in-car sound system and download driving specific applications from the Ovi Store.

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