TelematicsWhen asked to share my impressions of the many new things I saw at the 2001 CES, a single theme kept coming to mind. "Telematics," that new industry buzzword used to describe anything and everything having to do with communicating information to and from the vehicle.
As I wandered the exhibit halls that housed the booths of all the various mobile electronics manufacturers, I began to detect a recurring pattern developing. Several of the large mainstream vehicle security manufacturers were presenting, or are on the verge of presenting, some form of new telematics product. Many of the lesser known companies are following suit. Although the actual products being offered by each of these companies are different in appearance, they all share a single common denominator. They are all supported by a communication infrastructure provided by a new name on the scene, Televoke.
Televoke, based in San Francisco, California is an ASP, which stands for Application Service Provider. To employ a rather awkward analogy - regardless of whatever head unit you may have you still need radio stations out there for you to be able to use your head unit. Similarly, Televoke has designed and built a telematics communication infrastructure (the radio station) through which these new telematics products can operate. With the Televoke infrastructure, it is possible to allow the user to send commands to a car, from a telephone or computer (e.g. such as unlock doors or arm the alarm system). If the telematics product employs a GPS capability, then the Televoke ASP can allow the user to request their car's location via any Internet connected computer, and receive a map on screen showing the car's location. These features and much more are possible with the Televoke ASP.
Some of the companies who have chosen to use Televoke as their ASP to support their new telematics products include: Audiovox; Omega Research & Development; Satronics; SecuraTrak; and Clarion/UNGO. -Eric Abbiss
Hot PicksIt was a wild, exciting and adventure-filled CES. Some of it even took place at the pavilions. Kidding aside, the car audio side of the show featured literally tons of incredible cars. While all of them were spectacular, I thought the best overall install was by far the Nissan frontier in the Rockford booth. The overall colors and the way everything flowed together, the curves, the detail - it was awesome. Big props out to Brian at Rockford. The second install that I thought was real cool was Steve Brown's BMW at the Alpine booth. The install was mind blowing; the detail in the trunk section was so trick I was really blown away.
My pick for the best booth has to be ARC Audio. They had some great cars (hot rods) and a really trick classic Chevy pickup with an an extended body.
In the product category I was impressed with the new amplifiers from Blaupunkt. It was featured in a previous issue of CA&E. If you read that or visited Blaupunkt at the show, then you know why we're high on it. Also I liked the new QSD line of separates from MB QUART. I guess you can't say enough about German engineering.
This show had it all and I'm glad I was able to be a part of it. The way things are going I expect next year to be even better. -David Rivera