Filed under: Technology

Every carmaker has seen Ford‘s success in promoting its Sync technology, and they want a piece of that pie – as do many suppliers. Sync is built on top of a Microsoft-developed software platform and after a couple of years of Ford exclusivity, Kia just announced a similar system called Uvo. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Continental announced its own competing platform for in-car connectivity called Autolinq.
While Microsoft’s in-car operating system is completely proprietary, Continental’s system is based on the Google’s open-source Android OS. Android’s popularity is on the rise thanks to cell phones like the new Nexus One and the Motorola Droid. Continental hopes to leverage that community of software developers to create applications that can be downloaded directly to the car. This roughly mirrors Ford’s recent announcement that developers will be able to create apps for Sync.
Continental plans to release a software development kit for Autolinq by the end of March, and have applications to demonstrate in the second half of this year. So far, there’s no word on any automakers adopting Autolinq for their vehicles.
[Source: Continental]
Continue reading Continental announces Android-based Autolinq to compete with Sync
Continental announces Android-based Autolinq to compete with Sync originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.