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Posted By Walter Sullivan
Walter Sullivan, senior project manager for Windows Embedded Automotive
Ten years ago, in April of 2003, a small team from Fiat and Microsoft got together in Redmond, in Microsoft’s Building 32, to talk about a potential collaboration. I was lucky enough to be in this meeting, unsure of whether there was any real opportunity. Through the course of the discussion, we started to realize that Fiat and Microsoft had a very common vision for how mobile devices would be integrated into the driving environment; both companies recognized the growth in personal mobile devices we were about to see. In fact, as we were prototyping our concept, the engineers at Fiat and their Research Center (CRF) were working on a very similar concept, which we saw for the first time later in 2003 as we continued our discussions. We at Microsoft called ours T-Box; Fiat called theirs Convergence. The similarities were uncanny.
Development actually began in early 2004, and we handed off the final production device to Fiat in June of 2005. We developed the hardware and the software from scratch (very little of either prototype was actually used in the production system) in about 16 months. Over the next few months, we continued to build the second version, which added an embedded cellular module, vehicle diagnostics and navigation. The products, of course, were Fiat’s Blue&Me and Blue&Me Nav, which began production in the fall of 2005.
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Comments Windows Embedded Automotive
Posted By Simon FrancisSolutions Specialist
Our two-part blog series on “smart” shopping trends continues with this analysis from Simon Francis on dressing-room innovation.
Delay mirrors, like this one from Comqi, record and plays back the last few seconds of your life, so you can check your look from behind
Now and then you come across an idea that really makes you take your hat off to the instigators’ ingenuity. This happened to me on a recent shopping expedition whilst looking for a new pair of jeans.
After locating the pair I wanted, I headed off to the changing-room area. The rooms were great, in a cool industrial theme, very stylish, lots of space…altogether nice. After putting on the jeans, I ventured out of the changing room and headed towards a large mirror nearby.
They say you can depend on two things in life: death and taxes. I believe there is a third thing that comes into play for all the non-vampires among us: You should be able to see your reflection in a mirror. So it is very disconcerting when you don’t.
After 15 seconds of waving my arms around looking hard at an apparently faulty mirror (who ever heard of a mirror that doesn’t work?), something magical happened: The “mirror” jumped into life and played back the last 15 seconds of my life. No, it wasn’t something from “Back to the Future”–it was in fact a video kiosk on a delay loop. It took another 15 seconds for this the “ah ha” moment to sink in.
How fantastic to provide a kiosk solution that not only increases the “theater of retail,” but also provides a way for customers to check “Does my bum look big in this?” As a customer, I have raved about this experience. And yes, I bought the jeans, and I will go back.
Comments Windows Embedded Standard
Posted By Guillaume EstegassyWindows Embedded Business Group Lead for Japan
From attracting customers through digital signage to creating in-store dressing-room intelligent systems, technology is no doubt transforming the consumer experience. Today, Guillaume Estegassy brings you part one of our two-part blog series exploring these ‘smart’ shopping trends.
As a daily user of the remarkable Tokyo metro and train systems, alongside 40 million people (yes, that is daily), I started to notice something peculiar: empty conventional signage spaces.
Empty signage space in the Tokyo subway
Where you have an opportunity to reach tens of thousands of people a day in one given station, why isn’t every signage space occupied? Simply because they are evolving, from a past where static, “disconnected,” mono-directional communication tools are no longer relevant. Indeed, if I owned a business and wanted to increase my reach, what would compel me to rent this empty space? I’d want to know how many people look at it; whether they are men, women, adults, kids; how long they looked at it; and if they were happy, or making a face. I’d want to see the data to support the claims, too. Am I asking for too much? Not anymore. As the technology is becoming available today, these questions are also part of the thinking process when considering digital signage.
Posted By Steve DunbarWindows Embedded Lead, Northern Europe
Hello, blog readers! My name is Steve Dunbar, and as you can see from my bio, I am the business group lead for Northern Europe. The London newspaper The Times recently published a feature examining The Future of Retail, particularly how High Street brick-and-mortar operations are leveraging data to compete with online retailers to offer more personalization and lower prices. This conundrum was a core topic of discussion at a partner event I recently attended in Majorca, Spain, as it has a lot of relevancy to our own intelligent systems vision.
Toshiba Connect Europe 2013 (formerly IBM Business Partner University) is an educational business briefing and networking opportunity by Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions business (TGCS). The event provided insight into current issues facing retailers, and creative ways sales teams can craft and install intelligent business solutions to meet customer needs. Throughout the event, speakers and sessions reinforced the continued drive to work with partners to create solutions that integrate the various consumer touch points.
Posted By Pranish KumarGroup Program Manager, Windows Embedded Automotive
Today, Microsoft launched the “Designing the Future of the Intelligent Car” digital series to showcase the team we have working on Microsoft’s automotive solutions and our vision for the intelligent car of the future. To kick-off the series I’ve asked the leader of the Windows Embedded Automotive team, Pranish Kumar, to provide some perspective on the team and the work they are doing.
Hi – I’m Pranish Kumar and as Group Program Manager for the Windows Embedded Automotive team, I lead the group of developers and designers responsible for building, designing, and maintaining our automotive technology. We released this video series today to introduce some of the team working on the technology that will bring about our vision for the intelligent vehicle. I’m proud of this team. Whether at work or at home, this team is so passionate about cars and the opportunity to use technology to improve the car experience. They bring their work and play together, with many members spending their free time on things like re-building hot rods and participating in car clubs. I invite you to watch the videos to meet the team behind our product and learn about what makes us tick.