The widespread adoption of telematics technology will occur only after problems are solved in three basic areas: infrastructure, the human interface and economics.
To offer the greatest value, the telematics infrastructure has to provide at least five essential elements: current map data; real-time traffic, construction and hazard conditions; location-based commerce promotion; on-demand entertainment and information content like books on tape and pay-per-view videos; and automated theft or collision-response systems.
Except for the human interface, most of the technical hurdles for all current telematics applications have been solved. But the ways in which human requests are made to the telematics computer, and the ways in which the telematics computer offers feedback and responses to the human user, must evolve significantly. Today, the driver is often the one who initiates the interaction with the telematics system, which causes an unwanted distraction.
We expect that voice recognition and synthesis will mitigate concerns about distraction. Further, we expect that significant improvements to current voice-processing techniques will be required prior to mass adoption.
The remaining hindrance to mass adoption is economic. In today's economic downturn, it is very difficult to finance the development of telematics infrastructure. In such a climate, consumers will be slow to equip their vehicles with telematics capabilities that they consider to be expensive luxury items with limited capabilities-limits dictated by the immaturity or plain absence of infrastructure support.
Given these factors, how will telematics emerge? First of all, commercial and industrial users will adopt telematics ahead of consumers. And investment in commercial telematics systems will seed the development of the consumer telematics infrastructure.
Second, commercial telematics systems will take advantage of lower-cost, consumer-friendly services made possible by improved infrastructure and new technology. In many cases, today's specialized commercial telematics systems will evolve into tomorrow's mass-market consumer telematics devices.
Kelvin Nilsen is chief technology officer at NewMonics Inc. (Phoenix).
