Weekly Brief: The big brand party

In this week’s Brief: Apple, Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, Volvo, Chevrolet, Google, Waze, Facebook, U.S. Federal Government, Cohda Wireless, BMW, University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, NXP Semiconductors, NHTSA, Navitel, Masternaut and E.Novation.

It’s a testament to how far the industry has come. Many of the big names in telematics are today big names to a universal audience. They include Verizon, Sprint, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. And all are stepping up efforts to put their stamp on the in-car environment.

Last week, Apple made its latest gambit with a new iteration of its mobile operating system (iOS 7), which will come equipped with a replication interface built specifically for in-car touchscreens. This seems to be a direct move against the Nokia-led Car Connectivity Consortium, which, for several years now, has been pushing MirrorLink as a standard for smartphone screen replication.

Apple’s new replication interface will make it easy for auto OEMs to reproduce apps from customers' smartphones on their dashboards. The first apps to be available will be music (like Pandora), navigation, email (iMessage) and phone, although Apple may open the door to other apps in the near future.

A host of auto OEMs has already jumped on board with plans to roll the technology out in 2014, including Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, Volvo and Chevrolet.

Meanwhile, Google finalized plans to purchase Waze, the Israeli real-time, crowd-sourced traffic provider, for $1.3 billion. Recall that Apple had been on the precipice of buying Waze, as had Facebook.

Google will no doubt use the Waze to buff up its real-time traffic offerings, which currently pale in comparison to the comprehensiveness of its map database. Waze has 47 million users around the world. The Google acquisition still has to clear competition regulatory hurdles.

The U.S. federal government took a stance on the controversial spectrum-sharing topic, announcing that the Obama administration will devote $100 million toward researching technologies that make it easier for federal agencies to share the spectrum under their auspices with wireless carriers, thus providing more space for faster wireless broadband.

President Obama created a Spectrum Sharing Team that aims to reduce the hurdles between carriers and federal agencies, and to eliminate some of the bureaucracy and regulation that hampers broader access.

Cohda Wireless launched a new pilot to test vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications in relation specifically to motorcycle safety. The pilot will include University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute and motorcycle manufacturers BMW and Honda.

The team will test motorcycles equipped with Cohda’s RoadLINK chipset (created with NXP Semiconductors), which enables V2V communications for safety applications like intersection collision warnings, forward collision warnings and emergency electronic brake lights.

According to NHTSA, motorcycle accidents represent 5% of all highway fatalities, but 80% of motorcycle accidents result in injury or death as compared to 20% for cars.

Navigation specialist Navitel released new navigation software for the Windows Phone 8. Dubbed Navitel Navigator (version 7.5.0.1284, in case you were keeping track), the app offers a number of interactive features.

Navitel.Friends! allows users to see friends’ locations on a map in real time, and to navigate to those locations. Navitel.Events then lets users mark events on a road trip and share them with friends. Navitel Navigator for Windows Phone will also provide basics like free traffic updates and optimal routing.

Finally, telematics fleet provider Masternaut acquired E.Novation, a German-based data service provider, in an attempt to beef up its data aggregation and processing capabilities of tachograph data.

With the acquisition, Masternaut will eliminate the need for customers to manually collect driver and vehicle information, including speed, driving and resting times, and historical details like mileage.

“The telematics market is currently in a very exciting place,” says Martin Hiscox, chairman and CEO of Masternaut. “Customer demand is higher than ever and, as a result, we’re seeing huge potential for innovation and growth, which we’re committed to leading from the very forefront.”

The Weekly Brief is a round-up of the week's top telematics news, combining TU analysis with information from industry press releases.