A Spin Around The Convergence Show Floor

I had a lot of fun Tuesday afternoon, spending a couple of hours on the show floor of Convergence 2008, where the car meets the computer.

This automotive technology show took up somewhere around 200,000 square feet, the better part of the Wayne and Oakland halls, of Cobo Center, as nearly 150 exhibitors showed off their wares.

Previous Convergence shows seemed focused on in-vehicle entertainment, with display after display of seven-inch LCD screens embedded in the back of front headrests.

You can see just how much the in-vehicle electronics business has matured. Get ready for insanely cool electronic instrument panels based on flat-panel TV technology, with diagnostics, entertainment and navigation options that will turn the vehicle into what it's long been described as by tech types -- another node on the network. You'll also start seeing lane departure warning systems getting as common as backup cameras are today.

Some of the display highlights I saw:

* Methode Electronics, which provided some of the sensors for the Bombardier Spyder, a three-wheeled motorcycle with two wheels in front and one in back -- essentially a snowmobile on wheels. (Actually saw one last week on Hines Drive in Plymouth Township, and wondered what the heck it was.)

* A rolling demonstration of a video-based lane departure warning system from Atmel.

* Magneti Morelli displayed a full VGA TFT flat panel instrument cluster that could be set to show an old-fashioned analog display -- or anything else an automaker might choose to offer.

* Continental showed very cool instrument cluster concepts -- traditional round gauges on either side of a popup LCD screen that could display gauges, navigation information or collision-avoidance forward radar that scans past the limit of headlights.

* Maybe coolest of all was Hella's front camera, now actually in production on the Opel Insignia. Not only does it work with the vehicle's lane departure warning system (it tells you if you start drifting out of a lane, unless your turn signal is on) -- IT ACTUALLY READS TRAFFIC SIGNS. Included are stuff like stop and speed limit signs.

* Well, except for the amazing trick pool shot demonstration and combination sales pitch by the embedded software firm Vector. Wow.

Convergence 2008 wraps up today.

Print Page

Email This Page

GLITR Newsletter

GLITR Thursday, November 5, 2009

GLITR Wednesday, November 4, 2009

GLITR Tuesday, November 3, 2009

GLITR Monday, November 2, 2009

GLITR Friday, October 30, 2009