News broke earlier today that Samsung plans to provide telematics and infotainment technology to both South Korea's Hyundai and India's Tata. Coincidentally, a new patent application published by the US Patent Office last week illustrated that Samsung was working on a simple smartphone app to work with car controls.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor
According to a new report published today, "Samsung Electronics will strengthen its partnership with Hyundai Motor in South Korea to enhance its automotive chip solution business, according to company officials."
Samsung plans to expand the sale of its embedded multi-media cards (eMMCs) and embedded multi-chip packages (eMCPs) to Hyundai vehicles based on the solid corporate partnership.
"Hyundai has partnered with Samsung on various automotive chip solutions supported by the government. Such collaboration can be strengthened, depending upon the situation," said a Hyundai Motor spokesman.
The spokesman further noted that "smart keys" and "around view" solutions are two products of the Samsung-Hyundai partnership so far.
India's Tata Motors
In India, Tata Motors and Samsung have entered into a collaboration under which the South Korean electronics major will provide in-car infotainment systems to the Indian auto maker.
Tata Motors would launch passenger vehicles next year equipped with Samsung's 'Drive Link Application' on MirrorLink technology that will help driver to navigate, answer calls and access Internet and music.
Tata Motors Passengers Vehicles Unit President Ranjit Yadav said at the Delhi Auto Expo that "We will introduce passenger cars in the market equipped with the technology within the next year."
Simple Samsung Car Network Features
In a Samsung's patent application that was published by the US Patent and Trademark in late January 2014, they refer to future smartphones working in sync with future vehicles via a car network.
As noted below in patent FIG. 14A, Samsung states that "if a user sets a certain user mode and executes an application having a function of controlling an external apparatus in a car network through the user terminal apparatus before the user enters a car, the user terminal apparatus generates a control signal that includes environment information corresponding to the user mode to control the external apparatus in the car network.
Samsung further states that "If the control signal is transmitted, environments of external apparatuses in the car network may be set according to the control signal. For example, if environment information corresponding to a host mode includes environment information about a handle and a seat, a height of the handle is adjusted, and an inclination of a back of the seat, a height of the seat, a position of the seat, etc. are adjusted as shown in FIG. 14B."
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