Panasonic and IBM partner to develop Watson for smart vehicles
Panasonic has unveiled a vehicle infotainment platform that incorporates IBM's Watson and cloud technologies. The system uses Watson's deep natural language processing to answer questions, provide recommendations and directions en route. It also includes e-commerce capabilities for in-vehicle purchases. At CES 2017, Panasonic will demonstrate a meal being ordered verbally via the infotainment system at a quick service restaurant, which is then paid for from the car and timed for precise pick-up while still en-route to the restaurant. Also at CES 2017, Panasonic and Qualcomm announced they are developing an Android-based infotainment system.

The platform leverages Watson cognitive capabilities, including deep natural language processing and understanding, to answer questions and provide recommendations as well as directions while en route. The platform also introduces e-commerce capabilities for convenient in-vehicle purchases to make the most of a driver's time, as well as possible future cognitive driving solutions that monitor the vehicle condition for safer driving.

At CES 2017, Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America introduced the Panasonic Cognitive Infotainment platform designed to provide OEMs and fleet providers a set of cognitive vehicle solutions combining Panasonic’s infotainment expertise with IBM’s Watson and cloud technologies.

At CES 2017, Panasonic Automotive will demonstrate how the Panasonic Cognitive Infotainment conducts an e-Commerce transaction with a quick service restaurant. In a step-by-step demonstration, CES attendees will see how a meal order can be verbally placed through the infotainment system, paid for from the car and timed for more precise pickup while still driving to the restaurant.

Panasonic Automotive was looking to push the boundaries of what in-vehicle infotainment systems might mean to tech-savvy and time-crunched travelers when we approached IBM. Working together, we are creating an enhanced set of cognitive capabilities that can give drivers and passengers a superior, more accurate, just-in-time in-vehicle experience while allowing them to keep mobile. —Tom Gebhardt, President, Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America

This new platform is designed in collaboration with both Panasonic Systems Company of North America—responsible for more efficient strategic retail business systems—and IBM, leveraging the company’s cognitive technology via its Watson APIs.

Panasonic Automotive is building on Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform, which enables access to Watson APIs including Conversation, Natural Language Classifier, Text to Speech, Speech to Text and Personality Insights. Bluemix will also enable Panasonic to integrate weather and Twitter data into their solutions to showcase additional insights into the vehicle experience.

Our partnership with Panasonic Automotive will enable a greatly enhanced driving experience. Vehicles integrated with the Panasonic Cognitive Infotainment system hold the potential for new industry breakthroughs that provide an intelligent, personal assistant inside the car. —David Miller, General Manager, Global Industrial Sector

The PCI technology will be on display at CES 2017 in the new Chrysler Portal Virtual Concept at the Panasonic booth and also displayed at IBM's Client Center at the Venetian Hotel.

Panasonic, Qualcomm and Android. Also at CES 2017, Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America and Qualcomm Technologies announced that they are working together to develop a next-generation Android-based in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system.

As part of the demonstration, Panasonic Automotive and Qualcomm Technologies have integrated Android 7.0 features to give drivers a unified experience across an automaker’s entire vehicle lineup, adjusting for different applications, screen sizes and resolutions. This adaptive user interface design concept is a cost-saving feature that will allow OEMs to optimize their system engineering investments and customize the infotainment system across vehicle lineups.

Using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820Am processor, this concept system is based on the latest version of the Android operating system (7.0 Nougat), which is designed to provide automakers with a superior, high-performing platform to quickly develop cloud-connected infotainment systems, helping accelerate the rate of innovation in both the in-vehicle infotainment experience as well as the connected car.

The concept system will demonstrate how new connected services and applications will deliver a safety-focused and intuitive driving experience to consumers. The next-generation infotainment demonstration takes advantage of the high-performing connectivity, multimedia and graphics capabilities integrated into the Snapdragon 820Am automotive processor, including integrated X12 LTE modem supporting up to 600 Mbps downlink and 150 Mbps uplink speeds, integrated location services, power-efficient, custom-built quad-core Qualcomm Kryo CPU, Qualcomm Hexagon 680 DSP, Qualcomm Adreno™ 530 GPU for video processing capabilities and support for multiple high-definition displays.

At CES, Panasonic Automotive and Qualcomm Technologies are showcasing this latest IVI system built upon Android’s automotive features that control in-vehicle functions such as HVAC, and demonstrate the integration of Google’s services and popular Android applications with the system.

This next-generation IVI system concept features the Panasonic Automotive passenger application, which is designed to address the challenges that passengers have when entering navigation destinations or controlling music.