Mobile Computing News

Photo: Intel

The car stereo gets little attention in tech publications, particularly outside of satellite radio. But the reality is many people in the developed world spend an inordinate amount of time in their motor vehicles. A motor industry-meets-technology alliance, Genivi, has selected MeeGo – and, by extension, Intel Atom CPUs – to power their upcoming in-car stereo system.

Car alliance wants MeeGo

The folks over at Cnet Crave ran a story about Genivi, a motor industry-meets-technology alliance that includes the BMW group, PSA Peugeot Citroen and GM, having selected the MeeGo OS – which runs on Intel Atom CPUs, of course – as the framework for the group’s upcoming IVI system – the obtusely named in-vehicle infotainment system.

What else is known

Beyond the fact that MeeGo and Intel Atom chips are making their way into vehicles, few specifics are known. Which vehicles will get them, how they will work, how they will be priced, etc., are as yet undisclosed.

Worrying about the wrong things?

Photo: anw.fr / Flickr

When Nokia and Intel first announced MeeGo, the companies went to great pains to explain that this platform would go beyond mobile phones and netbooks. True to form, word of a MeeGo tablet emerged and this unexpected MeeGo-powered digital car stereo is yet another example of this.

But, even then, we still fear Intel and Nokia are worrying about the wrong things. Nokia clearly need to get back to basics with its mobile phones business, as well as invest in engineering talent to get its smartphones to a comparable level to market leaders. Intel, on the other hand, are performing extremely well – better than ever, in fact – but he company still does not have a clear roadmap in the high-growth smartphones and smart devices market. And with ARM doing as well as it is, this could over time turn into a two-horse race.

Or we could be dead wrong, and considering how many vehicles are on the roads today, this alliance could see Intel Atom chips regain a foothold against ARM processors, as well as MeeGo getting invaluable face time. We won’t lie, Intel Atom powered digital car stereos is a very interesting prospect.