Ford OpenXC goes beta, promises custom in-car apps
updated 04:55 pm EST, Thu February 16, 2012
Ford ships OpenXC beta dev kits for in-car apps
Ford's OpenXC open-source in-car app platform is now in the beta stage, with developers and universities getting the developer kits. The carmaker hopes to speed up in-car app development with the platform, and has revealed the first third-party app created with the toolkit. The app lets a driver send an automatic location update to a selected group of contacts that would advise them using a text or e-mail if a driver is late for a meeting.
Among the first to get the beta development kit are the University of Michigan, MIT, and Stanford University, along with developers such as Weather Underground and India's HCL Technologies, which developed the first app.
The platform was created with Ford Research and Innovation and Bug Labs. It includes an interface module with the Arduino platform that reads data from the vehicle's own communication network for sensor data, GPS location, speed, and more.
