Toyota to set up social networking service

Toyota is setting up a social networking service with the help of a U.S. Internet company and Microsoft so drivers can interact with their cars in ways similar to Twitter and Facebook.

Japanese automakerToyota MotorCorp. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced their alliance Monday to launch"Toyota Friend,"a private social network for Toyota owners that works similar to tweets onTwitter.

In a demonstration at a Tokyo showroom, an owner of a plug-in Prius hybrid found out through a cellphone message from hisPriuscalled"Pre-boy"that he should remember to recharge his car overnight.

When the owner plugged in his car to recharge it, the car replied,"The charge will be completed by 2:15 a.m. Is that OK? See you tomorrow."

The exchanges can be kept private, or be shared with other"Toyota Friend"users, as well as made public onFacebook, Twitter and other services, the company said.

The companies did not give details of how the technology, such as the content of the talking car's dialogues, will be managed. A launch where such details will be offered is set for Tuesday.

Toyota is investing 442 million yen ($5.5 million),MicrosoftCorp. is investing 335 million yen ($4.1 million) and Salesforce.com 223 million yen ($2.8 million) in the project.

Many cars are already equipped with navigation and other network-linking capabilities, and can function as a mobile device just like aniPhoneor a Blackberry.

Toyota's service, built on open-source cloud platforms that are the specialty of Salesforce.com, as well as on Microsoft's platform, will start in Japan in 2012, and will be offered later worldwide, according to Toyota.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda, a racing fan, said he always"talks"with his car when he is zipping around on the circuit.

With the popularity ofsocial networking, cars and their makers should become part of that online interaction, he said.

"I hope cars can become friends with their users, and customers will see Toyota as a friend,"he said.

Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff said social networks can add value to products and companies. It can also help Toyota gain massive information not only about their buyers but about how the car is working or not working, he said.

"I want a relationship with my car in the same way we have a relationship with our friends on social networks,"he said.

Toyoda, who has always been interested in telematics, or the use of Internet technology in autos, has been aggressive in forging alliances with new kinds of companies, including one with U.S. luxury electric carmaker Tesla Motors that he announced last year.

Partnerships with dot.com types have been a bright spot in Toyoda's bumpy career as president. He has faced growing doubts about reliability and transparency because of the massive global recalls that began two years ago, shortly after he took office, and which now affect more than 14 million vehicles.

Toyota is also battling parts shortages after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan destroyed key suppliers, hampering production.

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AIDA 2.0 brings a full panel, plus some, location display to drivers (w/ video)

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(PhysOrg.com) -- If you remember the AIDA (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent) system, which came out roughly a year and a half ago, then you remember that it was a joint project, made by MIT and Volkswagen,<a href="http://www.physorg.com/news176294342.html">that put a robot head in your dashboard</a>. The head gave driving directions to end users. The newest version, AIDA 2.0, has gotten rid of the talking head, and turned the entire view of the car into one large navigation display.

In the AIDA 2.0 system all of the information that the driver needs will be placed onto the dashboard and surrounding areas. While this will make the information easily accessible, it may also lead to potential distractions on the road. The new virtualdisplaynow consists of the entirety of thedashboard, the console, the instrument panel, and the wing mirrors. Working in conjunction, they create one virtual display that is able to update itself as you move.

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While this idea does seem really cool, like something out of a Tron movie, it does stretch the drivers view, and could potentially distract from the stretch of road in front of the driver, and the other cars on the road.

On the bright side, the system is both adaptive and considerate. The system will, over time, learn facts about you such as the types of places where you like to eat and the activities that you are interested in. Then, it will search through information about the area and tell you about things that you may be interested in that are close by. As with any adaptive system, the more you use it, the better it will become.

No word has been given yet about when consumers will see the AIDA 2.0 system in cars.

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Sony develops 'SmartAR' Integrated Augmented Reality technology

Sony has developed integrated‘Augmented Reality (hereafter referred to as‘AR’) technology’ called as“Smart AR.” When capturing visuals through a camera on a device such as a smartphone, the technology enables additional information to be displayed on the device’s screens such as virtual objects, or images and texts that cannot be identified by visual perception alone. The technology employs the markerless approach, forgoing any requirement for special markers such as 2D barcodes. The object captured by the camera is quickly recognized and can be tracked at high-speed along with the movement of the camera, as it is displayed over the actual 3D space.

AR technology has recently been the subject of much interest, and is being used in a variety of applications such as advertisements, promotions, games, and information searches. Sony began researching AR in 1994 with two-dimensional barcodes recognition (marker approach), and in 1998, it developed VAIO“PCG-C1” personal computers equipped with software which automatically recognized‘CyberCode.’

“SmartAR” technology combines‘object recognition technology’ (markerless approach in which no special markers are required) for recognition of general objects such as photographs and posters with Sony’s own proprietary‘3D space recognition technology,’ which has been fostered through the research of robots such as“AIBO” and“QRIO.” With“SmartAR” technology objects can be recognized and tracked at high-speed. In addition to displaying virtual objects or additional image or text information (hereafter,‘AR information’), the technology also facilitates the expression of AR information over an extended space, thus producing a dynamic, large-scale AR experience.

Furthermore, information can be acquired or navigated by simply touching the AR information directly on the screen of the smartphone or other device, thus achieving an intuitive and seamless user interface that is unique to“SmartAR.”

Main features

(1) Object recognition that enables the markerless approach
  AR information can be displayed on the captured image which appears on a device’s screen, including those images that do not have any special markers for AR. This technology is also compatible with image recognition technologies that use conventional markers (such as“CyberCode”). Because“SmartAR” can recognize everyday objects such as posters and menus, it has the potential for a wide variety of applications.

  “SmartAR” object recognition technology identifies objects by analyzing features detected from a portion of the image (hereafter,‘local features’) together with their positional relationship. Our feature matching technology that employs a proprietary probabilistic method that matches local features with minimal calculations enables high-speed recognition that is resistant to changes in lighting or the position of the object. In addition, recognition is still possible even if the object captured appears to be comparatively small in the display.

(2) High-speed tracking (‘rapid&accurate’)
  Sony achieved its natural-feeling‘rapid&accurate’ AR by quickly displaying AR information on the screen and then tracking the camera’s movements at high-speed. This has been realized by combining object recognition technology with our proprietary matching technology that uses features detected from a portion of the image (‘local features’) and image tracking technology that is capable of dealing with changes in the shape of the object.

(3) 3D space recognition
  With our dynamic, large-scale AR, virtual objects can be merged with 3D structures detected in the physical world. For example, even if the AR image is a gigantic virtual character whose size exceeds the dimensions of the device’s screen, the technology allows the user to grasp the entirety of the virtual character when the camera is moved around. Furthermore, it is also possible to move the virtual object in the actual 3D space as if it were really there.

  Three-dimensional space recognition technology is based on use of the disparity observed by the camera movements to estimate the shape of the 3D space and the position and angle of the camera. By combining this with object recognition technology, devices become capable of identifying and remembering 3D space constructions.

(4) AR Interaction
  Information can be intuitively acquired and navigated by directly touching the AR information displayed on the smartphone or device’s screen. The distinctiveness of“SmartAR” technology comes from the user interface which enables users to naturally use and operate additional information and virtual objects.

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