It will launch an “Innovation Incubator” project in Portland, Oregon, to encourage, promote and support new software-based automotive technologies that are being developed by US technology start-ups. Portland is Jaguar Land Rover’s first overseas product development facility.
The focus will be on finding innovators who have great potential ideas, but need Jaguar Land Rover’s technical help to make these concepts a reality.
The Innovation Incubator project begins in May 2015 with an outreach programme to US universities. It will select around 120 start-up companies for Jaguar Land Rover to work with over the next decade.
Jaguar Land Rover has already run a pilot for the ‘Innovation Incubator’ programme and identified a project with a US technology start-up called Vonsor.
The Vonsor system is currently under development with Jaguar Land Rover’s engineering team in Portland. The system will allow drivers to take live footage from cameras inside and outside the vehicle, edit them together on the vehicle’s touchscreens and then share the footage on social media.
“This is completely in tune with the social media generation. People of all ages love to capture their experiences on their smartphones and share them, said Justyn Baker from Vonsor.
“The Vonsor system allows you to save both your on and off-road driving adventures, with cameras integrated in the vehicle filming anything from wheels articulating over an obstacle, to the whole family having fun inside the car whilst driving along,” he said as Jaguar Land Rover revealed InControl Touch Pro, its next generation infotainment and connected car technology in the new Jaguar XF.
“Vonsor would allow you to collate all of that footage, edit it together and post it all from the vehicle’s touchscreen – so everyone can share the experience.
“We met Jaguar Land Rover at a start-up pitch competition, and it has been great to get their support and insight. It has helped open my eyes to more possibilities than I had ever imagined.”
Developed by Jaguar Land Rover’s infotainment engineers in Britain and the United States, InControl Touch Pro is Jaguar Land Rover’s most connected infotainment system, and is more than 10 times faster than the system it replaces.
According to the company, Tthe system is so sophisticated that the XF won't just tell you the weather at your destination – it will allow you to send your estimated time of arrival to a friend. The car will then automatically keep your contact up-to-date with your progress via SMS should traffic conditions change and delay your journey.
Once you get to within 200 metres of your destination, Approach Mode will share 360 degree street-level view imagery to help you navigate at the end of your journey – and the car will transfer your route to your smartphone if you are completing your journey by foot or public transport.
This capability is delivered through a combination of a fast access 60GB Solid State Drive (SSD), which is around 100% faster than a typical hard disc drive, and the first automotive use of Intel’s Quad-Core computing and graphics processor.
Jaguar Land Rover said it is also the first car maker to integrate its infotainment architecture with an Ethernet network. This connects all the modules in the system and operates at a data transfer rate of up to 1Gbit/second, enabling InControl Touch Pro to handle the data transfer required of an advanced infotainment system.
