Susan Kuchinskas looks at how different types of connectivity and applications can complement one another in the connected vehicle while the sexy story is infotainment services—connecting the car to Twitter—there's a compelling safety story in networking the safety systems already in cars and the new ones being developed. Continental, for example, has introduced ContiGuard, a concept that will integrate active and passive safety systems, cameras, sensors, V2V and V2X communications, and the HMI. The goal of the technology, which continues to evolve, is to reduce accidents and damage. read on

ITS Japan launches a preparatory initiative for traffic safety during natural disasters, as DENSO begins testing V2X technology in China. In this week's Brief: DENSO Corporation, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, ITS Japan, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Pioneer Corp, Viktoria Institute, Volvo Cars, Ericsson, Göteborg Energi, ABI Research, Navmii, and Yandex
DENSO Corporation says it will begin testing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) technology on public roads in China starting March 22. DENSO V2X technology will be used to wirelessly communicate the vehicle position and speed of emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire engines to surrounding vehicles and roadside infrastructure.
When an emergency vehicle is approaching, the technology will change the traffic light at intersections and alert surrounding vehicles to switch lanes. Read on

Susan Kuchinskas explores how machine-to-machine (M2M) communications is creating an ‘Internet of things’ and what it means for the telematics industry.
 The Internet is typically experienced as a virtual realm of information, entertainment, and social networking. But as mobile technology becomes more and more sophisticated, an ‘Internet of things’ is emerging—devices and physical objects that have their own IP addresses and/or act as nodes on data networks that may be local, regional, or global. Read on