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Cadillac‘s latest in-vehicle connectivity and control module, called CUE, has been given a big boost by receiving the Top Gadgets of 2012: Editor’s Choice Award by Popular Mechanics magazine.

The award was presented to Cadillac at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV. Cadillac was the only auto manufacturer to walk away with an award from Popular Mechanics.

The CUE was picked because of its innovative technology and potential impact on the industry.

Andrew Del-Colle, assistant editor of Popular Mechanics magazine said; “After seeing an earlier demonstration of the system at the Los Angeles Auto Show, I knew it would be a strong candidate for an award at CES. The show offered a great opportunity to compare the CUE with many other OEM and aftermarket systems, and it stood out to us for its innovative use of new standards such as HTML 5, as well as for its intuitive user interface.”

CUE brings the first application of capacitive touch in an automobile. It uses electrodes to sense conductive properties of objects such as fingers. This system is similar to the touch and interaction one gets from gadgets like the iPad.

Other key aspects of CUE are natural speech recognition, Bluetooth connectivity for up to 10 devices and a motorized concealed storage compartment. The system runs on an ARM 11 3-core processor on a Linux open-source HTML5-based software platform.

The CUE system will debut in the Cadillac XTS and the ATS, and will be thus available to consumers from this summer.


For those who don't know of CUE here are a few videos featuring it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QigWHfZS2lc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMeKWF2Di2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62u7rjjn1Ro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oI7-7aizA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDgrr4aQg8M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0yi2soVSY
Much more videos on youtube. Just search Cadillac CUE

Personally think this system is worth it. Looking at all the videos it seems to work relatively well. The way Cadillac mounted the monitor inside the ATS is really fluid. It doesn't stand out and it fits right in the classy interior.

Here is an article featuring the CUE system

Smart control systems for future cars
Carmakers are working on entirely new control systems for the cars of the future that will work like smartphones or tablet computers.

Some of the designs were on show at the recent Detroit Motor Show and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Conventional knobs, levers and switches might soon be a thing of the past and even the touch-sensitive screens found in the dashboards of many cars of today will be replaced as carmakers rapidly try to find clever solutions to the array of operating systems.

“With such a lot of data coming to the driver today and so many new possibilities, the conventional operating systems are not enough,” says Mercedes researcher Bharat Balasubramanian.

Like a smartphone or tablet PC the simple movement of a hand or finger would be enough to activate a function. “Cameras and infra-red sensors recognise the movement of the hand and measure the distance with the electronics, thus understanding every movement pattern and command,” according to Audi developer Werner Hamberger.

Audi showcased at the Las Vegas event a cockpit fitted with three head-up displays that project important information onto the windscreen.

The image to the left can only be seen by the driver while the image to the right can only be seen by the passenger. The central image can be seen by both.

It works something like this. The central image shows up several menus from which the driver and passenger can choose. The passenger can for instance choose a short film about a hotel or museum. Should the driver be convinced by the passenger that it is the right destination, a simple wink to the left can be chosen to enter the destination into the GPS system.

Similar steps are being taken by Mercedes with its Dice system. A white dice shows the vision of a car interior for the future with a steering wheel but a complete absence of levers and switches. Simple gestures suffice to scroll through a menu and to choose sub-menus for certain operations.

According to designer Hartmut Sinkwitz, the entire windscreen more or less functions as a computer screen. Simply by pointing a finger music can be downloaded into the car from a disco nearby. The GPS system pinpoints places of friends, and hotels or cinema tickets can be bought while driving past.

These systems are not simply dreams. In Detroit the Cadillac ATS featured a newly developed CUE system that works with only four switches compared to some 20 for a normal car radio.

The next-generation Ford Mondeo, called the Fusion in the US, has a system developed jointly with Microsoft. The Sync-System works in conjunction with speech-recognition that can also be used for external gadgets like a mobile phone. The new Dodge Dart has a touchscreen almost as large as a tablet PC.

According to Audi's Hamberger, we are still some years away from a head-up display that can be operated by hand movements. However, a new touchwheel system for the GPS will be in the new Audi A3. A destination can be chosen with the tip of the finger, making cumbersome scrolling through the alphabet obsolete. -Sapa-dpa
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