Wind River, Intel Brining Linux to Vehicles

Wind River and Intel have announced a partnership to bring Linux-based "infotainment" to vehicles using Intel's Atom processor.

Wind River Systems and Intel have announced a partnership to develop an open-source platform for in-vehicle “infotainment” systems built on Intel’s forthcoming low-power Atom processor. Unlike most existing in-vehicle platforms like Microsoft’s Sync that offer Internet access, Web browsing, traffic information, and similar services, an open source system wouldn’t be locked into a particular vendor or sef ot technologies, potentially enabling a broader range of consumer choice and customization options. BMW, Bosch, Delphi, and Magneti Marelli are already on board to support the initiative.

“Wind River, together with Intel, is developing an open, extensible software platform around which a rich ecosystem will evolve,” said Wind River’s chief marketing officer John Bruggeman, in a statement. “Not only will this accelerate the pace at which new and compelling automotive applications are developed, we believe this will also allow new business models to emerge in the infotainment market.”

According to Wind River, the infotainment platform will be based on Linux and integrate third-party networking and multimedia applications, including support for DVD and video playback, music, Bluetooth devices, speech recognition, and text-to-speech technology. The platform will be made available to the open source community through a new in-vehicle segment with the Moblin.org Web site; the first drop should be available in August 2008. The in-vehicle infotainment system is just one of several open source initiatives in which Wind River is participating, including Eclipse and the LiMo foundation.

In-vehicle information systems pose a particular challenge to the automotive industry, which must design products years ahead of when they actually reach consumers. Conversely, information technology has a short development and life cycle, so auto manufacturers are looking for systems that can evolve over the ownership of a vehicle while still providing useful services to consumers.