Hyundai, Kia Get Onboard with Microsoft

By Nick Mokey Published May 5, 2008

Hyundai, Kia Get Onboard with Microsoft — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Having proven its mettle in the automotive industry with the Ford Sync in-car systems, which allow for everything from voice-activated music to Bluetooth-radio integration, Microsoft has been able to attract a major Asian automaker to its onboard computer systems as well. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it had entered into long-term agreement with the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group to develop its next generation of in-car entertainment.

Although details were sparse, the first Microsoft-powered system in a Hyundai or Kia will appear stateside in 2010. Microsoft says it will provide “voice-controlled connectivity between mobile devices,” which will likely make it similar in function to the existing Ford Sync. Later devices will venture into multimedia and navigation, built on an updateable PC-like platform.

Recommended Videos

“The advanced capabilities, flexibility and low price point make the Microsoft Auto software platform an attractive solution for us,” said Hyun Soon Lee, president and chief technology officer of HKAG, in a statement. Although the company hasn’t publicly speculated about what the systems will cost to equip, Ford offers the Sync for only $395, a relative bargain compared to what other automakers charge for similar features.

Former Editor in Chief

As Digital Trends’ Editor in Chief, Nick Mokey oversees an editorial team covering every gadget under the sun, along with…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Emerging Tech

Amazon is full of copycats and shady brands. This Chrome extension lets you avoid them.

Advertisement, Poster, Text

Shopping on Amazon used to be simple. You searched for a product, compared a few familiar brands, and checked out. These days, it often feels like you're scrolling through an endless parade of names that look like someone leaned on a keyboard before hitting publish. That's exactly the problem Knockoff is trying to solve.

Created by developer Josh Pigford, the Chrome extension doesn't promise to expose counterfeit products or magically tell you what's good. Instead, it tackles something arguably more annoying: the flood of unfamiliar, mass-produced brands that dominate Amazon search results.

Emerging Tech

AI agent reportedly carried out an entire ransomware attack on its own

AI didn't just write malware. It apparently clocked in for work.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity researchers say they have documented what could be the first ransomware attack carried out almost entirely by an autonomous AI agent, marking a significant shift in how cyberattacks could be conducted in the future. According to cloud security firm Sysdig, they have uncovered a ransomware operation dubbed JadePuffer that appears to have relied on a large language model (LLM) agent to perform nearly every stage of the attack without continuous human intervention.

If confirmed, the incident suggests AI is moving beyond writing malicious code and into actively planning, adapting, and executing cyberattacks in real time.

Emerging Tech

The Washington Post predicted how tech will advance 50 years ago and the success rate is humbling

The Washington Post predicted 2026 tech in 1976. It got a lot right.

Representative Image

Fifty years ago, when floppy disks were cutting-edge and the personal computer revolution had barely begun, The Washington Post attempted a remarkably ambitious exercise: predict what life in 2026 would look like. Some of those predictions now read like science fiction. Others feel surprisingly ordinary because they have become part of everyday life.

In a retrospective published for America's 250th anniversary, the newspaper revisited science editor Thomas O'Toole's 1976 article Inventing the Future, comparing its forecasts with today's technological reality. The results reveal that while predicting exact timelines is nearly impossible, identifying long-term scientific trends can be remarkably accurate.