Hitachi and Clarion to accelerate development of connected cars

SANTA CLARA, USA: Hitachi Data Systems Corp. (HDS) announced a partnership with Clarion Corp. of America, a leader in consumer and commercial mobile electronics, to jointly research and develop new data-driven solutions for deployment in the next generation of Clarion in-vehicle connectivity products.

The collaboration will give drivers and manufacturers usable insights that will lead to improved auto performance and safety, increasing value across the burgeoning market for connected cars.

It is expected that by 2020, 50 billion devices -- smart physical objects -- will be connected to each other and to humans using the Internet. IDC estimates 42 percent of all data will come from machines in that same timeframe.
Further, IHS projected that 152 million connected cars will be on the highway by 2020. Machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will play a key role in harnessing the power of the Internet of Things as it touches all industries. Analytics will play a critical role in the evolution of M2M because it allows humans to interpret machine behavior.

The ability to analyze data in real time lets people make predictions better and faster. The result is that we begin to shift from descriptive and diagnostic insights that focus on the past and the present, to predictive analytics that help us anticipate and prepare for the probable future. This is one of the most enticing aspects of a maturing Internet of Things.

Together, Hitachi Data Systems and Clarion will further explore this data-driven side of in-vehicle connectivity to bring connected services to existing cars, trucks and fleets. This collaboration builds upon strengths of each company and aims to establish packaged solutions that obtain, correlate, and visualize onboard data (OBD) that will be available in nearly all automobiles.

The two companies expect to formulate new physical and virtual solutions that bring added value to both the consumer and the manufacturer by providing more intelligent and enhanced onboard equipment, and by fostering a closer relationship between the provider and the end user.