In Advance of CES, AT&T Announces Drive and AT&T Drive Studio Connected Car Initiatives at Its Developer Conference and Hackathon

AT&T’s Developer Conference and Hackathon had a decidedly connected slant which explains the company’s announcements on Monday as it moves forward with its AT&T Drive and AT&T Drive Studio connected car initiatives. These two programs are evolving to facilitate the ability for developers to work with automotive manufacturers to integrate apps.

- AT&T announced new third party applications that will be available for auto manufacturers to use in future cars via the AT&T Drive platform.

- Participants at the AT&T Developer Summit Hackathon were the first to access APIs in the forthcoming AT&T Drive Software Developers Kit.

- AT&T also announced that Samsung is a participant in the AT&T Drive Studio, an innovation center for connected car.

At the annual AT&T Developer Summit, AT&T announced five new applications for the company’s AT&T Drive connected car platform which will be available to auto manufacturers for their connected car options. These apps can provide drivers with services including remote diagnostics, streaming audiobooks and live radio. Developers who used the AT&T Drive platform to create these apps include AetherPal, Audiobooks, Dash Radio, eventseeker, and Glympse.  

AT&T Drive is the company’s connected car platform offering a modular, global solution that allows automakers to pick and choose which services and capabilities are important to them in order to differentiate their solutions in the marketplace. From connectivity and billing solutions to data analytics, infotainment, and firmware over-the-air updates, AT&T Drive allows automakers and developers to implement their own customized connected car solutions. Drive’s cloud-based app platform can deliver speech-enabled applications designed specifically for cars, so that drivers have access to the information they need while on the road.

“We want to give our connected car drivers applications that provide enhanced in-car experiences while continuing to focus on driver safety,” said Chris Penrose, senior vice president, Internet of Things, AT&T Mobility.  “Our goal with AT&T Drive is to bring together the top players in the industry to collaborate and drive innovation for end users -- and these players do just that.”

Among the new application providers for AT&T Drive is AetherPal, which provides remote support solutions for drivers and their cars. Through its Smart CareTM product portfolio, AetherPal enables customer care representatives to diagnose, address and resolve issues in real time, from application and network issues to problems arising from configurations and settings to common new user questions. AetherPal’s Connected Car solution is designed specifically to support in-vehicle applications.

Audiobooks.com is a digital audiobook distributor with a subscription-based service.  Focused on instant delivery, users will be able to browse and instantly stream or download audiobooks to their connected car. The application integrates with major in-car infotainment systems to offer commuters an effortless and optimized listening experience controlled via the vehicle’s touchscreen. The service caters to a modern multi-device lifestyle by syncing bookmarks across all of a user’s compatible devices, making it easy to listen to audiobooks in their connected car, and easily pick them up in the same place on their smartphones, tablets and computers.  Listeners can enjoy audiobooks from a massive library of over 55,000 titles with new releases added every week.

Dash Radio is one of the largest all original digital radio network in the world. Founded by a group of the world's biggest DJs who wanted to bring the enjoyment back to radio Dash Radio offers commercial free programming zero across its 60 plus original live stations.  

Eventseeker is a personalized event service with a focus on minimizing search and maximizing discovery. The application taps into users’ social, music and device libraries to find artists, teams, comedians and interests that are used to provide relevant alerts and recommendations on events in the user’s area. Using location API’s in the connected car, users can invite friends and purchase tickets to any event within seconds.

As a location sharing platform, Glympse allows connected car drivers to share their location in real-time with anyone, eliminating the need for phone calls or text messages while driving. In conjunction with AT&T and the Drive Platform, Glympse is introducing the second phase of its location sharing experience, integrating multiple touch-points, including the connected car, mobile devices and wearable technology. The capability to seamlessly transfer the session between devices was made possible through work done at the AT&T Foundry innovation center.

AT&T Drive Studio’s sponsorship agreement with Samsung includes software solutions around IMS service and their handsets, tablets and wearable devices. Located in Atlanta, the more than 5,000-square foot AT&T Drive Studio features working garage bays, a speech lab, a full showroom to exhibit the latest innovations, conference facilities, and much more. Drive Studio integrates AT&T solutions across multiple companies and serves as a hub where AT&T can respond to needs of automotive manufacturers and the auto ecosystem at large.

This weekend in Las Vegas at the AT&T Developer Summit, hackathon participants used the AT&T Drive Software Development Kit which contains tools and documentation that enables fast and standardized development of automotive apps for AT&T’s automotive service delivery platform, the AT&T Drive Platform. 

Applications built for AT&T Drive talk to each other, share information, communicate with the cloud, and communicate with the vehicle via a centralized data and event controller built into the AT&T Drive middleware and exposed through a JavaScript API.  Vehicle capabilities made available during the 2015 AT&T Developers Summit include mapping and navigation, vehicle and driver information and notification APIs.  The AT&T Drive Software Development Kit will be available for broader use in 2015.

For more information visit the AT&T  Developers portal.