VIMO™  will  incorporate GPS navigation, mobile TV, mobile Internet, MP3, smartphone, and other vehicle gadgets.  Voice tags will be enabled, too.  Using a stylus on PDA at the wheel will be ancient history by 2011. 

When do you think VIMO™ will show up on your vehicle dashtop?

VIMO™  is  WiMAX-compliant all-in-one Dashtop Mobile Equipment, with a key function as User-owned menu-driven User-centric virtual payment terminal. It is expected to show up on your vehicle dashtop between 2011 and 2013 or perhaps much earlier than that.  It only depends on  how early the market comes awake to the need of  paying or shopping while driving at 0 to 80 mph.

In DriveOnPay™ , VIMO™   is a CPE (Consumer Premise Equipment), about the size of a VHS video tape. When  a vehicle with a VIMO™ installed on the dashboard enters a 5-mile range of a WiMAX-enabled Base Station (BS), the dashtop device is activated automatically to prompt User to decide  whether or not to start a wireless transaction.

If User decides to start any transaction, then the proprietary menu will show up on the VIMO™ screen in real time, as opposed to web-based online transactions.

Even for elderly eyes and vision problems, the VIMO™ screen is large enough as opposed to the current mobile phones leaning toward youth preferences, such as small letters on the phone screen and keypads overcrowded with keys and buttons.     

Big LCD Screen offers new Mobile Domain
               
The VIMO™ screen  is  based on  a touchscreen technology, and  keys or icons on the screen are large enough for elderly  Users and those with vision problems. The size of LCD touchscreen will be larger than a $20 bill that measures 61/8" (W) x  29/16"(L).

The menu screen will differ from  BS to BS, and transaction keys are featured with minimum redundancy.  In view of driving safety, dashtop mobile equipment will move toward utilizing more voice tags and less fingertip touches on touchscreens that will shift to non-glare OLED screens in another decade.

Video Games on VIMO™

Cellphone games are not very much played by Americans, according to Telephia Inc.  This is mainly because the screen size is limited. At present, there is no way to predict any future popularity of video games on dashtop, but nobody knows yet what lies ahead in terms of mobile video games and mobile technology world.

NEWS The Boston Globe  Cellphone games aren't ringing up sales

Given the VIMO™ screen size, dashtop mobile equipment featuring as large a screen as VIMO™  might be more luring for gamers than cellphones, to say the least.


Modes of Operations

DriveOnPay™ is a multimodal wireless broadband payment platform.
On an MG mode for tollgate operations, two buttons [START™] and [SHOOT™] are exclusively used for a fail-safe execution. On an MP mode for other than tollgate operations, JITeCGO™ (JUST-IN-TIME eCOMMERCE-ON-THE-GO) features are accentuated. For further details on  DriveOnPay™ modes of operations, click here.

VIMO™ will be mandatorily mounted on all the national vehicles, including rental vehicles and even on foreign vehicles coming into a country so that vehicles without VIMO™ will be penalized, while passing through a tollgate. For foreign vehicles crossing the border into a country, rental VIMO™ units can be arranged possibly through  ATA Carnet agencies.   For further information, please click here

If you want to see what VIMO™ may look like on a dashtop, please click
View of VIMO™ mounted on the center of dashtop

NEWS Samsung Electronics became the world's second-largest supplier of wireless handsets in the second quarter following weak European and Asian sales at Motorola Inc., which slid to the third position even as the entire market continued to experience solid growth.

Optimal price for VIMO™

What do you think will be the optimal consumer price? Retail prices of iPhone are presently set at $499 for 4GB and $599 for 8GB, respectively.  Pioneer Electronics' AVIC-D3 comes for $1000 and is  featured with navigation, A/V playback options, and Bluetooth-enabled hands-free interface for cellphones.

Meantime, iPhones, for example, are targeted at about 18 million subscribers, while VIMO™ is a mandatory on-vehicle equipment, once it is implemented. In other words, every vehicle has to be equipped with  a VIMO™ unit, regardless of whether it comes as a base model with a minimal optional feature or as a full-option unit. FYI, GPS navigation alone is not  a mandatory on-vehicle equipment in view of its part-time functionality.

The on-going dashtop sprawl will eventually converge to an all-in-one Dashtop Mobile Equipment that is to incorporate a host of gimmicks, gizmos and gadgets that individually function only on a part-time basis. And at the center of all these part-time functions is a growing need for a mobile payment platform that is guaranteed a real-time virtual-to-real bridge, secured mobility and 'always on' access. PayPal and Google's Checkout won't fit into this mobility world because they both are a one-trick pony, when it comes to payment options.

Considering that VIMO™ goes for each vehicle on a mandatory basis, the consumer price will be much lower than desktops, laptops and other 3G mobile phones. The BMP (Base Model Price) will estimably start at around $600, at the current market value. This is an assumption based on all the  mobile devices currently available on the market, but prospective manufacturers' prices will vary.

Design Challenge for Automakers

It is expected that automakers may encounter a sort of imminent design challenge in the next two to three years.  Top agendas may include 1) dashtop sprawl, 2) driving safety and 3) fuel efficiency.

Dashtop sprawl

In-vehicle electronic gadgets are growing in both numbers and sophistication. Besides, electronic components tend to account for more of a vehicle price, up to 40% of the vehicle price.

" What mobile gadget should come in the center of dashtop, which the GPS navigation is mounted on for now?" Put more simply, "dashtop sprawl" should be converged into one in-dash centerpiece. The current trend shows that a variety of vehicle gadgets are crowding dashtops, and they are destined to converge into one handy spot.

This issue arises as web mobility  enters a next stage, coupled with 4G networks
building up and the imminent upheaval of mobile telecommunications industry. This upheaval is foresahdowed by the ongoing change in the ranks of handset makers' market dominance and the "blurring borderline between telecom and media indstury". 

Meantime, the GPS navigation is an optional equipment, not a mandatory on-vehicle equipment, and vehicles do not necessarily require the full-time GPS navigation. What would happen to GPS navigation if a full-time all-in-one gadget on dashtop or in the dash center would emerge? Moreover, GPS navigators and satellite radios are satellite-based and will succumb to mobile broadband equipment enabled with 4G networks or mobile WiMAX in terms of hierarchy in  interoperability and functional  viability.

Wayne Cunningham, senior editor at CNET.com, recently said, " Of course, the upside is that we have a lot to look forward to in terms of integrating car cabin gadgets."
He also said, " The car industry also has the problem of much longer product cycles, where research and development of a car can take three years, and the model will go for a five-year production run."  Contrarily, the product cycle of electronics last three to six months at best. This is why ErgonoTech feels it is getting urgent that vehicle designers need to get conscious of ergonomic solutions  to the issue of dashtop sprawl .

Driving Safety

Vehicle instrument panels are getting crowded with a tendency of gradual spillover into dashtops. Click here to see how a dashtop is overcrowded with a lot of gadget
Driving safety revolves around driver focus that requires to minimize potential reasons for causing driver distraction. The wildly sprawling vehicle electronics may lead to split driver focus, and lawmakers are bent on crackdown on driving safety caused by this wayward sprawl of in-vehicle gadgets on dashtops. However, lawmakers and automakers have to see eye to eye on where to draw a chalk line or  a changeable  borderline between bad and good usage of in-vehicle electronics. Ironically enough, lawmakers may tend to look more into rearview mirrors to draw the chalk line, whereas automakers may be inclined to look forward way up front to stay ahead of competition.

Fuel efficiency

Automakers are confronted with a big challenge of saving fossil fuel, using more renewable energy or biofuel and reducing CO2 gas emissions. On the surface, it looks like every automaker is focused on micromanaging fuel economy. However, there is an event horizon invisible to automakers, from which their energy-saving R&D endeavors may not be able to escape: Traffic Congestion.

Individually, each different model of vehicles will be designed to save energy, utilize hybrid power trains, and consume environment-friendly fuel, with the aim of achieving fuel efficiency like 65 miles per gallon, which is pursued by some US lawmakers. On the contrary, will these green vehicles be able to achieve the intended fuel efficiency and enhance carbon sinks, against the backdrop of worsening traffic congestion fueled by the rapidly increasing car density?

In 2005, the global total of vehicles stood at 600 million, while over 50 million new vehicles have been rolling out of factories each year since 2000. It is safe to say that the world's vehicles will soar to 1.4 billion by 2015. It is crystal-clear that traffic congestion will get worse
as yeara go by, due to the growing number of vehicles.


Individual fuel efficiency vs. collective fuel efficiency

The individual fuel efficiency of each  vehicle versus the collective fuel efficiency of vehicle traffic may come as a new  ulterior motive for vehicle designers. A sum of  all the good things does not always produce the best result. Likewise, a specific vehicle traffic hypothetically comprising all the best fuel-efficient vehicles doesn't always generate the best traffic flow , the best road safety and the best environment-friendly ecosystem.

A school of fish motivated by swarm intelligence moves or swims like one collective body.
Each vehicle in a specific traffic flow does not have any vehicle-to-vehicle linkage  that can motivate the swarm intelligence.  

A research team at UCLA works on how to connect each vehicle in traffic via in-vehicle computer networks. And an MIT research team is focused on harnessing mobile phones to streamline urban traffic flows. In both cases, they have one thing in common: a blind spot in targeted vehicles. In other words, not all the vehicles in  specific traffic flows can be included in the research teams' intended projects. What is so important about  some vehicles excluded from the intended projects?

Because an anomaly caused by a few excluded vehicles in the same traffic may pose the weakest link in the chain of " traffic flow".  This anomaly may escalate to a butterfly effect in the end, thereby affecting the entire traffic.  The anomaly , a major drag on vehicle traffic, can hardly be foreseen through the MIT and UCLA projects as mentioned above. Put another way, the MIT project aimed at "beating congestions with mobiles" may need mobile phone users' prior consent to collect the sample data events.  And the UCLA project is based on a prerequisite to mandate the installation of dashtop mobile computers. Besides, it requires a prior consent from motorists to do data mining on the collective vehicle data events.


Some hidden sectors likely to turn heads

Mobile technology is in the nascent stage now, and no easy assumptions are permitted as to its cladogenetic evolution.  As evolutionary phases change, some sectors, though most promising for now,  may happen to peter out, whereas other sectors, invisible  for now, will turn heads as if by chance. This is what will baffle most of auto designers in the near future. Simply put, there is no veteran, no guru, no pundit in the evolving mobile technology , as it gradually requires an increased diversity of technologies involved and fail-safe synergetic integration of inherent uncertainty factors. It means we are blind to the future course of evolving mobile technology.



Here are some quizzes for some forward-looking techies and hi-tech savvies.VIMO™ is not commercially available on the market now and  consumer-oriented quizzes may be out of place.  Eventually, these quizzes may turn into a promotional quiz contest offering some hefty prizes later on. Please do not  miss out on the forthcoming opportunity.

Quiz #1 : Roughly speaking, how big is the VIMO™ screen going to be?

Quiz #2 : Who is going to make the menus?

Quiz #3 : What are MG and MP modes?

Quiz #4: What is the difference between m-Commerce (mobile
                eCommerce) and JITeCGO?

Quiz #5: Which of the following companies is going to be the first manufacturer of                                  VIMO™? Choose one.

Prospective Manufacturers of VIMO™ in view of R&D  endeavors

LG Elctronics	Dell	Apple	Alcatel-Lucent
Motorola	Fujitsu	Garmin	Alpine
Nokia	Hitachi	Magellan	Clarion
Samsung	HP	Toshiba	Palm
Sony Ericsson	Lenovo	Acer	Pioneer

                                                                             

Quiz #6: Which automaker will be the first to design  a dashtop center for VIMO™?                              Choose one.    

Potential Automakers in view of innovational inclination

Volvo	Toyota	Nissan	Lamborghini	Renault
Jaguar	Hyundai	Honda	Ferrari	BMW
Lexus	Saab	Volkswagen	Aston Martin	Audi
Mazda	Subaru	Chrysler	Rolls Royce	Bentley
Ford	Mitsubishi	Kia	Suzuki	Citroen
GM	Isuzu	Bugatti	Mercedes Benz	Fiat

Answers to Quizzes

To find answers in pdf format, please click here.
 

[The core technology of DriveOnPay™ and its deployment scenarios can only be disclosed to interested parties under a non-disclosure agreement and then licensed to qualified  and competent licensees on a non-exclusive basis.]