Oct 21, 2011
ATLANTA, GA. — October 21, 2011 - The Wireless Technology Forum (WTF), the largest not-for-profit wireless association in the Southeast, today announced the winners for its 2011 Wireless and Mobile Media (WAMM) Awards.
The WAMM awards were created to recognize the industry’s leading innovators in mobile applications and mobile media. The awardees included Rovio, LinkedIn, Pandora, ESPN, Google, CNN and Apple.
A new addition to the 2011 awards was the category “Most Innovative Mobile Companies To Watch”. Centrafuse was one of the five winning companies, all from Georgia.
"The mobile space is just beginning to ramp to the explosive growth that has long been predicted. Applications targeting the Connected Car will experience that same growth over the coming years, and Centrafuse will be a leading enabler and contributor to this growth as content consumption continues to shift from fixed to mobile environments," said Dan Seitam, the CEO of Centrafuse.
"It was a pleasure and honor to present at the 2011 WAMM Awards," said Merrill Oakes, Account Director, Microsoft and the incoming president for the WTF. "The award winners represent a fantastic cross-section of people, companies and mobile applications that are forging new trails in the wireless application space."
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ABOUT CENTRAFUSE Centrafuse Auto is a connected car software application that provides a fully functional application for download and use. It also includes development tools and SDK that can be used to create and implement a customized connected car user experience and feature set. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
About the WAMM Awards Created to showcase the best in wireless and mobile media, the WAMM Awards recognizes the most innovative mobile application and media developers, their organizations, and the platform and infrastructure providers upon which the applications are built and delivered. Awards will be given in a broad range of categories, as selected by leaders in the industry and individual voters. Winners will be announced at the live event and via global web broadcast.
About the Wireless Technology Forum The Wireless Technology Forum is one of the fastest growing associations in the Southeast with more than 1,000 members and sponsors. WTF is the only association dedicated to the fast-paced and rapidly evolving wireless and mobile industry. The association is a platform for industry professionals to learn about the business of emerging wireless and mobile technologies, network with other like-minded professionals, and apply these technologies to their existing business or creation of new business.
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Oct 12, 2011
ATLANTA, GA. — October 12, 2011 - Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, is pleased to announce the latest in connected-car technology, Centrafuse Market™ for paid apps.
Smartphones have set the bar for user experience flexibility. This goes beyond customization to the ability to uniquely personalize the in-vehicle infotainment experience for everyone. Earlier this year, we introduced the Centrafuse Market as the first step in implementing this vision. Today, we’re expanding on this platform, enabling users and developers to buy and sell apps from within Centrafuse, running on their internet-connected CarPC's. Also included in this release is a nugget that many Centrafuse users have requested – the ability to upload and download new skins.
Developers, this is an opportunity to really show your chops and participate in the rising tide of the Connected Car market. We will continue to enhance the Market’s capabilities going forward in order to provide you with a seamless, easy way to get your apps into the car. For more information read the full announcement on the forum.
Visit our online Market now to check out all of the apps that are available for Centrafuse! A growing number of premium apps are in development and will be available to you very soon. Be sure you're upgraded to our new 4.0 release to ensure compatibility. Get your 4.0 upgrade now or visit the store if you're a new customer.
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ABOUT CENTRAFUSE Centrafuse Auto is a connected car software application that provides a fully functional application for download and use. It also includes development tools and SDK that can be used to create and implement a customized connected car user experience and feature set. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Jim Mazurek, VP Business Development
Centrafuse
75 5th Street NW
Suite 225
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
404-287-2152 x712
jmazurek@centrafuse.com
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Oct 06, 2011
ATLANTA, GA. — October 06, 2011 - Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, is pleased to announce the latest in connected-car technology, Centrafuse Connect™. This cloud-based web companion sets a new bar for delivering a custom-tailored user experience to your dash.
Centrafuse is committed to its vision of delivering your content and user experience to wherever you happen to be - in your car, in your spouse's car, even in a rental car. Bottom line, if you are in a connected car, you will expect your stuff to be there too.
Centrafuse Connect is our first release that begins delivering this vision. It enables you to seamlessly create, modify and sync media playlists and navigation destinations right from your computer, directly to your in-vehicle system.
Managing media playlists in your vehicle is unsafe and tedious in a car. Using Centrafuse Connect, you can create a playlist safely and efficiently on your home computer, sync it to your vehicle and have it ready to play the next time you take a drive. If you're taking a road trip, what could be safer or more fun than you and the family creating your itinerary, together? And if you get lost during your journey, no worries - just call a friend with a computer and have them send you a new destination that will sync with your carPC in a matter of minutes.
Welcome to the first step in a sea change in in-vehicle infotainment, Centrafuse Connect!
See our YouTube video for an overview of Connect.
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ABOUT CENTRAFUSE Centrafuse Auto is a connected car software application that provides a fully functional application for download and use. It also includes development tools and SDK that can be used to create and implement a customized connected car user experience and feature set. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Jim Mazurek, VP Business Development
Centrafuse
75 5th Street NW
Suite 225
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
404-287-2152 x712
jmazurek@centrafuse.com
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Oct 04, 2011
ATLANTA, GA. — October 04, 2011 - Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, is pleased to announce the latest official release of Centrafuse Auto 4.0. The fourth generation of Centrafuse represents a major shift in the connected car space. With its latest feature set, Centrafuse Auto 4.0 extends its position at the forefront of automotive In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) technology.
What's new in 4.0?
With the release of 4.0, we have included new groundbreaking features which we feel add significantly to the overall value of your in-vehicle system. We'll get into those in a second, but first, some background on the thinking that went into the newest version of Centrafuse:
Age of the smartphone
Over the last 5 years, smartphones have become part of our everyday lives. The functionality and capabilities of these devices have set a new bar for our expectations as consumers, but they are not a SAFE way to consume content in the high-risk environment of a vehicle. Sure, the screens are getting bigger and with a nice window mount can make for a halfway decent GPS unit and perhaps a couple other things. Centrafuse has been delivering solutions to the connected car market before there was a connected car market, and enables a user to consume their digital content in a car, in a way intended for the car.
Tethering boom
Smartphones do offer something very important, however. They enable us to get online to access our online content by either using the phone or its data connection as a modem. Some of the higher end smartphones even have a WiFi hotspot option to share the 3G/4G connection with other devices such as laptops and you guessed it - your CarPC. With more and more tethering options and new mobile data hotspots now readily available we decided it was time to take advantage of this connectivity.
See our Tethering guide in the Knowledge Base for more information on tethering options.
Introducing Centrafuse Connect One of the most exciting new features with the 4.0 release is Centrafuse Connect. Connect is our new online companion for Centrafuse Auto 4.0. Connect allows you to pull up your web browser - from the comfort and safety of your own home - to organize and create playlists for later sync to your car. You can also use the Connect website to find your target destination before leaving the house. Simply look it up using the "New POI Search" feature and get a list of result over a Google map. Then click the “Save” button on the map results to flag this point of interest for later synchronization to your car’s navigation.
This becomes very useful when you're going somewhere new or wish to pre-plan your daily outing. Once in the car and tethered, just open the Connect client app and view and route to your saved addresses and grab your saved playlists. Location and Route sync is another feature where you can see where your car has been (or is going), from your favorite web browser using a simple Google map overlay.
Whether you're hitting a new discotheque, you're a stay-at-home mom with a ton of errands, or a busy delivery driver with new stops every day, there's something here for everyone. And this is just the 'tip of the iceberg' of our plans for Connect.
Centrafuse Auto 4.0 - What else is new?
Native iPod and iPhone playback
Along with Connect, we have added exciting and long awaited features such as true native support for all iPod devices including iPod Touch and iPhone. This includes support for both video and playlists. Check out our the iPod Support section of the Knowledge Base for more detailed info.
Paid Market – Buy/sell premium apps
Also included is support for downloading of premium apps from the new Centrafuse Market - which now supports paid apps. We believe this will bring in a new class of apps where the developer is actually getting paid to support and advance their apps. We'll provide more information about this next week. The new Market also now supports uploading of custom Skins.
Radio Enhancements – Live/Replay
Also in 4.0, we have made some very intuitive advancements in the buffered audio used by Radio modules. Buffered audio is the pause/rewind functionality built-in to the radio feature that lets you go back to hear that stock report or song lyric. Until now, using the pause/replay (DVR or Tivo-style) functions has been less than intuitive. With 4.0, we have revamped the header controls to include both a "Jump Back" and a "Live" button for easy manipulation of the buffer. Holding down the fast forward and rewind still give you fine control the buffer, but these "quick jump" buttons are a big improvement for quick at-a-glance usage. Satellite radio (Sirius/XM) users can now use the next/previous track buttons* to easily switch between their saved Favorite stations. *Holding down these buttons still controls the buffer in small increments.
Add to current queue, HD radio updates & Other UI Improvements
Along with the new "quick jump" pause/replay buttons, we have made several other general UI improvements such as better responsiveness from the list views, improved transition effects for slower systems, new hotkeys, a dedicated layout for HD radio complete with HD sub-station preset support. We've added back a much requested feature that allows you to simply add a new item (album, artist or genre) to the existing current playing media queue. Also check out the new horizontal volume slider: a small but very effective change; we hope you agree is a change for the better.
Other Features in 4.0 - True cross-platform support
We've covered most of the new "product" features, but we haven't yet discussed the underlying architectural changes for 4.0. For some of you this may not be terribly interesting, but the ramifications could become interesting very soon. Read on. With the 4.0 release, we are now supporting 3 different operating systems with a single codebase. This means that the 4.0 license you purchase will run not only unlock Centrafuse on Win32 (XP, Vista and Win7) but also on Windows CE and Ubuntu Linux. Not all the features are present just yet, but the core features (Media, Wifi, Web, Weather & Market) application framework is there and includes support for Centrafuse Market. What does this mean for you? Maybe nothing right now, but if you're interested in a different type of mobile device, rather than a full CarPC install, then keep reading.
Imagine a 7" tablet, dash-mounted that features the Centrafuse UI and app framework including Market. It would not be a PC, but a "closed" tablet-style device. This would offer new customers that don't want to spend (or can't afford) the time of installing a traditional CarPC, but just want the Centrafuse experience. This is part of the vision behind our new cross-platform approach. We see a world with new smart IVI devices co-branded with "Centrafuse-inside" or "Centrafuse-powered" (as an example). Some of these devices could be portable like a tablet, or could be embedded into your dash straight from the dealership, your favorite car audio installer or maybe even from the factory.
Other Enhancements/Fixes/Features
This covers the primary features of the 4.0 release. For a detailed list of changes see the complete Release Notes section.
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ABOUT CENTRAFUSE Centrafuse Auto is a connected car software application that provides a fully functional application for download and use. It also includes development tools and SDK that can be used to create and implement a customized connected car user experience and feature set. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA.
Jim Mazurek, VP Business Development
Centrafuse
75 5th Street NW
Suite 225
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
404-287-2152 x712
jmazurek@centrafuse.com
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Jun 08, 2011
Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, is pleased to announce the availability of the next leap forward in automotive infotainment, Centrafuse Auto WinCE. "Implementing Centrafuse in the WinCE environment marks the next step for Centrafuse customers as we address the needs of an expanding list of car manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers, aftermarket and fleet customers who are targeting the connected car space." said Jim Mazurek, VP Business Development. "Centrafuse is continuing to expand our capability to meet the needs of the rapidly changing connected car market, by offering OS support that includes Win32, Windows CE and Linux." Mazurek noted.
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May 20, 2011
We are happy to announce the 3.6 maintenance release for Centrafuse Auto. The 3.6 update consists primarily of bug fixes, feature enhancements and some backend pieces for the upcoming pay-version of Centrafuse Market. This patch level release is free to all paid Centrafuse customers and can be accessed by using the built-in updater or by downloading it from your account page. For more information see the Release Notes.
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May 09, 2011
Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, is pleased to announce the availability of the latest evolution in automotive infotainment, Centrafuse Auto Linux (Beta). "Implementing Centrafuse in the Linux environment marks a big step for Centrafuse customers as we address the needs of an expanding list of Car manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers, Aftermarket and fleet customers who are targeting the connected car space," said Jim Mazurek VP Business Development. "Centrafuse is a true cross-OS IVI software solution," Mazurek noted.
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Mar 14, 2011
Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, announced that Don Courvisier has joined the Company's board of directors. Don has been serving on the Centrafuse Board of Advisors since April of 2010, following a distinguished career in the automotive and consumer electronics industries.
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Mar 04, 2011
Check out the Centrafuse Market Overview
We are excited to introduce Centrafuse Market, the in-vehicle app store, accessible from our latest release, Centrafuse Auto 3.5. This represents a major step forward for Centrafuse and its ever-growing developer community. The Market allows developers to focus on creating apps by removing the burden maintaining complex install and update instructions. Centrafuse Market streamlines and standardizes how plugin apps are created, deployed and updated. This means the developer can quickly and easily push updates out to customers, avoiding the hassle of relying on detailed instructions, minimizing end-user install issues.
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Mar 01, 2011
We are pleased to announce the latest evolution in connected car applications. Centrafuse Auto 3.5 with its built-in app-store dubbed Centrafuse Market, represents the latest in automotive infotainment. View the official release notes for more information.
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Feb 08, 2011
Centrafuse, the developer of Centrafuse Auto, a leading connected car application, announced that Steve Hung has joined the Company as Vice President of Engineering. "Centrafuse is expanding its presence in the tier 1 and aftermarket sectors. Steve will help us to continue to advance our technology in a way that ensures we deliver the highest quality, leading edge connected car capabilities and user experience to our tier 1 and aftermarket customers. We're proud to announce him as an addition to our management team." said Dan Seitam, CEO at Centrafuse.
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Jan 11, 2011
Visteon C-Beyond Connected Car at CES 2011
MP3car.com covers the the Visteon C-Beyond concept vehicle and its next-generation HMI concepts. The system was built on top of our highly customizable Centrafuse Auto technology and framework. Also, AMD demonstrates their upcoming small form-factor, FUSION mainboard platforms using our Centrafuse Auto Software. The FUSION runs with the assistance of passive onboard cooling and breezes through HD video playback all the while utilizing very low power consumption. Click for the full videos.
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Jul 17, 2009
Check out this link to read the Georgia Tech's Sonification Lab's report entitled "Enhanced Auditory Menu Cues Improve Dual Task Performance and are Preferred with In-vehicle Technologies"
Click below to view the Georgia Tech Research Report. We have always taken pride in being the leading edge carPC HMI and purveyor of the latest and greatest features for in-vehicle use. There's a lot more to Centrafuse though.
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