Las Vegas. The in-car digital expertise of each the current day and the long run is the dominant theme of the BMW Group’s presence at CES 2024. New infotainment merchandise for the present BMW mannequin portfolio will likely be proven on the occasion. At the identical time, the BMW Group is demonstrating progressive growth tasks that provide a glimpse into the long run. Visitors can teleoperate a BMW iX and information it across the Silver Lot on the exhibition website, uncover as a passenger the potential supplied by augmented actuality glasses throughout a journey and expertise a brand new generative AI functionality of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant powered by the Alexa massive language mannequin (LLM), enabling fast solutions and how-to responses on automobile options.
“BMW is synonymous with both the ultimate driving machine and the ultimate digital experience,” says Frank Weber, Member of the Board of Management chargeable for BMW Group Development. “At the CES we are showing more content, more customisation and more gaming. This is all underpinned by our powerful, in-house developed BMW Operating System. And we will take a look to the future, of course, with perfectly integrated augmented reality and strong, reliable artificial intelligence at the interaction between human and machine.”
BMW Operating System 9 makes it doable: new gaming experiences from the ConnectedDrive Store in 2024.
The non-compulsory “BMW Digital Premium” providing permits BMW clients with BMW Operating System 9 to entry an prolonged vary of merchandise from the BMW ConnectedDrive Store. As effectively as on-demand capabilities for the automobile, the shop additionally gives an ever-evolving number of third-party apps within the classes music & audio, information & magazines and gaming for the infotainment system. More video games are actually being made accessible by way of this channel for in-car enjoyment. And occupants will even be capable to play utilizing correct gaming controllers in future. BMW is presenting this new type of gaming expertise for the primary time at CES 2024. For instance, “Beach Buggy Racing 2” gives clients an action-packed racing sport that evokes recollections of the good console classics. Two gamers within the automobile can compete in opposition to each other in split-screen mode utilizing their gaming controllers. Any customary gaming controller with Bluetooth functionality will be linked to the infotainment system in just some steps. The controller link-up will likely be made accessible over the air for BMW Operating System 9 throughout 2024.
The AirConsole App already lets BMW clients play single and multiplayer video games of their automobile. The “casual games” supplied are straightforward to choose up for anybody; the person’s smartphone serves as a controller, permitting easy management of gameplay that’s fast to be taught. Additions are continuously being made to the selection of video games within the in-car AirConsole App.
BMW Digital Premium is optionally accessible for fashions with BMW Operating System 9 and will be obtained from the ConnectedDrive Store both on-line, within the MyBMW App or instantly from the automobile. BMW Digital Premium permits clients to get pleasure from in-car use of all of the apps accessible of their nation in addition to overlaying the mandatory knowledge utilization. And the bundle gives extra in addition to, together with enhanced navigation capabilities and added customisation choices.
Top leisure – with the Video App in BMW Operating Systems 8.5 and 9.
In addition to the BMW Theatre Screen with Amazon Fire TV built-in within the rear compartment of the BMW 7 Series, BMW clients are actually capable of watch quite a lot of video content material on the central show too*. The already very succesful TiVo working system for good TVs was optimised for in-car video streaming within the house of just some months by builders from the BMW Group working along with XPERI Inc. The result’s the combination of the DTS AutoStage Video Service powered by TiVo. The leisure programme contains each stay channels and on-demand media libraries overlaying the classes information, sport, leisure for youths, motion pictures and TV sequence.
First launched within the new BMW 5 Series, the platform will now be rolled out to additional govt and luxurious fashions over the air**. Since the top of 2023, clients driving compact fashions with BMW Operating System 9 have additionally been capable of entry the Video App with BMW Digital Premium. These will likely be adopted by additional fashions over the course of 2024, such because the BMW X2 and all fashions within the new MINI household.
The Video App is at the moment accessible within the USA, UK, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, and can quickly be coming to Japan. Numerous portals can be found internationally, together with Pluto TV, Bloomberg, TED, Yahoo! and Chili. These are accompanied by market-specific streaming providers:
- Germany: JOYN, ZDF, tagesschau, Deutsche Welle.
- Italy: RaiPlay
- France: TF1
- USA: Tubi, Gusto TV, Journy
- Japan: Hulu Japan, NHK Plus, NTV NEWS NNN, TVer, WOWOW
The portfolio of video streaming platforms will maintain increasing and will likely be step by step rolled out to different nations.
Ready for the wearables of the long run – enhanced driving expertise with XREAL Air 2 augmented actuality glasses.
The CES present additionally sees the BMW Group show for the primary time how augmented actuality (AR) glasses are set to counterpoint the driving expertise in future. Visitors can take a look at the doable makes use of of AR glasses for themselves on a drive by means of Las Vegas. Wearing the glasses, they’ll see how navigation directions, hazard warnings, leisure content material, data on charging stations and supporting visualisations in parking conditions are embedded completely into the real-world setting by the “XREAL Air 2”. AR and combined actuality (MR) gadgets will turn into more and more in style within the subsequent few years, because of technological advances and entry-level fashions which might be extra reasonably priced for patrons. In future, AR and MR gadgets will be capable to provide each drivers and passengers enhanced data and pleasant experiences to enhance the shows fitted within the automobile.
The BMW Group has been engaged on the event of AR/MR know-how since 2008 and investigating doable functions for head-mounted shows in analysis tasks. The BMW engineers, along with their growth companions, have now succeeded in displaying steady augmented actuality and combined actuality content material to passengers in a dynamically transferring automobile for the primary time. The displayed picture stays securely embedded within the setting even in difficult driving conditions, equivalent to when turning, driving over massive bumps or accelerating. To obtain this, the monitoring system of the AR/MR system in query needs to be linked to the automobile’s sensor knowledge.
The BMW Group has persistently constructed up its pool of expertise with AR/MR gadgets through the years and offered the outcomes to the general public. These embrace the preliminary MINI Augmented Vision project (2015), the collaboration with Meta Reality Labs (2022 & 2023), the ConnectedRide Smartglasses from BMW Motorrad and the M Mixed Reality Driving Experience. The Augmented View perform in present BMW and MINI fashions reveals drivers a stay video stream on the show that’s augmented with further data for optimum steerage when utilizing the navigation system. In the world of extremely progressive, vehicle-related XR functions, the BMW Group has filed patents for nearly 70 innovations from its builders lately.
“Thanks to the recent research collaborations with Meta Reality Labs and XREAL, we have made considerable progress in our preparations for integrating external XR devices into our driving experience in production models. We are proud to be leading the way here and are well prepared to offer our customers breathtaking XR experiences in the future,” says Peter Lehnert, Vice President Research, New Technologies and Innovations Digital Car on the BMW Group.
“We are thrilled at the prospect of being able to digitally embellish the real world by combining car tech with AR tech,” feedback Peng Jin, co-founder of XREAL. “And this might result in totally new experiences whereas travelling by automobile and open up new potential for AR tech.”
The BMW Group has efficiently carried out pioneering work on digital applied sciences up to now – equivalent to automobile entry utilizing the BMW Digital Key – and has been a driving power behind the industry-wide standardisation of such improvements. The firm is open to collaboration with additional companions within the space of AR/MR too. The objective right here is to ascertain an {industry} customary for connecting the CE {industry}’s XR gadgets with autos.
Development demo: BMW voice assistant turns into the last word automobile skilled with the assistance of the Alexa Large Language Model (LLM).
At CES, the BMW Group and Amazon showcase voice assistant LLM capabilities primarily based on a present growth venture that the businesses are engaged on in preparation for a possible sequence rollout. This makes the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant the last word automobile skilled because of generative AI that’s powered by the Alexa LLM. At CES, guests expertise how the voice assistant offers fast directions and solutions about automobile capabilities in a way more human, conversation-like method, whereas on the identical time having the ability to management some automobile capabilities.
The BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant has been utilizing synthetic intelligence for speech processing for a very long time and this demo is the most recent proof level of the continued innovation BMW and its companions are bringing to clients. Complex processing capabilities, which allow human-like interactions and dialogs, haven’t but been built-in into BMW sequence autos. Such capabilities are actually made doable by LLMs, that are AI fashions which might be designed to course of human language at a excessive degree and generate responses accordingly. The BMW Group can also be taking cautious steps to construct a protected and trusted expertise for patrons, and continues to check and iterate these LLM capabilities over time with its companions.
Since the introduction of the primary BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant in 2018, language interplay has been a vital a part of BMW iDrive. Today, the voice assistant provides clients management over many automobile capabilities in order that they’ll maintain their palms on the wheel and their eyes on the street. Leveraging Amazon’s Alexa Custom Assistant — an answer that’s primarily based on Alexa know-how and permits corporations to create their very own custom-made voice assistant — the next-generation of the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant will quickly turn into extra highly effective over the course of the 12 months in autos with BMW Operating System 9.
Joint growth venture with Valeo paves the best way for teleoperated valet parking.
The BMW Group and Valeo have entered a strategic partnership to work on the joint growth of next-generation automated Level 4 parking options. This contains the event of options for automated valet parking (AVP). Here, the client leaves their automobile in a chosen drop-off space. The automobile then searches for a vacant parking house itself, manoeuvres into the house and later exits it once more, and may even drive again to the pick-up space for assortment by the driving force. Either an autonomous driving system or a teleoperated valet system can be utilized because the underlying know-how for this.
CES 2024 guests may have the chance to check out teleoperated valet parking for themselves. Teleoperation gives full management in conditions that may very well be very difficult for totally autonomous programs, equivalent to in complicated or unfamiliar environments.
The teleoperator makes use of refined know-how and stay digital camera photographs to information and transfer the automobile in order that it may be parked and retrieved once more in a rigorously managed method. Possible future functions for this know-how may embrace parking at occasions, at airports or within the logistics sector.
* In conjunction with ConnectedDrive Professional in fashions with BMW Operating System 8.5 or at the side of BMW Digital Premium with BMW Operating System 9.
** BMW 7 Series; BMW iX produced from 03/23; BMW X5, BMW X6, BMW X7, BMW X5 M, BMW X6 M produced from 04/23; BMW XM produced from 08/23.