Designing interfaces from the outside in

User interfaces are a pet peeve of mine.

I’m one of those people whose VCR always blinked 12:00. Not because I couldn’t figure it out but because I resented that I had to.

Basically, I have neither the time nor the inclination to read manuals. If I’m paying good money for a consumer-facing product then it better not require an engineering degree to use it.

Not surprisingly, then, I think UI design is every bit as important as product; maybe even more so. Because if your user experience sucks, make no mistake; I will be walking and talking to your competitors.

It wasn’t until I entered the glamorous world of software development that I came to the following conclusion: Interfaces are complicated because development tools require an engineer (or similarly brilliant individual) to use them.

Of course this is a sweeping statement and I’ll gladly debate it but the point is this: Someone with unique skills and knowledge about user-centric design should be creating interfaces. Not someone who knows the product from the inside out.

I know in a traditional model this can create a lot of churn but companies like Crank Software have come up with a way to decouple the roles of embedded engineer and UI designer, allowing them to work in parallel while focusing on their individual core competencies.

I spoke to several members of the QNX concept development team when they were heavily embroiled in creating the latest technology concept car. It was obvious when talking to the engineers and the UI designers that Crank’s Storyboard made both jobs that much easier and the process a whole lot quicker. The end result, achieved in a very short time frame, speaks for itself.

This is great news for people like me who curse like sailors whenever using a remote, microwave, GPS, treadmill, camera, and so on. Indeed, I'm counting on teams like QNX and Crank to ensure the digital car is an enjoyable and intuitive  experience. If not, I do know who I'm gonna call.

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Markets Roundup Full Year 2012

Fisker Karma in Monaco

With most of 2012 data in, it's time for a roundup on some EV markets:

- The three countries with highest EV share are Norway (No surprises here) with 3,09%, followed by Estonia (Thanks to Mitsubishi) at 2,35% and finally in third there's the Netherlands with 0,98%;

- The Renault Twizy was #1 in eight countries, hitting a sweet spot in Central and Southern Europe;

- Renault sold some 600 units of the Fluence ZE in Israel, included in the Better Place battery swapping project and at 0,37% share it was not a bad start, but the question is if in 2013 they will resist the black hole that is becoming the Better Place deal;

- Nissan has sold 89 units of the Nissan Leaf in Hong Kong, meaning that Nissan sold more Leaf's there than in the whole of China;

- Where else in the world other than Monaco would the Fisker Karma be a best seller? That's right, the Cadillac Escalade of the  Plug-In market was the second best selling electric vehicle in Monaco, just behind the Renault Twizy. With this in mind, i'm assuming that Tesla will be the best seller this year;

- As proof that the EV market is a fast changing market, Finland had three different leaders in the last three years, starting with the Think City in 2010, followed in '11 by the Citröen C-Zero and the Nissan Leaf last year;

- The I-Miev family has a thing for finding new markets for electric cars and losing them for others in the following years, for example the Mitsubishi I-Miev started the EV market in 2009 in it's home market, being the best selling electric model that year and in 2010, before losing the crown to the Leaf in 2011.  The same thing happened in Germany (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #3 in 2012), Spain (#1 in 2011, #9 in 2012), Switzerland (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #4 in 2012), Monaco (#1 in 2011, #6 in 2012) and Ireland (#1 in 2010, #4 in 2011 and 2012). In 2012 the I-Miev family started to sell cars in new markets like  the Czech Republic (78 units), Iceland (9), Poland (13) and Colombia (28). It remains to be seen in 2013 how many of these will still crown a I-Miev member as best seller...

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Portugal Full Year 2012

Smart Fortwo ED

While other markets see their EV numbers double or triple their sales, Portugal saw a 24% drop to 161 units, making it the only market where EV sales were down, this is thanks to the end of the 5.000€ fiscal benefit and the economic crisis that has been ravaging the country.

As in other southern european countries, the Renault Twizy won the #1 spot, succeeding to the Nissan Leaf, which dropped to #3 with just 15 cars sold, down from 101 in 2011.

Second place was for the Smart Fortwo ED, the best ranking in the world for the small two seater and just one of two models to grow sales from last year (The other was the Kangoo ZE), from 14 to 19 units.

Portugal	2012	%
Renault Twizy	71	44
Smart Fortwo ED	19	12
Nissan Leaf	15	9
Renault Kangoo ZE	13	8
Opel Ampera	12	7
Renault Fluence ZE	11	7
Mitsubishi I-Miev	9	6
Peugeot iOn	6	4
Citröen C-Zero	5	3
TOTAL	161	100

Source: Auto Hoje; Manufacturers

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The 10 qualities of highly effective hands-free systems

The first time I saw — and heard — a hands-free kit in action was in 1988. (Or was it 1989? Meh, same difference.) At the time, I was pretty impressed with the sound quality. Heck, I was impressed that hands-free conversations were even possible. You have to remember that mobile phones were still an expensive novelty — about $4000 in today’s US dollars. And good grief, they looked like this:



It’s almost a shock to see how far we’ve come since 1988. We’ve become conditioned to devices that cost far less, do far more, and fit into much smaller pockets. (Though, admittedly, the size trend for smartphones has shifted into reverse.) Likewise, we’ve become conditioned to hands-free systems whose sound quality would put that 1998 kit to shame. The sound might have been okay at the time, but because of the contrast effect, it wouldn’t pass muster today. Our ears have become too discerning.

Which brings me to a new white paper from Phil Hetherington and Andrew Mohan of the acoustics team at QNX Software Systems. Evaluating hands-free solutions from various suppliers can be a complex endeavor, for the simple fact that hands-free systems have become so sophisticated and complex. To help simplify the decision process, Phil and Andrew have boiled the problem down to 10 key factors:

• Acoustic echo cancellation
  
• Noise reduction and speech reconstruction
  
• Multi-channel support
  
• Automatic gain control
  
• Equalization
  
• Wind buffet suppression
  
• Intelligibility enhancement
  
• Noise dependent receive gain
  
• Bandwidth extension
  
• Wideband support

Ultimately, you must judge a hands-free solution by the quality of the useful sound it delivers. By focusing on these 10 essentials, you can make a much sounder judgment (pun fully intended).

Recently, Electronic Design published a version of this paper on their website. For a longer version, which includes a decision checklist, visit the QNX download center.

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My 2013 EV Markets Preview

After making my predictions over the general trends in the EV market and the models that could be gamechangers, and updating it with the latest Roewe and Cadillac offerings, now it's time to preview the behavior of the major markets and which countries could be the surprises of the year:

USA - There's a lot going on here, if we count the same level of sales from the usual suspects (Volt, Prius, Leaf...) at 55K, i'm predicting some extra 15K from the C-Max, 6K from the Fusion and 12K from Tesla. Add that to 3K from other new launches (Accord, Cadillac ELR...) and we easily have more than 90.000 sales in 2013, so i'm counting the US EV market to reach some 90 to 110K units;

Japan - Probably reaching some 23.000 units in 2012, up from 18K in the year before, 2013 will see the arrival of the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid that might add some 6K sales to a faily stable market, although the I-Miev should struggle to keep sales at their '12 level. So, adding 6 to the current 23K, we have  around 29.000 units for the japanese EV market;

France - The sales level of the french market will depend on the impact of the Renault Zoe and how much will it steal from the current players in the market. So, if assuming that the rest of the market stays stable at 12K and the Zoe collects between 2K to 4K units sold, we have a moderate growth to 14-16.000 EV's;  

Germany - Another market where things could get interesting, although sales will only takeoff in the 4Q after the arrival of the german offerings. Until then sales will grow modestly, with the Zoe animating the market. At some expected 7K sales from foreign brands and adding 2.5K units from the german newcomers (BMW i3, VW e-Up! or Mercedes B-class ED), we'll be looking at around 10.000 units, a good prologue year before the real departure of the german EV market in 2014;

Netherlands - One of the markets where EV's are most successful and where the Opel Ampera is climbing the overall ranking, it's to expect that both the Ampera and the Prius Plug-In will keep on growing their sales, adding 1.000 units each, just like the Tesla Model S, an expected hit here. If the other models on the market also grow another 1.000 cars, we are looking at 9.000 sales, a good result that could keep this market on the forefront of the Plug-In Evolution.

Norway - With a great 3% of the general market, this scandinavian country is considered the epicenter of the electric revolution, thanks in big part to the success of the Nissan Leaf, now a usual name in the best selling rankings. And this year, another pure electric is expected to make a splash here, Norway is just behind the US in orders of Tesla's Model S, so expect it to go from 1.500 to 3.000 cars sold here. Add these to another 1.000 from the successful Prius Plug-In and we have between 7 to 8.500 sales. If the top limit is reached, we'll be talking about a 6% EV share! 

As possible surprises this year, China certainly promises to be one of them, it ended 2012 beating  the alltime record at 848 units and this year it is expected to be flooded with new models (Venucia e30, Springo, BYD Qin...), so it won't be difficult to see the chinese market EV jump from 3.000 to 10.000 sales. Australia is another market expected to grow exponentially thanks to the Holden Volt introduction, sales should grow from a measly 253 sold last year to some 2.000 units, if not more.

All in all, the world EV market will likely grow to some 200.000 units this year, almost doubling sales from the year before. And you the viewers, what do you think?

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Meet the QNX concept team: True Nguyen, UX designer

We continue our spotlight on the QNX concept development team with True Nguyen, the team's user experience designer.

We interviewed True just prior to CES 2013, and she was hoping that people's impressions of the latest QNX technology concept car would be as fantastic as hers. True's love of cars stems back to her childhood, and that really comes out in the interview.

If you haven't had a chance to meet the other team members, you can read their stories here.

Next up, we'll interview Alexandre James to get his impressions of the Bentley and the buzz from CES 2013.

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New MINI Paceman ads

Here are the ads of the new MINI Paceman.



Here are the 2 exclusive alternate endings which have not been released to the general public.

Alternate ending 1.



Alternate ending 2.

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France Full Year 2012

Renault Zoe

Despite a terrible December, when sales were down from 1.012 units in November to just 586, 2012 was a great year for EV's in France, with sales more than tripling and reaching 11.447 vehicles, keeping the french market as the third largest in the world.

Models-wise, the Renault Kangoo ZE kept the best seller crown it had earned in 2011, but the great performance of the year belonged to the Renault Twizy, landing in #2 with a great 19% share. On the other hand, the biggest loser also came from Renault, with the Fluence ZE down 26% and dropping 4 places to #9. It looks like the french sedan didn't convinced cab fleet companies...

In third comes the Bolloré Blue Car, a car used by the Autolib carsharing company, an example of the importance of fleets in this market.

Further down, notice the best-selling Plug-In Hybrid, the Toyota Prius at #7 and 4th in December, promising a successful 2013 for Toyota.

Finally, in #12 there's the "Next Big Thing" in the french market, the Renault Zoe, hoping Renault that it can complete with it the Kangoo and Twizy top spots, performing for the french carmaker a 1-2-3 podium this year.

France	Dec	2012	%
Renault Kangoo ZE	168	2.869	25
Renault Twizy	96	2.232	19
Bolloré Blue Car		1.543	13
Peugeot iOn	66	1.429	12
Citröen C-Zero	13	1.335	12
Nissan Leaf	34	524	5
Toyota Prius Plug-In	60	413	4
Mia Electric	47	389	3
Renault Fluence ZE		295	3
Opel Ampera	28	190	2
Smart Fortwo ED	35	66	1
Renault Zoe	36	48	0
Chevrolet Volt	1	34	0
Mitsubishi I-Miev		24	0
Fisker Karma	2	21	0
VW Golf Blue-e-motion		15	0
Tesla Roadster		10	0
BMW Active E		10	0
TOTAL	586	11.447	100

Source: automobile-propre.com

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Austria Full Year 2012 (Updated)

2011 Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-Cell

The austrian EV market has nearly doubled their sales to 1.024 units, a fairly respectable number given the overall dimension of the local car market, with the Renault Twizy winning the pole position with 271 units, ahead of last years winner, the Citröen C-Zero, which sold 198 cars in 2012, 40 less than in the previous year.

Unlike other markets, where a single model represents 50% or more of the market, here it's more fragmented, with the #1 having just 26% share. But despite that, Renault as a brand achieves a comfortable 57% share, thanks to the good performance of their models (Twizy #1, Kangoo #3 and Fluence #4). With this successful background, things look good for the introduction of the Renault Zoe in Austria.

Now two curious aspects of the austrian market:

First, the 13 units sold of the Mercedes A-Class E-Cell, along with the dozens sold in the previous year indicates Austria as potential hit market for the electrification effort to be made by Mercedes this year;

Second, the best selling Plug-In Hybrid car was...The Fisker Karma. With a mammoth 12 units sold. Even if there's not available data about the Prius Plug-In sales, it's still amazing that the Karma outsold the Ampera/Volt sales counted together. And it also demonstrates that Plug-In Hybrids still have a long way to go in Austria...

Austria	Dec	2012	%
Renault Twizy	12	271	21
Citröen C-Zero	1	198	15
Renault Kangoo ZE	1	185	15
Opel Ampera Renault Fluence ZE	12	165 126	14 11
Mitsubishi I-Miev	20	69	7
Nissan Leaf	5	64	6
Peugeot iOn		46	4
Chevrolet Volt Mercedes A E-Cell		15 13	1 1
Fisker Karma		12	1
Smart Fortwo ED		12	1
Opel Ampera	5	10	1
Tesla Roadster		8	1
Think City	3	8	1
Chevrolet Volt	1	1	0
Volvo C30 Electric		1	0
Toyota Prius Plug-In (a)		0	0
TOTAL	60	1.193	100

(a) - Data not available


Source: automotive.co.at

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Italy Full Year 2012

Renault Zoe Taxi

Italians love small cars, so it's no surprise that the Renault Twizy is the great responsible for the takeoff of EV's there. In 2012 the french quadricycle sold 1.545 units sold, achieving a enormous 66% share of the market, distancing itself from the runner-up, the Kangoo ZE, which sold just at 234 units.

The first passenger vehicles come in third, with the Nissan Leaf posting a record sale of 44 cars in December, enough to reach the third place tied with the Citröen C-Zero at 146 units.

Italy is still a BEV haven, with the best performance from a Plug-In Hybrid being a #6 by the Opel Ampera and just 3% share.

2013 will see the arrival of the Renault Zoe, which impact will help to determine the growth rate of this market.

Italy	Dec	2012	%
Renault Twizy	28	1.545	66
Renault Kangoo ZE		234	10
Nissan Leaf	44	146	6
Citröen C-Zero	7	146	6
Peugeot iOn	4	116	5
Opel Ampera		62	3
Renault Fluence ZE	2	38	2
Smart Fortwo ED	2	37	2
Mitsubishi I-Miev		14	1
Tesla Roadster		7	0
Think City		3	0
TOTAL	87	2.348	100

Source: www.greenstart.it

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China Full Year 2012

Roewe E50

Hit has been said that the chinese car market is key to the success of the electric car, not just by the tremendous dimension of it, after all we are talking of a market with a whopping 15 million units sold in 2012, but also because the chinese government is interested in reducing the energy dependency on foreign oil and one way of doing so is betting in plug-in vehicles, but and this is a big but the government is even more interested in protecting the home grown product, so the Nissan Leaf's and Chevrolet Volt's of this world are sold in China like any other import, meaning a high tax on top of a already high price, which makes them pretty rare in China (We are talking dozens in a market of millions).

So, the home makers have the electric car market all to themselves, right?

Right, but the chinese EV market it's not that big. Until November 2012, the only chinese carmaker with plug-in models, BYD, had sold some 2.200 units of e6's and F3 DM's, leaving the chinese market only as the 7th largest in the world, behind smaller countries like Norway and the Netherlands.

But December came and not only the BYD e6 beat its monthly record at 512 cars sold, but the entrrance of a second chinese manufacturer in the market stirred things a bit, with the small Roewe E50 enjoying a great newcomers month with 238 sales, contributing for the chinese EV market to report a record month of 848 units sold and conquering the #3 position in the countries ranking, ahead of France and only behind Japan and the USA.

BYD Qin, to be launched this year

If this performance is repeated in the next months, and with the promised addition of new models it probably will, this could be one of the markets where the electric car growth will be more spectacular.

China	Dec	2012	%
BYD e6	512	1.690	53
BYD F3 DM	98	1.201	38
Rowe E50	238	238	7
Chevrolet Volt		18	1
Nissan Leaf		15	0
Volvo C30 Electric		15	0
TOTAL	848	3.177	100

Source: BSCB; Car News China

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Our best CES yet

Anecdotes and observations from the QNX booth at 2013 CES

As a wrap-up to last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, I would love to regale you with all the cool technologies and nifty gadgets that I saw. But over the course of the entire four days, I rarely left the 20’x40’ patch of white carpet that was the QNX booth — with brief exceptions, of course, for bodily maintenance. The booth was just too busy for me to get away. If you checked out the QNX booth webcam, you know what I'm talking about.

Paul Leroux and Nancy Young have already posted a lot of information and photos about the show and the new QNX concept car, which is based on a Bentley Continental GT. So let me provide my personal view of CES through assorted anecdotes or observations collected at the booth.

• As you’d expect, the Bentley got a lot of attention. But our reference vehicle, based on a Jeep Wrangler, got more attention than I thought it would, even though this is the third time we’ve shown it in public. Many of the people interested in the Jeep just wanted to see what our QNX CAR application platform looked like “out of the box” without customization. And some were confessed Jeep or truck aficionados, without the “luxury brand lust” experienced by most.
   
• People in the auto industry knew who we were without introduction. Non-automotive people didn’t know who we were until I mentioned that “we are a wholly owned subsidiary of Research In Motion,” at which point most of them said “Oh, you’re that QNX.” Seems that your average person has heard quite a bit about QNX in the context of BlackBerry, but has no idea that the same company is doing things in automotive — or in anything else, for that matter. I usually then spoke about our 30+ year legacy in life- and mission-critical systems. When people learned that an OS used for mission-critical systems will also power their next potential phone, their reaction was “wow—that’s really cool.”
   
• Tanner Foust is a really nice young kid. (Actually, he’s not that much younger than me, but he sure looks young!) I didn’t know who he was when he was being filmed in the booth, surrounded by a throng of admirers. But since then, I’ve watched a lot of his YouTube videos and boy, can he drive! He's an accomplished race car driver, TV personality, and stuntman for lots of famous movies, but it’s nice to see he hasn’t let it go to his head.
   
• We wanted to make sure that our concept car respected the Bentley brand. To do that, we ran our design sketches by the folks at Bentley and they occasionally suggested some tweaks. It was all our own work, however, and the Bentley folks never saw it before it hit the show floor. When they came to the booth, they were very happy with what they saw — enough so that they said “it looked like we did it.” That, to me, was the ultimate compliment.
   
• Most frequent question: “Are you giving this away?” As it turns out, it’s something that people have said for every concept car we’ve done to date. Second most frequent question: “Can I drive it?” Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the answer to both is “No.”
   
• I was a little surprised by the enthusiastic response to the car's video conferencing. Of course, it works only while the car is parked, and you only get audio while the car is in Drive. But the part that seemed to impress people the most is the audio: two channel stereo and a full 20Hz to 22KHz means that the call sounds so much better than your typical hands-free call. You could see the reaction when the our director of acoustics Phil Hetherington started talking — you don’t know what you’ve been missing until you hear it.
   
• Bentley wanted us to add our video conferencing solution to the technology concept car. Because many Bentley vehicle owners aren’t necessarily the drivers, this feature makes a whole lot more sense for rear-seat systems than you might initially imagine.
   
• I was really impressed by two members of the media: Brian Cooley of CNET and Craig Peterson of Clear Channel. Both could receive a five minute technology core dump, quickly digest it, and talk intelligently about it on video or live radio (respectively) with no stumbles, questions, or missteps. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both in action before, but their consummate professionalism is really quite amazing.
   
• I and every other QNX’er was delighted that we didn’t win the CNET Best of CES award! Instead, our customer, Chevrolet, won it for their MyLink system, and we couldn’t have been happier. Two out of the three nominees were QNX-based systems (the Garmin K2 was the other), so our odds were good. I’d rather that we never win another Best of CES award if it meant that one of our customers could always win instead.
   
• A number of people asked about the RIM booth and its absence. I explained that RIM was focusing on their launch at the end of January, and that since they wouldn’t have a new product to show the public, it didn’t make sense to be there. (It’s notable that Microsoft wasn’t there either, and Apple never is.) RIM was in Las Vegas in a hotel outside the convention center, giving media private previews of the upcoming phones that seemed to be extremely well received. And we had a few of our RIM compatriots helping us out at the QNX booth as well.
   

That’s all I’ve got to say about CES 2013 — our best show yet. See you next year!

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Okay, time to get technical

Have glossy photos of the QNX concept car left you hungry for more? Dig into a technical whitepaper with our friends from Texas Instruments.

By now, many of you have seen photos and videos of the new QNX technology concept car, a specially modded Bentley Continental GT. Now, I'd like to say that the car was completed in record time by a small team of highly creative QNX engineers. And in many ways, that's absolutely true. But it's just as true that the work started more than 10 years ago, when QNX Software Systems started to build deep partnerships with leading players in the auto industry.

Because the truth is, you don't create this kind of magic overnight. And you don't do it on your lonesome. QNX has become successful in automotive for many reasons, but one of the most important is our ability to work closely, and productively, with A-list partners like Texas Instruments.

Inside the concept car

Take a look at the amazing displays in the Bentley, and the speed at which the screens redraw, and you get a taste just for how well QNX software and TI silicon work together under the covers.

Which brings me to a new white paper co-authored by Andy Gryc of QNX, and Matt Watson and Scott Linke of TI. It's titled "In-Vehicle Connectivity is So Retro," and among other things, it tells the story of how technologies from QNX and TI have co-evolved to help automotive developers build high-performance systems in less time and at less cost.

If your working vocabulary includes terms like OMAP 5, 1080p video decode/encode, floating-point DSP, MOST MLB, Ethernet AVB, PCIe, SATA, WiLink, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC, this paper is for you.

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Day four of CES: The home stretch

We all thought that day four would be a lot less busy and it was, however, we still had people waiting for a demo up until the dying minutes of the show.

The day opened with a video shoot by Brian Cooley - one of my favorite interviewers. This man can distill a complex technology down to the basics after a 10 minute briefing. And he can shoot a video in one take. Impressive.

Brian Cooley dropped by to do a spot for CNET. I really admire his ability to distill complicated subjects into very digestible bits.

Dr. Phil once again. Only this time he is in the soundproof booth, ready to wow everyone with a the first-ever HD stereo video call in the car.

Delphi had a beautiful QNX-based system in an Audio A7. Everything was gorgeous, responsive, and flawless.

One of the really cool things about the Delphi system was the theater seating in the back seat. Why watch a movie anywhere else?

Andrew Poliak, director of business development, did booth duty whenever not in meetings.

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