MicrosoftConnectedCar
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Microsoft's connected car platform will put Cortana on the road
Microsoft's next big push into the automotive space won't be a Redmond-made self-driving car. Instead, the company hopes to provide the backbone for a whole suite of cloud-based services that automakers can use to enhance the driving experience in their own connected vehicles. In an announcement at CES on Friday, the company unveiled the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform to handle everything from predictive maintenance to "in-car productivity" and advanced navigation.
Microsoft job posting hints at Connected Car strategy: Azure, Kinect and WP8
Redmond seems to have more grandiose ideas for Connected Car than it's let on before, judging from a recent help wanted ad on its site. Reading more like PR for its car-based plans, the job notice waxes poetically about using "the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem" in an upcoming auto platform with tech such as Kinect, Azure, Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Those products would use face-tracking, speech and gestures to learn your driving habits and safely guide or entertain you on the road, according to the software engineer listing. It also hints that everything would be tied together using Azure's cloud platform, so that your favorite music or shortcuts would follow you around, even if you're not piloting your own rig. All that makes its original Connected Car plans from 2009 seem a bit laughable -- check the original video for yourself after the break.
