The Connected Car Conference -- or C3, if you wish to get your geek on -- was a big hit at CE Week in New York City. Thanks largely to navigation and entertainment apps on Apple and Google smartphones, it's easy to marvel at how far we've come in bringing our outside world inside our vehicle. But C3 also concentrated on the future, and what automakers and their partners are doing to increase your car's usefulness and safety.
Our roving reporter Rex Moore talked with General Motors' (GM 1.44%) chief technology officer Tim Nixon at the conference. His Chevrolet MyLink system offers Pandora and Sirius XM for entertainment, a BringGo navigation system that runs from your smartphone so your maps are never out-of-date, and Apple's Siri Eyes Free, which allows you to interact with Siri without having to view the screen. In fact, the screen won't even light up while your car is in motion.
Still, advances in consumer electronics far outpace the product cycle of a car, which could be obsolete by the time it hits the showroom floor. General Motors is addressing these concerns by developing a flexible platform that can be upgraded before or after the vehicle is sold. In this video, Tim talks more about this platform.
