Techcrunch says:

At its CES press conference, Nvidia today announced the Drive CX, a digital cockpit for car that is based on the company’s new X1 processor

Never mind TC’s grammar, this seems to be a significant announcement. I distinctly remember another press announcement from, as it turns out, thirteen years ago. Thanks, Internet!

‘Dictator’ sought to jump-start auto telematics

Telematics industry executives called this week for a “benevolent dictatorship” to lead them to standardization of automotive multimedia systems…

“We need a Hewlett-Packard or a Sun or a Microsoft to take up the drive toward standardization,” … “Someone has to drive a stake in the ground and say, ‘Here’s what we are going to do.’ ”

Be careful what you wish for. There is little possibilities that the traditional automotive industry will be able to resist high tech’s impact if they set their sights on automotive. The traditional electronic suppliers are going to feel tech’s push first because how are they going to counter this kind of announcement? Create their own chips, really? And at the end — and that may be 10 or 20 years out — automotive will have been acquired by the tech industry.

When I worked in automotive about 20 years ago, two thirds of the competitive differentiation of a car was already software. I don’t know what it is now, but it’s certainly not lower :-) Welcome to the fate of Dell, Gateway, HP PCs and the IBM PC hardware business.