MAGNA-FICIENT NEWS !!6 Oct 2022 18:58
Great post by Colin Barnden
BREAKING: Seeing Machines enters key collaboration with Magna International. Read on for my immediate thoughts.
The agreement states the parties will "exclusively co-market driver and occupant monitoring, solely where the Company's IP is fully integrated inside the rear-view mirror, until the end of June 2025." This implies exclusivity applies only where the image processor is integrated inside the mirror. Until June 2025, my assessment is that will be near to 100% of units.
The short-term priority for #DMS #OMS is a "land grab" to meet Euro NCAP, For Safer Cars 2023 testing and EU General Safety Regulation #GSR starting mid-2024. The Magna mirror represents a "get-out-of-jail-free" card for many #automakers, who seem to have been asleep to changes in the regulatory outlook for #distraction, #drowsiness and #impairment monitoring. Events will likely move very rapidly now this agreement is signed.
The competitive position sees Magna/Seeing Machines pitted against Gentex/Guardian Optical in the mirror. This is brilliant strategic thinking by Magna and Seeing Machines, and the exclusivity rights (with associated investment) gives Magna maximum incentive to place massive sales, marketing, engineering, and manufacturing resource behind this product family. The Guardian algorithms simply have to work to compete, but there is no identifiable design-win at SoP to confirm this. High-stakes stuff indeed for Gentex.
The pieces of the technology puzzle are quickly falling into place. The mirror becomes a #zonal #controller with co-designed optical path and integrated image processor feeding DMS/OMS signals and #metadata to central compute #processors from Qualcomm and NVIDIA over CAN-FD and in future, #automotive #ethernet.
The Magna mirror is one part of a trend enabling the coming together of #eyegaze, #gesture and #voice, powerful #AI and deep-learning #DL on-chip #accelerators, with #5G car-to-cloud #connectivity, to drive a complete revolution of the #digital #****pit. Investors need to get over #selfdriving and look here instead.
Ultimately I see this becoming a four-way race between Apple (with #Siri), Amazon (with #Alexa), Google (with #Assistant) and Cerence Inc. to find a way to revolutionize the "immersive user experience." These big tech companies must get the Seeing Machines automotive development kit, put it in the hands of their most creative people and completely redefine what is possible in the ****pit.
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