Currently, the Automotive Linux Summit is happening in the UK. It’s a gathering hosted by the Linux Foundation (News – Alert) that’s geared toward highlighting the convergence of market spaces between Linux and cars. One of the attendees at the Automotive Linux Summit was Livio, who showed off a variety of apps specifically geared for the "connected car."

Livio showed its offering on a platform running Tizen IVI from an Intel (News – Alert) Atom processor. Tizen IVI brings together a combination of HTML5 and similar Web technologies to present applications that will run on a variety of different platforms, including multiple varieties of car stereo, ensuring the least chance possible that the apps consumers want most are most likely to work on their particular system of choice.

As for the apps themselves, Livio showed the Livio Connect system, a system that isn’t so much an app itself as it is a bridge for other apps. The Livio Connect system provides a means for apps to easily connect to cars — using, in part, that Tizen IVI system — to give developers of hardware and software alike an easy way to get their own apps into cars.

According to Livio’s founder and current CEO, Jake Sigal, the biggest help is that drivers are already bringing their smartphones into cars. With Livio Connect matched up with Tizen IVI — not to mention Tizen IVI’s GENIVI compliance — it provides OEMs with not only a simpler way to get apps to the system, but also a scalable way since the whole affair runs on Intel processors. Apps can even get more complex accordingly, as more processing power can be brought in later.

Livio Connect has previously won the 2012 Frost & Sullivan (News – Alert) New Product Innovation Award, and has over 15 different partners including major names like TargetSpot and TuneIn. This combination of accolades at the professional and conceptual level gives Livio Connect plenty of extra credibility.

Some may balk at the idea of adding more apps to a vehicle, and not without reason. Distracted driving is a very dangerous concept, sufficiently so that there are a diverging set of concepts as to how to handle it. Some are suggesting fewer distractions for drivers, while others are suggesting the removal of the driver instead with automated driving systems. While each point in turn has its pluses — not to mention its minuses — it’s safe to say that on many fronts the drive will be toward providing drivers with more instead of expecting them to settle for less in the name of safety.

There are plenty of valuable apps that could be included, like mileage, car performance — which is often directly related to car safety — and of course entertainment, that it’s hard to imagine that developers will voluntarily give up the market. So it’s a safe bet that many more apps will follow for cars, and the Livio Connect system will help make them happen.

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