As many of you have seen, DriveCast registration at the moment is suspended and, instead of it, there’s the reference to a new “mysterious” product named Automatica…

Automatica is a new product of us, intended as the DriveCast evolution: Automatica is a smart physical device, wi-fi enabled, that connects to the Cloud to retrieve your contents and save them inside its internal memory (upgradable with a microSD card). Then you will be able to use it as a normal USB pendrive.

Automatica scope is to extend cars media capability: also old models, where the car stereo provides a USB port, can become a connected car like the new high-end vehicles, but in a very cheap way!

But there’s even more, Automatica can work on every device equipped with an USB port (even with your TV).

As DriveCast natural evolution, Automatica will inherit all of its services, and it will extend them with local saving.

And… what about DriveCast? Not so far, registration will be available again but we consider that it’s going to be discontinued by the end of year.

Until then all of its services will be mantained, but, after that period, only who have bought Automatica will be able to continue using all of them.

The DriveCast integration with the VNC in-vehicle technology was on show at the RealVNC stand at Telematics Detroit 2012 held on June 6-7.

What we have done is to integrate our Android DriveCast app, including the RealVNC automotive library inside a specific app version for the conference.

with this nee app when you connect the Android smartphone to your USB car connector, the app realizes it’s connected to the car and shows a different user interface designed for the car experience:

- optimized for car displays from 3″ to 7″

- operable both on resistive and capacitive touchscrens

- operable by the standard steering wheel buttons

- simple and easy actions only: avoids driver distraction

Our target was to create something that was easier to operate in the car than a standard CD-changer, and here is our achievement for you to judge:

To learn more about VNC Automotive, please visit www.RealVNC.com at the Mobile Solution for Automotive or contact mobile@realvnc.com.

The radio recording service will not be guaranteed due to programmed maintenance on Saturday 19 May 2012.
We apologize for any inconvenience related to this temporary shutdown.

All services will be back as normal within Sunday 20 May.

We are happy to announce the availability of the DriveCast app for the new LG Smart TV.
You can search for DriveCast on your LG Smart TV or on the LG Apps TV website: http://www.lgappstv.com

The list of TV brands providing DriveCast includes now: LG, Loewe, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Vestel, Vizio (according to the model and geographic area).

As a “Christmas gift” for the DriveCast user community, we are happy to announce the release of two new DriveCast Apps for iOS and Android with browse and subscribe functions.

Up to now DriveCast has been based con the idea that you browse and subscribe from the PC and listen from the device, be it a car, a smartphone or a connected tv. With the availability of tablets and large screen smartphones we assumed it’s right to bring to them the richer experience that you have using DriveCast with a pc or a mac. Withe these new apps, now DriveCast gives you the capability to modify your LiveLibrary
directly from your device, following the trend for which smartphones and tablets must provide complete functions.

Cloud and Internet are used sometimes as synonyms nowadays. In more exact terms, we should say that the Internet is build nowadays by many “clouds” that can talk more or less easily between them.

Trying to be true to the Internet spirit of openness, DriveCast is now integrating 4 different cloud storage services, with complete access and interoperability.

No matter where you store you media files on the cloud, you can now connect to them using DriveCast’s web interface, so that you will be able to play them on any device that has the DriveCast App installed: smartphones, tablets, TVs and cars.

Radio24, the first Italian talk radio with over 5 million listeners every week, is now using DriveCast to bring the radio and its 44 podcast channels to the new Internet connected devices: Android, Connected TVs, Windows Phone 7, Bada, iOS.

DriveCast will make even more convenient having the different Radio24 programs always available on any device and in any moment.

Radio24 started to broadcast on October 4th 1999, it’s now the first Italian talk radio as listeners,
reaching by FM 86,9% of the Italian population. Radio24 is owned by “Il Sole 24 Ore”, the publisher
of the fist Italian financial newspaper, that with a circulation of about 300.000 is the second financial newspaper in Europe after the Financial Times.

DriveCast confirms its relevance as the tool of choice for bringing Internet media content to the connected TVs, by being part in the first set of application released for the new Opera TV Store.

The Opera TV Store is a complete HTML5 based store solution for easy implementation into connected TVs by OEMs and easily reached content providers.
The Opera TV Store extends beyond connected TVs, making it an all-device experience. Running on the TV, set-top box or a Blu-ray player makes no difference for the Opera TV Store.

Opera TV Store with DriveCast will be shown at ShowStoppers in IFA (Sept. 1, 6:00pm to 9:00pm Messe-Berlin Fairgrounds-Building 15.2) and IBC in Amsterdam (Sept. 9-13, Booth 5.B47).

For more info on Opera TV Store please refer to the Opera press release.

DriveCast follows them!

We are happy to announce the integration of two cloud storage services, Dropbox and Box.net, as media
sources in DriveCast.
Using the DriveCast web interface you can now connect to specific folders on the cloud, add their content to
your library and define them as playlist.
This new content from the cloud will be available to all the DriveCast apps on the smartphones, tablets, and TVs.
Any time you’ll add something to your cloud storage it will also automatically come to DriveCast.

Having this new and powerful cloud support, the native file upload support will be phased out from DriveCast in Q3 2011.

With help from Federico La Greca, we can now claim that DriveCast is also available on Windows Phone 7.

It was very interesting to work with Federico on the software development tools provided by Microsoft, and with the Samsung Omnia 7 provided by Samsung Italia.

We have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the development experience, and while it’s true that the Windows Phone 7 OS still needs to evolve in order to attain the same level of function and consistency as the Apple IOs and Android, the concepts used by its “Metro” User Interface are really advanced.

They’re also a perfect fit for promoting the intuitive and user-friendly experience that DriveCast wants to achieve on all mobile devices.

The app is available for free at the following link: http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=091c42ec-4a5c-e011-854c-00237de2db9e