Visteon Announces Bluetooth Agreement

Emphasizing that it is intent on expanding further into the fast-growing telematics and in-car entertainment areas, Visteon Corp. announced at Convergence 2000 a new agreement that it says will enable it to bring the Bluetooth wireless technology into the vehicle - plus a new line of OEM and aftermarket multimedia products.

Bluetooth is a wireless communication technology that is becoming an industry standard for data transfer and information sharing among a wide array of personal electronics. Visteon announced it is collaborating with Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group to use the Bluetooth technology to provide wireless, hands-free interaction with products such as beepers, cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

In the near future, Bluetooth technology is expected to allow information to be shared with those devices even if they are located outside the vehicle, such as at home or in the office.

Visteon is a long-standing member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), a group of more than 2000 companies organized by Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia, IBM, 3 Com, Intel, Microsoft, Toshiba and Motorola. Lucent Technologies Automotive Products Group describes its mission as bringing together proven DSP products and Bell Laboratories acoustic and voice processing expertise to provide digital audio radio and hands-free technology for the automotive and telematics market.