Charles Arthur:

Will buying a car soon involve questioning whether it is compatible with your smartphone? Google has announced a new “Open Automotive Alliance” (OAA), teaming up with carmakers Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai and the graphics chipset company Nvidia to “enable new forms of integration” – but will find Apple and Microsoft already wooing many carmakers with their own software.
 
 Nor do carmakers seem prepared to throw their lot in with one or the other platform. Audi, General Motors and Hyundai have previously announced tieups with Apple, while Ford counts both Microsoft and Apple among its collaborators. (A table showing which company is with which initiative is at the end: only Hyundai belongs to all the projects currently underway.)
 
 Announcing the project in a blogpost, Google’s director of Android engineering, Patrick Brady, says that “there’s still an important device that isn’t yet connected as seamlessly to the other screens in our lives – the car”.