Vehicular Entertainment Systems: Mobile Application Enhancement in Networked Infrastructures

Entertainment systems can transform a tedious trip to an enjoyable experience. In this article, we present a new business model and a complete architecture for vehicular entertainment networks that allow users to transfer applications from their mobile terminals to infrastructure elements, such as seat screens, while maintaining control from their terminals. Our approach is compatible with highly successful business models such as application markets, where users download content and services to their devices for future use. This simplifies the process of managing, providing, and updating content services, resulting in reduced maintenance costs and placing the responsibility of content updates and licensing costs on the users. It also reduces infrastructure hardware costs because the use of mobile terminals such as cell phones as control devices eliminates the need for mechanical joysticks or touchscreens in the infrastructures.