Harman International announced at this week's Intel Developer Forum that it will use the Intel Atom ultra-low power microprocessor to create infotainment systems for 2012 BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes. Obviously, this means one more victory for Intel in moving into the car as the PC industry suffers slow growth. For the car-buyer, it has the potential to drive down the cost of information and entertainment. Today, it's possible to spend more than $7,500 on audio, video, Bluetooth, and navigation in a high-end. Half that cost could evaporate if automakers used standardized components but with unique interfaces.

Atom is Intel's ultra-low-power processor finding use in netbooks and mobile internet devices. At IDF this week, Marek Neumann, VP of advanced engineering for the Harman International Automotive Division, showed a slide captoned, "Next Generation Cross-Platform High-End Infortainment System: Harman International is able to offer fully integrated, energy-efficient infotainment solutions based on the Intel Atom processor in order to respond fully to the continuously increasing processing requirements for new media formats and connectivity in multi-seat environments. This enables us to accelerate the development and to provide leading-edge infotainment technologies for an unpredented end-user experience at highest level." Harman said it will use Atom in Harman Becker infotainment system in 2012 models of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which will come to market in 24 months.

The automakers want more functionality in their infotainment systems, including the ability to provide multiple streams of entertainment or information. In the back seat, for instance, it's increasingly common to have two LCD displays mounted in the backs of the front seat headrests than a single shared display dropping from the roof or mounted on the center console. At some point, one of the automakers will surrender to necessity and offer the Sharp Dual View LCD display in the front seat center stack; Dual View provides separate views for driver and passenger by alternating the orientation of alternating pixels. That means a car could have four infotainment streams, perhaps navigation for the driver, music information for the front seat passenger, DVD playback for one rear passenger, and iPod video playback for a second rear passenger. One stream could be a web browser coming from an integrated car cellular connection. Automakers do have one legitimate concern for going slow on dual view: Most states forbid front-seat LCD displays from showing video, when the laws should have been written to say " ... that can be viewed by the driver."

By going with industry standard components as Atom, Harman has the ability get new products to market more quickly. Note that the Apple iPod came out in 2001 but it's only now that the majority of automakers offer iPod integration (line-in jacks don't count as integration except in the wimpiest sense, even if Apple uses that to show how universal iPod support is inside the car). And there's the opportunity to cut costs and (possibly) pass it along to the buyer. Ford's Sync, built around Microsoft technology first used by Fiat and now available to other automakers, is free on most midrange and high-end models, and no more than $395 on the cheapest Ford for a device that gives you a USB jack and control music players, Bluetooth, voice recognition and voice control, and now rudimentary navigation (text and voice prompts but not maps). Compare that with the gotta-be-kidding pricing of components on today's BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes. You can pay $595 for satellite radio, $350 for HD radio, $400 for an iPod adapter, $500 forBluetooth, and $2,100 for a navigation system. The $7,500 price cited for full infotainment packages includes $2,000 each for navigation, rear seat entertainment, and premium audio (mostly bigger amps and more speakers).

While it doesn't require the Atom processor, you could expect a sea change as automakers shift from hard disks for data storage (maps, ripped music files) to flash drives, which should last the life of the car. Sooner or later automakers also will have to provide multiple Bluetooth connections and charging jacks for several phones, not just one, and inputs for multiple iPods. All that's going to take more processing power. Atom is far from the fastest CPU in the Intel arsenal, but for an automaker's needs, it's good enough, and doesn't give off a lot of heat, which is an asset if it's stuck under the dash and expect to last for at least a decade.

Automakers, particularly premium makers such as Audi, BMW, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz, have in the past complained that they don't want to use off-the-shelf components if it meant every car's center stuck functioned like the rest. But with a product such as Intel Atom, they can keep the common components in the background, skin the user interface to their liking, offer different switches on the center stack, and provide different cockpit controllers.

It's not clear which models would get the Intel Atom infotainment systems. Most likely it would go on new or recent models but wouldn't be retrofitted to a model with only a year or two left before the next version.

See pcmag.com for more on Intel Developer Forum, including an overview of Intel's new mobile CPU offerings.