Future Voice vol.6 AFEELA: The Entertainment Destination  

What will the entertainment experience look like in a future defined by next-gen mobility, autonomous driving, and AI-driven personalization? Stephen L. Hodge, CEO of OTTera, an AFEELA partner, believes the car will become an Entertainment Destination for music, movies, and games.

Sacred Pilgrimages and Time travel at Will   

—OTTera offers a service called OTT (Over the Top). What kind of service is it?

What is OTTera’s main service offering?

It’s cloud-based software platform allows various companies and media outlets for various companies to develop and launch a streaming service, such as a FAST channel or Streaming Application. The white-label service provides companies the ability to create services by customizing design and UI, eliminating the need for ground-up development. Content and advertising can be optimized using viewer attributes, preferences, and viewing history.

To date, OTTera has operated over 600 live applications and distributed over 2,000 FAST channels (online, ad-supported distribution channels) globally. The partnership with AFEELA will allow users to enjoy hundreds of streaming services in their cars and on mobile devices.

—AFEELA is also planning to distribute Toon Goggles, a children’s channel powered by OTTera, isn’t it?

Content for children in the back seat is the most in-demand in-car entertainment. No mobility entertainment portfolio is complete without children’s content, and it makes a lot of sense to offer it first with AFEELA.

 —AFEELA has also announced a strategic partnership to advance AI-based personalization technology.

Anyone can enjoy highly personalized video content by using data like travel routes, time, and location. For example, the experience could include watching a program filmed in or associated with Santa Monica or Beverly Hills when you are in Los Angeles.

—So, people can watch content while visiting sacred places. If you are in Tokyo, can you also project the streets of Edo across time?

Yes, that would be feasible. The possibilities are endless when it comes to experiences that combine AI and mobile data.

Cars can be the best in entertainment.

—How will the video experience change with a layer of automated driving?

Sony’s history and technology in audio and video, and Honda’s history and mobility technology are the perfect combination for exploring entertainment in the age of autonomous vehicles. AFEELA offers a unique screen size, and from a developer’s perspective, its UI creates an enjoyable experience for drivers and passengers, both attractive for creating new entertainment.

—Considering today’s technology, a future without screens is not unrealistic.

Whether it is virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR), the entertainment of the future will undoubtedly move towards more immersive, out-of-screen, spatial experiences. When we add automated driving to the mix, mobility experiences will move in the same direction.

Movie theaters, beaches, forests, somewhere far away and exotic, or in space, in a non-existent underwater city or in a timeless past — these are the places the car will take us. A car ride could put you in a completely different world. It is precisely because the car is a highly personal and enclosed environment that it can be an extremely immersive and extended experience.

—It could lead to experiences that are only possible with mobility.

There’s already technology for XR devices that can project a 200-inch screen in front of you, so it’s possible to create the ultimate audio/visual experience in a closed car. An analogy might be like sitting inside a pair of Sony headphones. You might think, “I want to play PlayStation in my AFEELA,” or you might get in the AFEELA to watch a film or listen to the latest album. In other words, the car goes beyond being a car and becomes an entertainment device. Not only will it extend the journey from point A to point B, but the AFEELA itself has the potential to function as an entertainment destination. I can’t wait to get one myself.