Month: January 2025

Originally published on GoDaddy Resource Library

By Sophie Harris, Senior Video Producer and Director of GoDaddy’s “Big Water Summer: A Creation Story”

We are thrilled to announce the release of Big Water Summer: A Creation Story, a captivating short film directed and produced by GoDaddy, now available for streaming on the Documentary Channel.

This deeply intimate film delves into the power of entrepreneurship to uplift a community, showcasing the journey of Cherilyn Yazzie, a determined farmer on the Navajo Nation. Overcoming unexpected challenges, Cherilyn and her husband embark on a tumultuous business venture to grow food for their community through Coffee Pot Farms.

As a former social worker, Cherilyn grew tired of telling children to eat healthier when that is often impossible. There are only 14 grocery stores on the Navajo Nation, a reservation over 27,000 square miles. Seeking change, Cherilyn returns to her family’s ancestral land and starts a business growing local produce. Despite facing the complexities of a changing climate and personal loss, Cherilyn’s resilience shines through as she navigates the hurdles of her entrepreneurial endeavor.

Inspired by Cherilyn’s story, our team connected with her through the Empower by GoDaddy program, a social impact initiative supporting small business owners in underserved communities. We were drawn in by her laughter, her courage in the face of vast odds and her unfaltering honesty.

Coffee Pot Farms, like 30% of homes on the Navajo Nation, has no running water or electricity. While for many farmers that would be the end to their story, Cherilyn is unphased by that challenge. Instead, the film captures Cherilyn’s consistent kindness and warmth when approaching, for example, her neighbors about a subscription to her produce delivery service. Or when crying openly about the effect of the pandemic on her community and family.

As a testament to her civic engagement and her magnetism, since filming, Cherilyn ran and was elected to the Navajo Nation Council, the 24-seated legislative arm of the tribal government.

We are privileged to capture Cherilyn’s remarkable story, her bravery in times of uncertainty, and the growth of her business in this documentary. I believe her journey will resonate with anyone who has taken on an unknown challenge, advocated for improvements in their community, or navigated the weight and strength of their heritage.

As Cherilyn’s father would say, “With creation stories, none of the things that happened were easy… you’ve just got to keep going.”

Witness Cherilyn’s journey in Big Water Summer: A Creation Story, now streaming on the Documentary Channel.

Originally published on HARMAN Newsroom

CES 2025, LAS VEGAS, January 8, 2025 /3BL/ – HARMAN, an automotive technology leader and subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., announced a roster of new collaborations with leading companies across the tech and automotive sectors. Together, they are accelerating the consumer technology-driven transformation of the automotive industry by adding empathy and contextual awareness to the car.

HARMAN’s latest collaborations are driving the creation of intelligent and intuitive user experiences in the car. From bringing brilliant, life-like visuals to in-vehicle displays or an AI system that fosters a natural bond between occupants and technology, HARMAN’s collaborations push the boundaries of automotive excellence.

“At HARMAN we believe that when it comes to transforming the industry we are better together, and collaboration is the key to unlocking everyone’s full potential,” said Christian Sobottka, President of HARMAN Automotive. “By working with industry leaders across the automotive and technology sectors, we are embracing collective intelligence to create a new level of in-cabin experiences that adapt to what consumers want and automakers need.”

At CES 2025, HARMAN will showcase how its latest collaborations are propelling the automotive industry forward and transforming the ways that we interact with our vehicles.

Ushering in A New Era of Intelligent, Empathetic Journeys

HARMAN, in collaboration with Cerence AI, is leading the way in integrating generative AI into vehicles. CES 2025 marks the launch of the “Luna” avatar powered by Ready Engage, HARMAN’s new emotionally intelligent AI system, completely transforming how people engage with their car. Designed with flexibility in mind, it features pre-integration with Cerence AI’s voice assistant platform while remaining adaptable to the rapidly evolving advancements and continuous step changes in AI technology. Offering personalized AI-powered interactions that anticipate needs and respond naturally through voice and visuals, Ready Engage creates a connection that feels friendly, easy, and approachable.

This alliance also enhances HARMAN’s Ready Link Marketplace developer ecosystem.    Cerence AI’s CaLLM™ Edge automotive-grade, on-device small language model (SLM) is now integrated into Ready Upgrade. This makes it easier for third-party app developers to create in-car applications that bring consumers’ preferred, personalized content into the vehicle while ensuring that personal data remains secure. The integration offers advanced and cost-effective SLMs embedded into Ready Upgrade software for in-vehicle use which developers can access through a standardized interface provided by HARMAN.

Uniting Advanced Driver Assistance and In-Cabin Experiences

In response to growing expectations for fresh and up to date in-cabin and driving experiences, HARMAN and HL Klemove are working together to deliver the best of cockpit and ADAS domains in one integrated solution. Together, the two companies have built a light central compute unit (CCU) based on HARMAN’s Ready Upgrade cockpit domain controller and HL Klemove’s Level 2 software stack and ADAS sensor set. This collaboration unites HARMAN’s deep in-cabin expertise and HL Klemove’s market-proven ADAS solutions. In the next level of their collaboration, HARMAN and HL Klemove are now developing a product-grade CCU platform that will integrate their latest cockpit and ADAS feature sets and offer automakers shorter time to market and full flexibility to customize.

Delivering Exceptional Consumer Experiences In-Cabin

Leveraging Samsung’s consumer electronics expertise, HARMAN’s in-cabin experiences meet the performance and design standards of today’s personal devices. A key example: HARMAN Ready Display products are powered by Samsung Neo QLED and offer industry-first automotive-qualified cadmium-free Quantum Dot technology and Blue Mini LED-based local dimming displays. These innovations bring home-theater quality into the vehicle with enhanced brightness, intelligent algorithms, and sleek design. Together, HARMAN and Samsung are pushing the boundaries of in-vehicle display performance, co-developing the HDR10+ automotive standard with Ready Display as the industry’s first HDR10+-compliant product in early 2025.

Harnessing Near Real-Time Technology to Support Safety and Wellness

HARMAN is working closely with industry leaders, including Miovision and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to ensure its award-winning Ready products deliver the right information at the right time, supporting safety.

HARMAN Ready Aware, a new vehicle-to-network (V2N)-based SaaS solution, enhances driver’s situational awareness with a focus on traffic lights and road hazards. In collaboration with Miovision, a global leader in intelligent traffic solutions, Ready Aware offers contextual and intelligent alerts, including time to green and red-light assist, to help navigate intersections and support safe driving experiences.

HARMAN and Qualcomm Technologies are redefining automotive connectivity with the HARMAN Ready Connect 5G telematics control unit (TCU), which achieves an industry-first milestone by bringing satellite communication to a TCU. Based on the Snapdragon® Auto 5G Modem-RF Gen 2, this technology collaboration enables mobility services such as emergency messaging based on satellite network operator (SNO) coverage. Together, the two companies are delivering ubiquitous connectivity while maximizing upgradability, scalability, and usability to meet the evolving needs of the automotive market.

Enhancing Driver Safety and Comfort with Personalized In-Cabin Interventions

Furthering its multi-year collaboration with Gentherm, the global leader in thermal management and pneumatic comfort technologies, HARMAN and Gentherm continue to enhance the in-cabin experience by prioritizing safety and comfort. HARMAN Ready Care, an industry-first product that measures a driver’s visual and cognitive load as well as vital signals in real-time, now integrates with Gentherm’s new in-cabin comfort product WellSenseTM, delivering personalized in-cabin interventions, such as seat-based heating and cooling based on the driver’s level of stress, distraction, and drowsiness. 

Better Together: Leading the Way in Future-Ready In-Cabin Innovation, Today

By collaborating with leading innovators across industries, HARMAN continues to shape the future of the automotive industry. Through the power of collective intelligence, HARMAN is turning cars into intelligent and empathic companions. Discover how HARMAN is driving this transformation firsthand at CES 2025, where the company will unveil its latest collaborative breakthroughs that promise to inspire the next generation of in-cabin experiences. For more information on HARMAN’s latest news, visit the HARMAN CES 2025 media kit.

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ABOUT HARMAN

HARMAN (harman.com) designs and engineers connected products and solutions for automakers, consumers, and enterprises worldwide, including connected car systems, audio and visual products, enterprise automation solutions; and services supporting the Internet of Things. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson® and Revel®, HARMAN is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform around the world. More than 50 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and connected car systems. Our software services power billions of mobile devices and systems that are connected, integrated and secure across all platforms, from work and home to car and mobile. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 30,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In March 2017, HARMAN became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

For more information, contact:

Jessica Sader

Communications Manager, Automotive

jessica.sader@harman.com