You may be able to connect with your car in a lot of ways such as making hands-free calls, and many cars out there are able to connect with their manufacturers wirelessly when there is a need, but AT&T and GM want to take connectivity to a new level. The two companies have announced a partnership that will bring the AT&T LTE network to the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac car models meant to go on sale in 2014 in the US and Canada.

As you might know, GM already provides customers with the service of OnStar for security alerts, directions and much more. The future LTE cars will have all those abilities along with more high tech features.

AT&T’s connectivity will be used for a variety of services including diagnostics, infotainment, and their main focus will be safety. We can think about a thousand things such as advanced voice recognition tech for better hands free abilities, or content streaming from services like Netflix, or maybe better communications between cars to avoid accidents, and so on.

All these new features will certainly help sell more cars which is good for GM. Just in case you are thinking about what’s in it for the wireless carrier, AT&T needs to spread their services beyond handsets for growing on the market where most people already own smartphones.

So, are you looking forward to an AT&T connected car? Or do you think that GM should have made a deal with Verizon or another carrier instead?

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CES appears to be becoming the first big auto event of the year where auto giants can shine with their latest in-car technologies to consumers. At the upcoming CES next month, GM’s OnStar will be showing off their new in-car system and they have just teased us with.

Beyond OnStar’s ability to track your every move, remotely shut down your vehicle and unlock its doors, they will be introducing a system that will bring video chat and content streaming via Verizon’s 4G LTE network to select GM vehicles.

As you might not have forgotten, OnStar previewed a system which was developed in conjunction with Verizon in the previous year. It was shown off in a Buick LaCrosse research vehicle.

At CES 2012, the latest on that system will be revealed in a Chevy Volt research vehicle. According to OnStar, the new system is coming with features such as cloud-based streaming of content, video chat and rear-seat infotainment management.

As you can see in the above picture, the system features 2 hardwired tablets situated on the rear of the front seat headrests. It seems to be a good way to keep the kids engaged.

OnStar hasn’t announced any details regarding specifications. From the looks of things, it appears like the car itself is coming equipped with a 4G modem for internet access.

The idea of video chat while driving is a bit scary. That’s why the company is also focussing on safety and has announced that front-seat access to video chat will be enabled only when the vehicle is in park. But rear seat passengers can chat, stream, and access content through the tablets whether the car is moving or not.

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The OnStar system is mostly voice-activated and a great way to get emergency personnel to you in the event of an emergency, but Facebook? That seems to be the next feature coming to OnStar via the MyLink interface from GM, and it will be completely handsfree. Facebook posts can be read out to you while you’re driving, you can even go ahead and update your status with OnStar voice recognition technology. OnStar President Chris Preuss says data shows that “there is no correlation between pushing a single button and vehicle crashes.”

The services will begin appearing on the new Chevy Volt, making Google Android and Apple iPhone apps accessible through MyLink. There’s one hitch with FaceBook, it wont accept audio files. You see, the OnStar system records your voice message to an audio file, then what? MyLink will have to translate that audio file to text before posting to FaceBook. How will OnStar handle this? Their launching a developers’ challenge to entice people to write apps for GM’s vehicles. Of course OnStar will have to be very careful about which apps they approve, “But the reality is that crashing a phone with a bad iPhone app is a little different from crashing a car with a bad iPhone app,” Mr. Preuss said. Until a jailbreak for your GM is released. GM plans to offer this service first in 2011 models, other OnStar-equipped vehicles will follow after that.

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