This Kia can calculate your body fat

At the 2014 CES, Kia binged on three-letter acronyms with a slew of connectivity technology that culminated in the first U.S. debut of its KND-7 concept. For a company whose name is composed of three letters, it's not entirely unexpected.

Coming soon to a Kia near you, hopefully, is what the company dubs its In-Vehicle Infotainment Concept: a system that brings the smartphone ever so closer to driving. IVI piggybacks off your device of choice (being Korean, Kia demonstrated with a Samsung Galaxy) and offers connectivity to your heart's content: link to social media networks, check emails and reminders (when parked, it goes without saying) and even help you find a free parking space. A two-part system known as V2X will alert the car and subsequently the driver to a slew of warnings -- forward collision warning, fatigue alerts, and blind spot monitoring fall under the category of vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V -- as well as rerouting for traffic, which is known as vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Smart Radio will play music depending on your mood -- especially a mood determined by traffic, weather, and whether the Kia is currently stuck on the Las Vegas Strip in front of Harrah's at the moment. Expect categories ranging from "Powerful" (Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" at Live Aid) to "Dark." (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, for starters.)

UVO, according to Kia, stems from the Latin word "adiuvo," which means "to help." UVO for EV, anticipated for the upcoming Soul EV, will help electric adopters with updates on range, battery charge, and locations of charging stations, all viewable on a smartphone. It's a fairly standard level of connectivity for almost any electric car today, but given that the Soul EV will be Kia's first electric car, it's appropriate news.

Kia's KND-7 concept, first introduced in Seoul as the Cub, makes its North American debut with a diverse array of technologies -- some of which are practical, some of which are entirely unexpected. How about a steering wheel that monitors the driver's heart rate, stress levels, and body fat index? Along with the suicide doors, it's probably not going to make its way into the next Kia. But gesture controls seem like the next logical step from a button-less future, and the KND-7 can interpret the driver's wild, frantic gesticulating through a camera and an infrared motion sensor. Think of an Xbox Kinect inside your car. Then don't, because operating an Xbox while driving is dangerous.

The gesture system is part of another handy acronym, Kia's User-Centered Driving (UCD) that also encompasses an LCD dashboard, heads-up display (HUD) and wireless device charging. Most of these will likely make their way to the Kia K900, which was also on display as a full-sized cutaway model.

Kia
Kia's K900 gets the Bodies treatment.

Additionally, new lighting in the KND-7 reveals the company's first LED headlights on the outside, and something called Transparent Organic LEDs within that pulsate with a warming glow. The lights turn red or blue depending on the temperature selection, which won't be terribly hard to integrate into future Kias.

In the future, may there yet be a Kia that can determine the driver's body fat index, recommend a salad bar on Yelp, then reroute traffic to the Tender Greens in Santa Monica, all the while playing "Karma Chameleon" under the "Cheerful" mood category. There should be a corresponding acronym: Kia's "K2M" (Knows Too Much).

By Blake Z. Rong