Have you ever been sat on the M6 and had the compulsion to post a status to Facebook or Twitter? I am sure you have, some of the less law abiding people we know may already twitter away while driving. A recent KPMG survey revealed that 37% of senior car industry executives believe that automobile connectivity will soon become the norm. I can see the value in this, it would be great to as part of a road trip engage with services such as Google places, TripAdvisor, Four Square etc. I can also see tremendous advantages in having access to iTunes and Spotify on the move and i am a little excited by the prospect. What does concern me is the auto industries poor record of software development. Recall Mercedes abortive attempts to integrate voice control into the early 00′s SL and the long lamented Volvo/Ford/Aston Martin/Jaguar propriety SatNav.
I hope that the auto industry does not attempt do go this route alone, that seems to be the way they prefer to do things but it would surely be cheaper to partner with an established player in the mobile market who already have suitable hardware and software sitting on the shelf. I like the idea of and android powered HTC or Samsung built “infotainment” centre that uses the widgets that we have all become very familiar with to convey useful driver data, some of which we have lost due to cost cutting and dumbing down of car instrumentation, I am specifically referring to voltage, oil temp and pressure gauges here. I also believe that it will be cheaper and have a faster moving development process due to us already being in possession of some pretty capable pocket-able devices that could easily be integrated into a car dashboard.
Another area of immediate concern is the UKs abysmal 3G coverage. While much of Europe is able to stream in the glorious glow of 4G download speeds, the UK is far behind still trying to support an inadequate 3G infrastructure, just dont plan to enjoy connectivity in the Vale of Clwyd! Other downsides to being more connected while we drive will be the increased likelihood of big brother finding out what we are doing an monitoring our behavior. We have already seen how our online misbehavior can be used as grounds for prosecution, what is to prevent the plod from using a quicker than normal point to point time as grounds for a speeding conviction? This is probably a little paranoid but it does fall in with current policing trends.
Overall, i am looking forward to seeing what comes of these developments, my personal tastes are for a car with fewer toys for spirited driving but for the week day grind, Spotify wouldn’t hurt!
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