MySpace for the Futuristic Car
The January 29, 2007 edition of Forbes magazine boasted of new technology to be seen in future automobiles. The article outlines a sort social networking for cars – a sort of MySpace if you will. To summarize, carmakers hope to charge consumers a premium to include technology, which allows cars up to 750 feet away to send data to each other such as vehicle location and rate of speed. Indeed the cars communicate with each other to identify an impending crash. In a way it is the same principle that Mercedes radar technology is employing in the latest S-class. In essence this is a sort of early warning system.
Other benefits might include marketing and entertainment opportunities say for example a sort of file sharing between cars as with video or audio files. Imagine pulling into a gas station and receiving a free video download for buying petrol and a car wash.
The downside is that data could be use in negative ways, for example, in a court case to prove speeding. Such wireless systems could also conceivable used to control a car remotely. Another side is that such technology could take a long time to proliferate, and it does not work so fantastically with only a small percentage of users. The Forbes article does point out that “significant improvements” will occur with as little as 7% of America’s 241 million vehicles on the road. Needless to say this technology is a long way off, but it’s this sort of innovation that will drive product growth in the future.