Do we really want to turn our cars into rolling WiFi hotspots? Will this be a boon to the “always-on” culture or just yet another source of driver distraction? And do we really want wearable computers that involve us answering a phone by sticking a finger in our ear?
On today’s Squawk Box we’ll journey a bit into new technologies coming out in the consumer space. First, in the past few weeks Chrysler has announced that starting with the 2009 models they will introduce “UConnect Web” where the car gets turned into a WiFi hotspot using a 3G cellular connection. Is this a good thing? Or just more distraction? How secure would it be? What kind of capabilities would it have? Who would use it? Some links:
We’ll then touch on some of the new work in “wearable computing”. NTT DoCoMo just put out a news release talking about some of their work – part of it is about new work to track your eye motion – and part of it involves a Bluetooth headset that involves bone conduction through sticking your finger in your ear! Some of this tech has been around for a while (there are web references to the finger phone as far back as 2000)… here are some more pictures.
On the call: Dan York (host), Jeanette Fisher, James Body, Hudson Barton, Ian Hood and Frank Abrams.
Show notes and links can be found at either:
http://apps.facebook.com/calliflower/conf/show/34611
http://apps.calliflower.com/conf/show/34611
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
