Smart phone is hot, what about smart car?

Mobile is too hot to talking about next?


The mobile computing is boiling hot, white hot at this moment.  With Apple's capitalization surges over $500 billion, all the companies in technology are scramble to catch the mobile frenzy train. Products are debuting the market almost in a daily basis. It is an industry phenomenon, much like the DOT COM bubble in 2000, and house market in 2006.

Given the mobile computing is still churning under the boiling surface, then is it too early to talking about the next big thing in technology?

For mobile, there is pretty much a settled scene, with Apple leading with devices update each year. It is hard to imagine anything "revolutionary" as the iPad, iPhone, iPod trios.  It is now pretty much a routine job of Apple to renew is devices in a yearly basis, much like the PC industry does in the past 30 years. Further integration might happen in the living room, with the more advanced Apple TV like devices play within the OLED TV itself.

Other than that, where should we look for the excitement?

What's next big hit after mobile?


I saw the Car industry. For a device that people spend at least 20% or more of their  wake time, car is not as technologically advanced as it should be. At this moment, the technology within a car is very shabby, with Luxury cars carry such "boast-worthy" technology as Blue Tooth, Reverse camera, and DVD player. All these are far from integrated.

A smart car - really smart


It is time that cars getting a technology make up. With the latest mobile computing capability, it is now a non-luxury to have a car doing the following. With these functions, a car would be a killer application, and you can be assured to sell lots of cars!!

0. entertainment - sync and play my music, video etc from the car.
00. tracking where is my car from my iPhone (auto-reporting position of car)
1. up-to the minute traffic with GPS recommendations (android system?)
2. my trip information integration with Cloud and Google map
3. information of my surroundings, a wiki-like information mesh up based on where I am
4. alert of empty gas tank, together with when and where to fill the "best" tank of gas. (cheap, safe)
5. trip plan - plan ahead of my driving, and with my car monitor my plan progress.
6. car recommend to me Hotel, food, and rest areas according to my trip plan
7. alert of car maintenance
8. alert of my driving context: cross lane, too close to car, too fast, too slow, etc.
9. finger print based entry and start systems.
10. automatic settings based on driver height and stored in memory system.
11. new telecom service: 2sim -> 1phone#   integrated phone service, this requires that telecom company allow user to have more than two lines for one single phone number?



A computer with mobile OS (android?) as the Brain of the smart car
One way to make the car smart, is to install a brain to the car. This requires that the car not only has an on-board computer with the telecom service, but also that the software OS has to be retrofitted for the smart car usage.
1. wired to the steering wheel, door, entertainment system and lights
2. GPS
3. touch screen
4. telecom services
5. android based car OS
6. provide bluetooth
7. provide 802.11 links for in-car communication
8. siri or digital assistant on-board for interaction

With these features, the car will be truly smart and ready to drive!


A smart phone as the "Big Brain" of the Smart Car
Another "cheap" way is having the phone talking with the car computer, and let iPhone acting as the brain of the car.  And a car is just an app on the iPhone. There is great benefits for this.
1. take advantage of mature mobile devices technology
2. simplifying the architecture, and reduce cost to build a car.
3. the phone is mobile, so you save the potential telecom services cost, as you already paid your phone
4. conveniently locating where is my car?

The draw back is that the pairing of car and the iPhone may not have fast enough link. Nowadays, the blue-tooth speed is top at 700Kb/s. This means some application requires an extra 802.11 link on-board. Another issue is that different car may have different interface, but I am anticipating that each type of car has at least two apps available for iPhone and Android.