Baby, Baby... Beep Me One More Time
So you're cruising down the street in your flashy new BMW. You have your elbow resting on the open window. MP3's blaring. You notice an absolute honey strutting her stuff. You let your designer rays drop slowly down your nose to get an unfettered good look. With casual grace, your hand pushes on the centre of the steering wheel. The babe swiftly turns startled by your 'Missy Elliot' horn-tone.
What? You read correctly. The next thing to sustain the new $3-billion mobile download industry could quite well be 'horn-tones'.
Sun are still beaming over their success in enabling 350-million mobile phones with their client-side application solution 'Java'. Microsoft are in awe for once. But that won't last long. Shortly after Sun and BMW announced an alliance, so did Microsoft and Fiat. Yes. Fiat! Something tells me that the alliances may have been better suited the other way around, but hey! You do what you can with what you've got.
It's no news that on-board computers have been proliferating our dashboards for quite some time now. The only difference now is that it will be more closely coupled with other 'cant-live-without' gadgets, such as our smartphone.
So what can we expect from these interesting alliances? Probablly nothing more than gimmickry and media hype in the beginning. Using your smartphone as a means to unlock your car, start your car, play MP3's through your audio-system, act as your GPS, feed games and movies through to the consoles in the back seats. Oh, and allowing you to download horn-tones (shudder).
That's the beginning of course. Where will it takes us to? Your smartphone's display could easily replace the dull analogous dashboards in the cars of the future. Size shouldn't be a problem. Displays are getting smarter, thinner and flexible'. 3D/holography, foldable or rollable and even screens that project (maybe in fighter-pilot heads-up mode). You may even be able to chat with your smartphone, telling your car where to go (nicely), sit back and let it all happen, allowing your car/smartphone combo to dodge bouncing balls and small children, stopping at traffic-lights and slowing down for speed-cameras.
All very exciting. Though vanity is making me a supporter of the Sun/BMW alliance over Fiat! But who knows. I'm sure all the car manufacturers will follow suit, kicking themselves for not sending bigger fruit baskets to the Gates'es residence. And of course, the DVLA will no doubt be curious to know how many accidents will be averted (or caused) by downloadable horn-tones (insert Sideshow Bob style 'Uruhhh' here).
I am personally interested to see what it'll be like when Microsoft Autopilot blue-screens whilst hurtling down the motorway at 90MPH.
What? You read correctly. The next thing to sustain the new $3-billion mobile download industry could quite well be 'horn-tones'.
Sun are still beaming over their success in enabling 350-million mobile phones with their client-side application solution 'Java'. Microsoft are in awe for once. But that won't last long. Shortly after Sun and BMW announced an alliance, so did Microsoft and Fiat. Yes. Fiat! Something tells me that the alliances may have been better suited the other way around, but hey! You do what you can with what you've got.
It's no news that on-board computers have been proliferating our dashboards for quite some time now. The only difference now is that it will be more closely coupled with other 'cant-live-without' gadgets, such as our smartphone.
So what can we expect from these interesting alliances? Probablly nothing more than gimmickry and media hype in the beginning. Using your smartphone as a means to unlock your car, start your car, play MP3's through your audio-system, act as your GPS, feed games and movies through to the consoles in the back seats. Oh, and allowing you to download horn-tones (shudder).
That's the beginning of course. Where will it takes us to? Your smartphone's display could easily replace the dull analogous dashboards in the cars of the future. Size shouldn't be a problem. Displays are getting smarter, thinner and flexible'. 3D/holography, foldable or rollable and even screens that project (maybe in fighter-pilot heads-up mode). You may even be able to chat with your smartphone, telling your car where to go (nicely), sit back and let it all happen, allowing your car/smartphone combo to dodge bouncing balls and small children, stopping at traffic-lights and slowing down for speed-cameras.
All very exciting. Though vanity is making me a supporter of the Sun/BMW alliance over Fiat! But who knows. I'm sure all the car manufacturers will follow suit, kicking themselves for not sending bigger fruit baskets to the Gates'es residence. And of course, the DVLA will no doubt be curious to know how many accidents will be averted (or caused) by downloadable horn-tones (insert Sideshow Bob style 'Uruhhh' here).
I am personally interested to see what it'll be like when Microsoft Autopilot blue-screens whilst hurtling down the motorway at 90MPH.
posted by Matt Jones at 10:03
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