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Your Car Is Reading Your Email

Posted by michael on from the how-does-it-pronounce-v1agr4? dept.

mjamil writes "The NYT is running an article about yet another case mod for your auto. This one, manufactured by a company called CarBot, lets you check mail wirelessly, and reads it to you, amongst other things. Amusing sidelines: note the /. reference in the images in the article, and check the fully featured CarBot Web site." Update: 09/10 00:29 GMT by H : This guy has also written "Mastering Internet Video: A Guide to Streaming and On-Demand Video".

8 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Disconnect! by calypso15 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the love of god people, disconnect once in a while. I'm all about tech, I do it for a living, but I'm still able to stand being away from my email, cell-phone, and CS long enough to drive from work to home. Heck, I've even been known to enjoy a vacation now and then.

    I mean, I know something like this might be more for show than anything. "Oh yeah? Well I can check my email in my CAR sucka!" But, it's just a tad ridiculous.

    1. Re:Disconnect! by penguinoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, yes, disconnect! Go to a dark, quiet room. Light some candles and sit crosslegged saying "Ommm" and disconnect from the world for at least an hour each day. You know you will feel better for it.</overkill>

      Seriously, quit being a karma whore. As you might be aware, most slashdotters don't have a frigging huge computer integrated into their car, and even if they did, they wouldn't need to use it.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  2. Email is not meant to be real-time by FunWithHeadlines · · Score: 5, Insightful
    There has been a disconnect occurring with regard to email in recent years. With the proliferation of Blackberry type devices, and the ever-present need of middle managers to feel important, email has been turned into a real-time form of communication. "Hey, I just sent you an email, didya get it?" "Hey, why haven't you answered my email yet?"

    This is all wrong. Email is designed specifically to be the form of communication that lets you control when you read it. It's designed around you, not you around it. If you need to reach somebody immediately, use the phone -- that's what it's for.

    So having your car read you email is really only useful for a tiny subset of the population. For the rest it's just another way to distract yourself from your own thoughts while driving, or a way to make yourself feel important, or a way to harass your underlings at work ("Jenkins, I just got your email, and that's not at all the way I wanted you to proceed on that project!").

  3. OnStar does this already by sjf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's fine if you don't get much email, but for real world use, speech synthesis and voice recognition are an useless interface for email.

    -S

  4. Not Impressed by hotspotbloc · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm sorry, I'm not. For $1450.00USD you get a VIA Epia-M motherboard, 256M RAM, 20G HD, 802.11g adapter and a GPS receiver. Kinda pricey. Buy the screen from them and add $420USD. IMO it's a nice DIY project but not a very good finished product.

    The other complaint is with using MS WinXP Home. While XP is fine on a system with a standard keyboard and mouse it's hardly the best interface for a car. At least go with XP Pro so you can RDP into it for updates, repairs, etc.. This really calls for a semi customized OS and GUI (GNU/Linux or *BSD and X) with a tightly integrated voice control system. I don't want mess with a trackpad while driving.

    I think a well crafted "car pc" would be nice and would sell. The CarBot, while nice and on par with some other DIY car computers it's nothing special.

    --
    "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
  5. Re:Wardriving mod? by awing0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wouldn't check my email through other people's wireless networks, even over SSL. Checking slashdot and the news, sure, but you don't know what kind of traps are set on wireless networks - man in the middle attacks, dns spoofing, etc. Not to mention if the connection you happen to pick up isn't deliberately shared, you might be committing "theft of service" and your e-mail account is a nice pointer to who you were.

    --
    Cthulhu Saves.
  6. Why do we do this to ourselves? by Cartridge+P.+Grover · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We MUST be connected. We must be reachable at all times, under all circumstances. Why, why why? I don't think it has anything to do with your friends or your family or your business. I think people do it because we can, mainly, and because we like gadgets. But once the honeymoon with your new gadget is over, you're a slave to it. The gadget wants attention. The gadget needs a recharge. The gadget needs a patch. The gadget is obsolete. You know what? Let the gadget die.

  7. Re:Shakespeare? by BlackHorse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You must have been waiting quite some time to find a post to use that one in.