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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".

6 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can't we just get by without having the need to read email. Atleast while fucking driving. As if we didn't have enough people not paying attention during driving already.

    1. Re:Come on by jmcmunn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, but I wonder if this is the same as talking on the phone? I read a study (can't remember where) that basically said that talking on the phone casuses more accidents than simply listening to the radio, or even singing along with the radio. It's because, evidently, the human mind tries to paint a picture of the person you are talking to in your head. If that person is in the car with you, talking to you, it takes less brain power because you don't have to think about the person subconciously. This was done as a study to see how different behaviors in the car affected driving ability. Amd talking on the phone was worse by far than others...

      So would your brain try to see the person sending the email? Or better yet, would your brain try to see the naked women, or try to imagine the effects of Viagra from the spam you are getting?

  2. Wardriving mod? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It'd be cool to set up the car (or even a laptop in a car) to wardrive and automatically synchronize email though other people's deliberately shared 802.11 connections -- at least until more cities support such citywide hotspots themselves.

  3. Vitals Missing from the Spec Sheet? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Vitals Missing from the Spec Sheet? What are the approved heat/cold and humidity ranges for the "CarBot"? I didn't see those on the "Spec Sheet"...

  4. Re:Email is not meant to be real-time by direwolf+puppy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is another way I've noticed email being used, though, and that is when you want a "written" record of a conversation that you couldn't get with a phone conversation. Those same middle managers that you talk about are the ones most interested in having the ability to pull up an old email (out of their 5 GB mailbox) and say "see, the vendor told me this, it's not my fault". It is the classic "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft" argument, and that is why they think it should be realtime; because in their mind it is replacing the phone, not memos.

    --


    You rush a Miracle Man, you get rotten miracles - Miracle Max, TPB
  5. Temperature handling... by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I wonder how this thing will handle winter temperature here. It is not unusual to have some days and nights the mercury going -25 C and even -30 C.

    And what about closed windows during an extra-hot summer day with the mercury going 40 C? Passive cooling is likely to not work at all.

    --
    Achille Talon
    Hop!