Your Car Is Reading Your Email

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".

Comments

Shakespeare?

[AKAImBatman]

On the dashboard-mounted touch screen, a push of the Play button produced a reading of the new e-mail, a test message sent that morning with text from "Macbeth."

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow," the voice said.

I'm not sure I could take a Shakespeare quoting car! Next thing you know, you'll be hearing:

To be, or not to be!

Whether 'tis nobler in the engine to suffer
The grinding and torture of outrageous driving,
Or to take wheels against a sea of backfires,
And by opposing end them?

To putter out: to run out of gas;
No more; and by running out of gas to say we end
The engine-grinding and the thousand natural shocks
That metal is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To putter out, to run out of gas

Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Come on

[Sc00ter]

My understanding is that it reads the email to you. That way you don't have to look at the screen. I don't see how this would be any different then having a conversation with somebody. Porn popups on the other hand...

Re:Come on

[jmcmunn]

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?

Wardriving mod?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Oh great ....

[methangel]

....Kit Car Voice:

Hello Michael, you have mail ...

"Size does matter!"
NATURAL PENIS ENLARGEMENT!

GAIN 3 Inches to your Penis, with VPRX penis pills!

CURE IMPOTENCE! GAIN STAMINA! HARDEN ERECTIONS!
100% GUARANTEED RESULTS!

SPECIAL DEAL TODAY!! ORDER 3 AND GET 3 FREE!!!

That is all the mail you have at this time Michael.

/end Kit voice

Pronunciation

[lukewarmfusion]

V14GR4? All the other 'adult' spam? The Nigerian scam emails?

I'm pretty sure it will sound like Quagmire from The Family Guy.

Or...

[CommanderData]

You go buy an M100 with an ITPS for ignition control. Then you go download MediaEngine or another interface of your choice at MP3car.com. Finally, go buy your Lilliput 7" TFT touchscreen on eBay.

If you're into self installs and whatnot this gives you a lot more flexibility at less cost.

Re:Or...

[BLKMGK]

The Xenarc screens are supposed to be better than the Lilliput screens FWIW. I've purchased a 7inch version with vid capability as well as VGA for under $400 off of EBAY.

I've been looking into this in order to monitor what's going on with my car's standalone EFI system. Since that EFI system's software allows me to build "dashboards" I can do LOTS of interesting displays. I have been collecting URLs and you can see pics of other's progress and discussion here -> http://forum.aempower.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=9604

Some URLs I've collected in no distinct order or organization:

http://www.logisysus.com/catalog/product_info.php? cPath=74&products_id=189
http://logisysus.com/catalog/product_info.php?prod ucts_id=334
http://www.kingyoung.com.tw/s620.htm
http://littlepc.com/
http://www.diamondsystems.com/
http://www.viaarena.com/
http://www.media-car.fr.st/
http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/index/Griffi n_RadioSHARK_AM-FM_Radio.htm
http://www.xmradio.com/xmpcr/ (I bought one, have added optical output, and have purchased TimeTrax!)
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr usb_datashee t.htm> (have one on the way, thanks EBAY!)
http://store.karpc.com/cat-LCD-Touch-Screen--lcdmo nitor.htm
http://www.mp3car.com/
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigy2NX/
http://www.carbotpc.com/products/
http://www.powerstream.com/DC_PC.htm
http://www.powerstream.com/mini-itx.htm
http://www.media-car.fr.st/
http://drivesoft.net/
http://www.gnetcanada.com/
http://www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm
http://skylab.org/~chugga/mpegbox/MPBS1/
http://www.compucar.be.tf/
http://www.autonode.com/ig710specs.html?
http://www.trc12volt.com/
http://www.intraplexcorp.com/tx3.asp
http://www.sfftech.com/
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/
http://www.dashmatics.com/forum/faq.php

Hopefully some of those will be of help to others considering this sort of thing, I'd be interested in working with others to research this! My plans are to mock up something with the touchscreen and front-end software working with the WINTV, XM PCR, my MP3 collection, GPS mapping, the RLTC software, and my AEM datalogging software. IF it works well (or even halfway well) THEN I'll buy hardware to put IN the car. No sense spending the money if the interface turns out to suck or be too distracting while driving. I'll likely be able to play DVDs too but honestly that's pretty se

Re:Only 60GB?

[akeyes]

One of the two models includes a firewire port.

Disconnect!

[calypso15]

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.

Just great.

[DarkHand]

Wonderful. Now my car will be calling me Dave.

'Your wife is looking for you, Dave...
You're 6 miles an hour over the speed limit, Dave'
Open the car door, HAL!

Mail carriers & AOL

[Himring]

This could be a bad thing for the postal system if it makes it into USPS vehicles. Imagine a postal worker who uses AOL, driving around hearing, "you got mail!" all day. Talk about "going postal...."

Email is not meant to be real-time

[FunWithHeadlines]

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!").

Re:Email is not meant to be real-time

[direwolf puppy]

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.

OnStar does this already

[sjf]

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

Damn paperclip

[Zorilla]

Next thing you know, you'll be driving around with your wife and kids in the car (I know, I know, what's a "wife") in broad daylight when suddenly the car blurts out, "Looks like you're trying to drive to the porno shop! Would you like me to provide directions to The Nipple Factory?"

Not Impressed

[hotspotbloc]

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.

Could be worse....

[raehl]

"Hello Officer!"

"Free Underage Girls!"

"Sir, could you please step out of the car?"

"That was the car talking, I swear!"

Perfect

[JavaRob]

::: whoosh whoosh :::
KIT: Michael, I couldn't help but notice...

Knight: What's that, Kit? Speak up, now -- we've got a busy day ahead of us!

KIT: Well, Michael, you seem to be getting quite a lot of unusual spam lately. Perhaps -- ::: whoosh whoosh :::

KIT: Perhaps you've been spending a little too much of the Foundation's research funding on, well, unorthodox internet research?

Knight: Oh, come on now --

KIT: Let me be completely honest with you, Michael -- I've been doing some research of my own, thanks to the new wireless module you installed last week. First of all, let me say that my infrared sensors inform me that your genitalia is within the parameters of normality for a man of your size, according to recent medical databases. Second, I happened to run across some photos of a stripped-down '79 Thunderbird that... well, raised some questions about the programming of my human emotion emulation chip. I experienced a... startling reaction to the graphical data, Michael. ::: whoosh whoosh :::

Illegal in some states

[marco0009]

Some states (such as Texas, where I live) have laws against display devices being the the drivers field of view unless they are used to display driving information (such as speed, fuel, etc.) Check your state laws before you run out and mod yoru car (or pay to have it modded) as I was hasseled by my local police, even though my 7" screen displays driving information, but I happened to be running WinAmp with MilkDrop at the time I was pulled over.