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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".

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Shakespeare? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Funny
    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
    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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!").