I suppose I should stop being surprised about the speed at which technology develops. Here's an example:
At Barcelona's Mobile World Congress jsut three years ago almost to the day, telecoms giant Alcatel Lucent launched the '4G Prius' to an unsupecting world. The heavily-converted Toyota featured a display that would not only be able to keep drivers informed on the car's various functions but would also be able to show high-definition videos, bring up Google Maps or run a web browser. Futuristic stuff.
Nowadays, everything's connected … well allegedly so. The connnected enterprise, connected government. And now, it's the connected automobile.
Yes, according to a BBC report, every new car will be connected to the web in 2014. Carmakers are hoping that the kind of technical wizardry found on every new smartphone will change the way we use our cars.
Everything from finding local eating places and obtaining money-off coupons to eat in them, to analysing an aerial view of street spaces and even predicting how long it's going to take until the traffic lights change, will be possible … and available.
"What this means is app-culture infiltrating the dashboard – from a parking space finder to a way to get coupons for local restaurants, or directions that can pop up on the windscreen," says BBC News's Alex Hudson. "It all relies on the car being connected to the internet, allowing all this information to arrive without too much searching or button pushing and a lot more focus on voice commands." Billions of pounds are thought to have been spent to date on these developments.
But all of these wonderful advances are accompanied by major concerns. Critics reckon that with the high number of road traffic accidents still attributable to the use of mobile devices, the use of these new applications, even if voice-commanded, will cause even greater distractions.
But this is a blog about internet safety, so no doubt you're waiting for the bit about hackers.
Technically, according to global information provider IHS, if a car contains a connected data system, then it's hackable. Indeed, this has already been demonstrated by security consultants who intercepted wireless messages between the car and the network and succeeded in unlocking the doors of a car and starting its engine without a key or touching the vehicle. So if your car of the future relies on its internet connection for navigation or safety, you could be in big trouble.
We can't offer you any advice on this at the moment, but this does demonstrate how the benefits brought about by the development and fusion of technology are balanced by risks as well.
