Thursday, May 29, 2003

Vehicular Broadband Several years ago, I was chatting with Robert Sheffield, formerly with Donlen and PHH Fleet Services about future applications for vehicles.  Robert was working with a new company, OnStar.  The list of ideas was very long, and was oriented towards fleet types of applications; things like updated the fleet management system directly from the vehicle's onboard systems and auto-authorization for fleet fueling services.  An article in Automotive Design and Production discusses the need for broadband wiring in the vehicle to support a growing portfolio of multimedia and other services.  The article doesn't discuss the different ways that a vehicle might be networked with the rest of the world.  Eventually, we will have smart vehicles that have peer-to-peer communications with the vehicles around them and wireless connectivity to highway information and all kinds of other services. 3:02:25 PM    comment []

10 Million Webcams and the Citizen Corps Jay Walker, the mind behind Priceline.com now has a new plan for homeland security.  It's called US HomeGuard.  The idea is to set up webcams to monitor critical infrastructure around the country and then energize the "citizen corps" to monitor any suspicious activity.  Interesting idea, but I think that technology can do even better than this. More in: Boston Globe MSNBC Spiegel Altermedia Speaking of webcams, take a look at the progress on Capitol Hill. 2:26:01 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.