My vision for a car-puter
When I originally bought my laptop, one of the things I wanted to do with it was build a PC for my car. I didn’t really want the laptop to be the final product, but I wanted to be able to use the laptop to test things out, develop software and get things rolling before dropping some cash on the car-puter I really wanted.
My system consists of a couple of pieces:
- Computer: obviously I need to run all the software on something
- WiFi card or access point: I want to have network access in the car whenever there’s a usable WiFi signal in the area. I haven’t decided if I should do that through a card or a dedicated WiFi router. Either way, the setup will require a larger antenna than the default. I may be going as fast as 80mph in the truck at times, so extending the range of the WiFi connections it finds at that speed will be important. Also, being on the freeway, the extra range may help to pick up residential networks further off the road. And it may be a pipedream, but wouldn’t it be cool if nearby cars could connect to my access point during the trip? There could be some seriously cool caravan applications for that.
- Cell Modem: There are going to be times along the route where I don’t have a WiFi signal. Actually, trying to locate a WiFi connection, connect, get a DHCP lease and make any requests at 80mph may not be feasible. In those cases, the computer ought to be able to use Bluetooth to connect through my cell phone. It wouldn’t be high-speed, but I wouldn’t be looking to sneak out much more than a couple of packets every now and again.
- GPS: I’d like to know exactly where I am at all times. This comes in handy with the next piece.
- Local Search: Yahoo! has a local search service that will take the latitude and longitude as an argument. Wouldn’t it be cool to be connected via the WiFi and have coordinates via the GPS and be able to say, “where’s the nearest gas station?” Or, “where’s the nearest Burger King?”
- Yahoo! Music Engine: All the music in my collection available on the road. I’ve already been testing this out on the laptop using a cassette adapter and it’s awesome. Who needs the radio (local or satellite) when I’ve got all the music I could want at my fingertips? Also, with the YME plugins coming out now I could download audio/video news and traffic reports to the truck before pulling out of the garage.
- Voice Recognition: Being the driver, I really shouldn’t take my hands off the steering wheel and I shouldn’t be fiddling with a touchscreen or remote. Everything should be controllable through voice commands.
Those are the most important pieces to me. I’m sure I’ll think of more. Now I just have to get it all working, piece by piece. The hardest part will be getting all the software working together and provide an interface that’s easy to use while the truck is in motion.
