Cars and Computers-Thinking about the Net

Recently General Motors' OnStar rolled out Virtual Advisor, a service that lets drivers use voice commands to check on local traffic, make phone calls, send and receive e-mail, access limited Web content, and even make dinner reservations. The company is currently field-testing a program called OnStar at Home that lets customers lock and unlock their homes, control their security system, and adjust lighting and thermostat settings from inside their car. So far it's unclear how much service and hardware would cost.

Johnson Controls has long offered a similar system called HomeLink that learns and stores the radio signals sent by garage-door openers and similar devices (although you may have second thoughts about the wisdom of giving anyone who happens to be in your car—including, potentially, a car thief— complete access to your home).

Of course, e-mail, Internet, and concierge services are already available to many cell phone users as part of their basic subscription. And if the telephone companies had their way, your car's interface to the world would simply be your cell phone. Service providers such as AT&T Wireless are rushing to develop specialized telematics services to compete with the likes of OnStar. In fact, next-generation cell phones are being developed with built-in GPS antennas and Bluetooth (a short-range wireless protocol that will let small handheld devices interact with each other as well as cars and PCs).

Other companies, too, continue to carve out specialty information niches that could render OnStar's info services redundant. For instance, CUE: The Satellite Radio Network already broadcasts real-time traffic information for more than 30 metropolitan areas over local FM radio frequencies. CUE's traffic data include mapping coordinates that can sync to future navigation systems, automatically routing you around traffic snarls. OnStar's designers had better have some tricks up their sleeve; the battle to be your link to the outside world has begun in earnest.

Courtesy Yahoo Internet Life magazine