The great American road trip tradition gets a modern twist tomorrow with the kickoff of Ford’s social media-connected, cross-country journey. Two Ford Fiestas bedecked with a suite of custom-built online applications will depart from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for a week-long trip to San Francisco’s Maker Faire on May 22.
The culmination of a year-long innovation research project between Ford and U of M students dubbed “American Journey 2.0,” the socially connected jaunt pairs a team of Ford engineers in one car with a team of students in the other. The student team won a competition for most compelling in-car app with Caravan Track, a program that allows clusters of vehicles to track each other while traveling together — one we could have put to good use in our own separation-prone road trips back in the day.
Another app in use along the journey will be Virtual Road Rally, which allows users to define points-of-interest and physical landmarks, as well as post drive parameters like the amount of fuel used. The app could potentially turn into a collaborative hypermiling game.
Another app, “Auto”matic Blog
, will allow the engineers’ car to automatically blog and tweet its impressions of the journey. Similar to Sony Ericsson’s Connected Tree project, “Auto”matic Blog will imbue the vehicle with a certain “personality” and mood based on information gathered from data sensors and engine computer codes in the car. You can follow the road trip car’s “thoughts” on Twitter at @AJtheFiestaduring the course of the venture.
The vehicle will also automatically check in to Foursquare locations along the way via a Local Search app.
“The car is the ultimate mobile device,” said Venkatesh Prasad, a technical leader in the Ford Research & Advanced Engineering team. “We’re researching how to responsibly and safely harness the Internet to enhance drivers’ time behind the wheel.”
What do you think of this “Internet on wheels” trend? Is it possible to add connected intelligence on the road while maintaining safety?
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