...my car just talked to me!

This is a thread about cars & the technology in them.

Over the past few years, technology has evolved in vehicles, changing the way we citizens drive. It has also improved various safety features. Earlier in the past decade, we've seen cars with satellite radio capabilities, and now, we use our voice to tell the car what we want to do. As a matter of fact, on the topic of safe driving, it has ways to connect your smartphone via bluetooth or USB so that way you wouldn't have to take a gander at your phone while you drive. Just a few simple voice commands like "Call <name>" or "Send SMS to <name>" and you're pretty much ready to go.

Lately in this year's car market, technology has become a lot more modern. We're now seeing vehicles with rear-view cameras, cars that park by themselves, and cars with wi-fi integrated in them (there are some that allow you to connect to Facebook or Twitter or...any social network website). I have a close online friend of mine who's car, a BMW, has an LCD Dashboard projector, that projects his whole dashboard and tells him the speed, the oil & gasoline meters, and car temperature.

What do you think about the future of automobile technology? What will we see next? Do you think these technology improvements makes us safer drivers? Why or why not?

I personally think if they could make a car not heat up, or find a way to harness that energy, that would be the only thing I would ask for for the rest of my car-time on earth.

Like, what is with the cars! I leave it in 70° weather and when I come back I burn my hands on the seat belt.

Fix that tbh

They actually have prototypes where they have cooling gel inside the car seat so it won't burn you when it's boiling hot outside. But the gel won't affect the seat at all when it's cold.

While car technology is cool and such, I don't really think entirely what is being put into vehicles is all necessary.. the social media probably is a little excessive but I at least like the idea of voice-commanded SMS and calling via Bluetooth, as those provide more safety.

As for the rear-view cameras, it makes me wish now that cars came with blind spot cameras more than rear-view, because I usually have no problem with that, but I understand it's a necessity that helps you prevent bumping into others' cars.

Cars...kinda need their heat, so you can't just get rid of heat altogether unless if it's the inside. Like Jz mentioned, there's at least something you can do to get rid of it...like a gel.

I'm not very fond of wifi integration in cars. I don't see a point in driving and using facebook or twitter in your car. "Update status <I AM DRIVING MAH CAHR YAHOOOO>" I mean, what else can you update aside from that? It doesn't really benefit anything, except for internet radio which is....a good idea.

However, with the right technology and if not all else fails, I do believe that the cars we have today does indeed make us safer drivers. Why? As long as you maneuver safe driviing practices WHILE you have the cameras or the self-parking method on, you'll be okay. I wouldn't really rely on the auto-methods or the cameras alone though.

Well for the passengers they could use it on long car trips :)

I resent modern cars. My take is that it's just adding things to go wrong with the car, and then the user has to pay the manufacturer for repairs or buy proprietary tools from them, because along with their features, cars are built in such a way as to discourage self-service. Computerised engines make as much sense as computerised firearms, which is to say none. In the future these issues will only be compounded because almost all cars are built to sell, not to last.

Safety features also raise my disdain, though this is due to personal preference rather than good sense... mostly. I find that my own car's relatively unsafe construction makes it far easier (and therefore, ironically, somewhat safer) to drive; greater visibility through the larger windows is the main thing.

ZachLMedia said:

As for the rear-view cameras, it makes me wish now that cars came with blind spot cameras more than rear-view, because I usually have no problem with that, but I understand it's a necessity that helps you prevent bumping into others' cars.

Click to expand...

Simply being familiar with the size of one's car ought to be enough to prevent that.
There have been blind-spot mirrors for years, it's just not standard on every car for whatever silly (lack of) reason.

All in all, I think consumer-oriented vehicular technology will be more harmful the more of a stand-in for good judgement the average driver will take it for being.