Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Autopartswarehouse.com | Microsoft Into Car Wi-Fi

Nowadays, most people enjoy surfing the net, playing online games, doing business. But how can they do that while driving? Microsoft made an amazing job getting internet and car side by side.

Dubbed Vi-Fi, for vehicle Wi-Fi, Microsoft’s latest endeavor into car technology looks promising. In a partnership with the University of Massachussettes and the University of Washington, the software giant is working on making Wi-Fi connections in cars a steady and reliable experience, unlike current offerings from cell phone manufacturers and their laptop cards.

The new system will allow multiple Wi-Fi signals to come and go at one time in order to keep the signal strong and avoid “hand-offs,” which often fumble, leading to spotty service.

The real question is, “Why?” Why do we need in-car Wi-Fi? Do we really want to surf the net while driving? Oh, ye of little tech understanding. The real reason Wi-Fi would be a terrific addition to in-car technology is two-fold: It would replace expensive satellite subscription services like XM, and it would allow for an almost unlimited variety of applications. Think of how the iPhone has hundreds of applications. With in-car Wi-Fi, an iPhone-like onboard system could display not only weather and movie times (like many satellite systems do today), but it could also display live stock quotes, internet radio, instant messaging and virtually anything else you can access on a laptop computer.

There still needs to be a larger Wi-Fi infrastructure to get this to work for the everyday driver, but Microsoft has shown it can produce terrific in-car technology, like its Sync system.


Soon people can do their job while stuck on traffic so they will not be bored.


Source: Daily Tech

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