Business Week has a special report on how technology is creating a new era in automobiles. A look at the advances we are likely to see:
Safety systems will move from passive protection, such as airbags, to active systems that use radar and cameras to watch for danger. Car keys will be replaced by credit-card style systems Every new car will come with a computer-like screen mounted on the dash. It’ll display a navigation system that uses a global positioning satellite plus onboard DVDs to provide directions, maps, and information on hotels, hospitals, and restaurants. Nearly every car will have a Wi-Fi hookup that automatically provides the weather, news, and other information. Cars will increasingly collect data that can be shared with dealers, manufacturers, and even other vehicles. Voice commands will become far more common to help drivers juggle the proliferating functions in their cars. Brake-by-wire and accelerate-by-wire — where pressing the pedal sends an electronic signal rather than activating a physical connection to the engine or brakes — will become common. Increasingly, cars will be programmable.
