Moving Targets

If you want broadband built into your car, you'll have to wait a bit longer, says Bob Schoenfield, senior vice president for Aeris, a company that runs a communications network for telematic services. Aeris is working with a "non-U.S. car company" on a 2008-model automobile that can download data at up to 2 megabits per second. As today's fastest cellular networks get even faster, we will see a tsunami of mobile content, from movies and music to live broadcasts.

Moreover, as Internet Protocol version 6 becomes more common, cars could be used to gather data about the weather, traffic patterns, and more, says Tom Patterson, CEO of Command Information, a consultancy that specializes in IPv6. The firm has built the "Veesix," a 1970s-era Porsche designed to show off IPv6's automotive potential.

Because IPv6 allows for trillions of new IP addresses, your speedometer and windshield wipers could have their own addresses, enabling them to broadcast data to a server that aggregates the information and feeds back real-time weather and traffic reports.

IPv6 also lets devices communicate automatically. So if another car were approaching a blind intersection at high speed, your car could detect it and sound an alarm.

IPv6 is being built into cars in Europe and Japan, and car area networks that connect all of the devices inside your ride should start appearing in 2009. Important questions remain, of course--like whether you'll have to share your driving data with the police or your insurance company, or what happens when you send an angry text message to the Hummer driver who just cut you off.

But the potential is awesome. I'd take the Veesix in a heartbeat--and a designated driver when I just have to surf.

Contributing Editor Dan Tynan is the author of Computer Privacy Annoyances (O'Reilly Media, 2005). You can contact him via e-mail.