Yay for Innovation!
So, if you haven’t seen the new Google IO Keynote, the folks at Google have released a new Arduino based prototype board (isn’t that sounding redundant?) that allows you to quickly and easily link your phone to whatever the board controls. It is called the ADK. And, after getting a new post in the Nitemax thread while watching the keynote, my mind went back to carPC mode and i thought of a few ideas to take Android@Home and make it Android@Car. This is based on what we want most from our cars: music, navigation, and, as carPCer’s, enhanced over so much more.

Start from Scratch
My thought is that we can take a phone, tablet, laptop, in our high speed internet areas, and use it as our primary PC. We can now do it in one of two ways: a stand alone secondary device that stays in the car, as we in the car PC world usually do it, or use our phone to sync with our car as we approach it and have one device, which we normally have on us, to control it all [insert Lord of the Rings “One Ring….”pun here]. See the thing is, it is now all feasible.

For music, with the Google Music Beta, we no longer have to worry about storage space for music (movies though, bring your hard drive). For those of us we do NOT live in high speed internet areas, or outside of the US, 4.0, which will be released in Q4 of this fiscal year, will allow for USB hosts, so that external hard drive will not go to waste.

GPS is usually built in on these systems, the MyTrack app and i’ve found, is a GREAT way to see where you’ve been and get motoring stats without looking at the phone again until you are done, and the Lookout Security Mobile app, can easily replace Lo-Jack with some minor enhancements from the ADK, and if your device has a mobile number.

Now the only thing that remains is data communications. Most data plans are, in my opinion, too expensive for this, until there is a great $5-$10, 50-100MB pay as you go plan, in which case, that is suitable enough, as this is not meant to be a primary internet device. if we can get that, with tethering our primary phone, even if it is not an android phone, we can manage to get what we want exactly how we want it.

The ADK and enhances control
The Bible states that God knows every hair on a man’s head. Why can’t we know every sensor in our car? Starting with the ECU, I wonder if the Arduino can take the input data from the your car’s computer using ODBI/II and allow it to wirelessly communicate with the phone when it is in range. This range increases greatly if we use two devices instead of one. It is now attainable for the average hobbyist to access, survey, and control their system form home, from work, from across the country and world. Best of all, it works on the Android API, so any and all developers have the capability of sharing their software ideas to anyone who wants it on a system that uniform and unified.

Aside from the obvious and usual gamut of desires, such as tracking your stolen vehicle/where your kids/spouse are and shutting it down at whim, imagine geo-caching, with pictures/ or video, locations of accidents, road hazards, or constructions in order to warn others of delays or dangers. I mean, there are roads where you take a few blind turns in succession, and only locals are familiar with it. How about on while on a long vacation, being able to turn on your car, run it for a few minutes, revving the motor a bit, and turning it back off again all without disturbing friend or neighbor. Or how about stumble things like syncing your car to start 20-30 minutes after your Android@Home Alarm clock goes off or 10 minutes after your Android@Home coffee pot starts to boil. How about Vocal calendar or task reminder off of Google calendars that your wife/Husband needs you to pick up something from the grocery. Or, back to cars, wouldn’t it be great if automotive manufacturers, like BMW and Lexus, who spew marketing slogans like “measures the road 500 times a second” would give us that measurement data while sending performance data with their cars for you to download. After knowing your driving habits, the car could help you drive better, or perform certain tricks PROPERLY, that we’d all like to know, such as the drifting parallel park. More useful, it tell you areas to increase performance that you may not have considered, or tell you where your performance is lagging due to common wear and tear? How about your car telling you that it needs new shocks, or the brake pads are at 40% and it might be time to consider changing them. “Oil levels are low, here are the nearest, or cheapest, places to find oil”. Or, even better,” the most convenient places based upon your planned travel route.” “Would you like to make the purchase with Google wallet? Yes? Coupons found? Yes?” Accept purchase, apply coupons, and done. You just purchased and saved $2 a quart on oil that you needed without getting out of the car and pick up is literally on the way home…and it mapped its location. Just go get it now. This technology is scary cool.

But…
It is also just plain scary scary. Do you rally want Google having that much influence nd power over your life. They are a data collection company first and foremost, which is why Android has always been “Free”. 100 Million products telling them where you are, what you search for, your emails, your pictures, your videos of precious moments, your documents, your shopping habits, your reading habits, your watching habits and maybe even who you call (which, with the newest incarnation of the Patriot Act, you have no rights to keep private anyways)–and now they want to add when you wake up and when you sleep and when you turn on and off your lights…

Yes there is no proof that Google really is using those last bits of information, but to be plain, there ARE places that do that just trolling the web. If I was a company who’s primary mission was to get data and spit it back out at you in the way or shape that you want it, I’m sure I’d like to take a peak into your innermost thoughts and cover my butt with a great End User Licensing agreement and a few ambiguous, yet innocuous sounding phrases that would be truly harmless if my corporate motto was “Don’t be Evil” and i followed it. call me paranoid, but i do my best to keep that “share info with Google” check-box UNCHECKED just in case of a ideological change.

However, in the end, as Microsoft and Apple are guilty of the same crimes, the final verdict comes from you on how you want to use the technology. How much do you want to take advantage of the Cloud that Google, and now Microsoft and Apple now offer us? That oh so fluffy, pretty looking cloud that we all dreamt of flying into and through–all the while forgetting where lightning comes from and how destructive it is when it finally decides to strike…

But it would be a REALLY FREAKIN’ COOL CAR THOUGH, RIGHT???!!! HELLS YEAH!

***EDIT*** these are some nice links to get started with
http://www.googleadk.com/
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html