"An interesting discussion in light of the work we're planning with the UCLA student." - Excerpts from Chapter 4 of "Age of Context"

Excerpts from Chapter 4 of "Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy" 

by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel

Chapter 4 - The Road to Context

Phones at the Epicenter

For carmakers, one of the most difficult realities is the notion that the phone, not the car itself, is likely to be the hub of the driver’s contextual network.

Some carmakers have been attempting to make the car the central hub for every driver’s personal technology. Some have been planning to establish app stores where they would market authorized third-party technology, thus creating a lucrative side-business. The idea is that upon entering your car you could download new apps and updates to your phone. A few carmakers started offering 4G Wifi for drivers trapped in 3G zones.

After all, some manufacturers argued, people spend 10 percent of their lives in cars, and downloading would be easier via the larger device.

The car-as-hub model seems like a bad idea to us. Our phones are with us nearly 100 percent of the time and most people are already accustomed to using them for downloads. Having a second hub in their lives adds an unneeded layer of complexity and a potential for incompatibility. We think it is far better to have cars that are agnostic as to operating systems and that enable us to use what we already have in the mobile devices we carry.

For example, when we get into our cars, our Spotify.com music should automatically move from our phone to our car speaker. Google Calendar already knows where you need to go and it should automatically tell your car’s navigation system what it knows. Perhaps Google Maps will just move from your phone to your dashboard screen, where it will eat less battery life and be easier and safer to see. The same should be the case with other mobile apps.

Car internet communication systems are going to need to be compatible with the personal technology of all passengers, or car makers will end up as isolated data silos. If we have to enter and store duplicate data in our phones and our vehicles, it’s a recipe for inefficiency and waste.

Our phones are also better hubs because each user gets to choose one operating system to use everywhere. In 2010, Shel and Paula Israel took a road trip, test-driving a 2011 Ford Escape Hybrid. It featured a SYNC automated system that worked on voice command and managed sound, navigation and climate control to make their trip safer and more enjoyable.

It was a fine system, except that SYNC ran on Windows and the Israels were only familiar with Apple devices. While the phone was compatible with SYNC, it felt like a Windows operating system which the Israels had not used in years. During the trip they had to pull over several times to figure out how to work the navigation system, and even the radio. They would have preferred to have their Apple software seamlessly transferred from phone to car and feel like the system they normally used.

Smartphone and operating system compatibility should be the user’s choice, or so it seems to us. The killer issue, however, is speed of implementation. It takes an automaker as long as eight years to deliver a new car from concept to showroom. At best, they do it in three. A mobile phone app takes about eight months.

This may still be an undecided issue among carmakers the next time you buy a new car. It is not an issue that most people consider when car shopping, but it is one that will very much influence their daily experience after purchase.

The Personalized Auto

The good news is that many major manufacturers are abandoning their “cars-as-hubs” strategy and recognizing that the phone should serve as the epicenter of the contextual hub. At least that’s what we hear from representatives at Ford, GM, Audi and Toyota.

In the long term, Ford is toying with the concept of making just three basic car models: luxury, intermediate and economy. Each would be stripped of all accessories and users would select just the accessories they want. Ironically, the new program will be similar to how cars were sold up through the 1950s.

Ford’s Prasad champions this concept, but he isn’t thinking retro. He’s looking at other technology hardware devices. “Apple rolls a million identical iPads off the line, and they are sold to one million people. Within an hour, each is personalized and unique from all the others. We want to do that with the Fords of the future,” he says.

Of course, iPads are personalized, to a large degree, by software, and this will also be true of the contextual car. And the collection of software designed for in-car use is growing.

For example, Twist is “call-ahead” software that sees where you are and knows where you are heading, as well as knowing the driving conditions en route. It sends a text message to your next appointment while you keep your hands and your mind on the road. Glympse, as we mentioned, is similar and lets you share your location with others—who just might rat you out when you speed. GasBuddy.com lets you find the cheapest gas near your location.

Nooly Micro Weather reports uber-localized weather, within .4 miles of where you are and just 15 minutes into the future, preparing you for the fog bank around the next curve on a mountain road. As we write this, it is available as a phone app and the developer is working with Ford and Toyota for the app to be included in cars as they ship. The integrated, automotive Nooly will signal the car to turn on fog lights or the defroster a moment before the weather changes.

Waze is a mobile app that lets drivers share updates on road conditions in near realtime. With a community of nearly 50 million members as of May 2013, it is perhaps the most robust source of user-generated road data in the world. Google acquired Waze in the summer of 2013 for just under $1 billion.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast in late October 2012, northern New Jersey motorists were frustrated because service stations were randomly opened or closed. FEMA asked Waze for help. The startup turned to its community of New Jersey motorists to share which stations were operating, significantly easing one of the many problems created by the storm.

 

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