I know a good few people who like their cars basic. Four wheels (plus a steering wheel, of course) accelerator, brakes – that’s about it.
As far as they’re concerned, the more electronic gadgets the cars have, the more things will go wrong with it and, inevitably, the more expensive it will be to maintain.
Goodness knows what these people think about the connected car, a car that is equipped with Internet access, and usually also with a wireless local area network.
These cars can share Internet access with other devices both inside as outside the vehicle, which has practical uses and can be used to provide in-car ‘infotainment’.
The fast-paced development of the mobile car continues, with Audi’s launch of the S3 Sportback, which it claims is the first model which successfully uses 4G technology.
The car manufacturer stated: "4G/LTE considerably broadens the scope of what is possible with in-car infotainment. This most advanced of mobile communication standards is currently available on a relatively small scale in the UK, but is scheduled for a wider roll-out during 2013."
Connected cars could contain up to a mile of wiring. What could possibly go wrong? Well, unlike other car-based tech, the connected car raises a number of security issues. You are, after all, connecting systems with consumer-grade security with mission-critical systems that control the operation of the car.
Let’s just hope that security remains a major part of the connected car’s development. I’ll be talking to a number of security experts about this over the next couple of weeks and it’ll certainly be interesting to keep an eye on it in the coming months and years.
