cars

Sam is back to talk about whether car screens would start pushing ads to your car's infotainment computer screen. Soon, you'll be able to add apps to your car's computer interface, and that could lead to ads.  Already, Starbucks and Dominos have deals with Ford and other manufacturers to include their apps on their infotainment systems. But car companies say they have no plans to do it, even though it's can be done. Leo says what's cool is two-way communication between, say parking lots and the car, enabling the driver to know if there are parking spots available.

Sam says that tires are really the key component of any car, much less an electric car. Toyota had a prototype car in the 24 hours of LaMan's and there was a flat tire that caused a car to lose, because the pit crew changed the wrong tire due to a sensor reading attributed to the wrong wheel. Sam says that keeping our tires healthy and properly inflated is the best thing to do for your car after changing the oil. Michelin is also working on an airless tire, that won't need to be inflated from time to time and will eliminate the worry of a blow out. 

Sam joins to talk about a new product that plugs into your car's OBD2 diagnostic port and can tell you what's wrong with your car. It uses Bluetooth and an app that reads the code and tells you what is wrong. But there are also other uses like monitoring your driving for a better insurance rate. It can also read all the messages the car shares with the manufacturer, or other devices in the car. 

Sam wants to talk about bringing digital voice assistants, like Amazon Echo, into your car. The idea here is to further the hands off experience to keep your hands on the wheel and not trying to do anything else. Sam says until recently, car computers have had weak processors, that caused having voice regognition a challenge. But now most cars have embedded voice assistants with limited vocabularies, and Amazon and Google are moving into the space, as is Apple with Apple CarPlay.

Sam is back from CES and he says that while more companies are featuring technology for cars, it is by no means a huge car show. That's the domain of the Detroit Auto Show. But Sam says that doesn't mean that there wasn't some cool car tech there. Alexa for Auto is becominng a thing. Sam says that cars are becoming far more computerized. Chips have been in cars since the 70s, but most cars now have about 75-100 separate computers built into them. We're starting to see a trend towards fewer, more powerful computers that will run your car for you.