RE: The Ultimate iDrive

Jonathan,

I have been seriously investigating this precise product for about 5 years now and this is how I see it structured::

Simply put, centering around a RT Linux distro as CarOS brings inherent community possibility and in a Costco-esque way, provides real estate for third-party equipment manufactures to sell their CarOS-compliant wares (’ready to drive” or some such certified label) to the CarOS community and general users.

In addition, I would recommend a strategy whereby community participants receive equipment vouchers/sponsorships etc to inspire real dev in something that is already too James Bond to pass up…

This is very doable w/a smallish team (gradient 10 -> 20) — I would expect significant movement within a year — the real x-factor with all of this would be the projected display — I have followed the various projects (in academia and out) and know there are usable tech, however I know integration in this area, though doable, will be tricky. Though early gen versions do not need projected displays and will comply with din standards.

Always-on internet comm. in most major metropolitan areas will be easy with existing (EVDO/EDGE) and emerging technologies (I imagine a commercial where a user jacks their phone into their car when they get in for data comm). An added plus in this department is the eventual demise of Satellite radio and HD radio, DM is the future (for my thoughts on this, see: The Future of Radio is DM not AM/FM). IP is the way to go and wireless data nets will only increase in bandwidth and coverage.

Additionally, as a community platform I see addition points in which this can easily grow into a media platform — think Radio++ images, text, video delivered in synch with traditional AM/FM broadcasts as well as internet/pod casts –

On the road social capability is immense, there are many interesting protocols with sufficient bandwidth and secure handshake times to make possible ad-hoc CarNets (share data like safety info, song playlists, dating profiles, etc), static broadcast advertising nodes in urban areas, this also opens up government contracts in the areas of traffic flow modeling and others — also interesting are what the social mapping groups will be making:: think about groups real-time geo-tagging police car movements/speed traps/cameras/etc– that is headline grabbing stuff.

The beauty is not that this is such an elegant platform that all of these things can evolve upon it; its that they can and will — these things will tend to evolve within the community anyway. It is just a question of focus and strategy for the money engine within this community.

To recap, I see money initially in two main places via this structure::

Though I caution, the projected display portion will be tricky, however with your weight paving the way for rapid dev, the 3-year time frame is doable.

If you squint just right, one almost thinks this looks like the next desktop market.

Regards,

Gabriel Kent