Chrysler To Offer Wireless Internet In 2009 Models 258
sunny in Seattle writes "'Have you ever thought rush hour on the 405 Freeway might be more bearable if you could check your e-mail, shop for a book on Amazon, place some bids on EBay and maybe even, if nobody is looking, download a little porn? Then perhaps you should be driving a Chrysler.' LA Times reports that the nation's third-largest automaker is set to announce Thursday that it's making wireless Internet an option on all its 2009 models. The mobile hotspot, called UConnect Web, would be the first such technology from any automaker."
streaming music! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about shopping on Amazon, but oh how I'd love to listen to somaFM, WOXY, or Beyond the Beat Generation while I'm driving. Cuz the music broadcasters in LA choose is the suxors.
Re:Tag (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I dunno about other places....but, in New Orleans, maybe LA in general, don't get caught watching porn in the car where it can be seen by others outside your vehicle, or you'll get busted. They put that law into effect a few years back.
Too close for comfort, but not for signal... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know what brand of car I'll be tailgating from now on, laptop in hand! I can just see one now, struggling to get over to its exit with a knot of fifteen or so Priuses clustered too close to let it move.
Or instead of tailgating, perhaps I'll try to anticipate where the driver is going and maintain a short lead with my Pringles Can exhaust mod pointed square at it.
Re:streaming music! (Score:3, Interesting)
The first thing I thought of wasn't music, though that's a very good point. I was thinking "in-car speakerphone" and "Skype". But maybe I'm just weird that way.
(And apparently quite goofy, considering I barely talk on my cell phone. Especially when in the car.) :-P
Cars should be hot spots (Score:3, Interesting)
I always thought putting wi-fi and repeaters in cars would be a great way to instigate a wi-fi mesh.
You could also use it as an 'Autonet' where cars could communicate information, and someone in car a in Tarzana, could communicate with car b i Huntington beach, and it never hit that internet. . . so to speak.
Re:Web surfing drivers...just what we need (Score:3, Interesting)
During the winter, I'd do all of the above while doing donuts in the frozen Meigs Field parking lot. Those were the days when a Chicago cop would look the other way as long as you were white, polite and had a folded up twenty next to your drivers license. If you had the bad fortune to not be of European extraction, you could expect to end up in a tank with a bunch of very nasty folks, only after catching a severe beating from the extremely racist cops. And you'd better hope there were no open murder cases, or you could expect to be tortured until you confessed.
Life was so much simpler then. Now, if I so much as go through a yellow light I end up with a snapshot of myself in the mail along with a bill for $100. The cops will still let you slide, but not for anything less than a fifty. And since there is much more diversity in the Chicago halls of power, they have to be a lot more careful of who they beat.
Re:Tag (Score:5, Interesting)
So...what's your point?
We also sell alcohol (beer, wine and liquor) 7 days a week, we have 'to go cups' at bars and restaurants so you can take your drink to go (I really miss that in other cities, you have to chug your last drink before you leave), and sales of booze aren't only in liquor stores...you can buy all 3 at grocery stores, convenience stores...etc.
It is kind of nice to be treated like an adult to have the choice to drink responsibly...key word there being personal choice. If you get busted driving drunk, it is as bad as anywhere else in the country. I personally feel the new DWI blood alcohol levels are too low at .08....it should have stayed at the old levels...but, that's a different soapbox.
Anyway, I'd dare say down here alcohol is a part of life much like it is in other parts of the world....no big deal. Most of the people that really overbinge and all are the visitors here who go apeshit seeing how liberal it is here with the drinking laws...and they're just not used to not having the govt. tell them how to regulate themselves in a more permissive environment.
Re:wardriving (Score:4, Interesting)
Dumb, dumber, senator (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess that description would include GPS navigation devices and the car radio ?
Re:Web surfing drivers...just what we need (Score:3, Interesting)
ZOMG! WIFI! oooohhh! OnStar! wow..... TOYS!
It's a gimic, no more no less. The fact that's it's a gimic that will get people killed is just icing.