The Grid, Our Cars, and the Net

Wired is running a piece on the big idea of Robin Chase — the founder of Zipcar — that we need to build our smart power grid on open standards and include cars as nodes in a mesh network. "'Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and tanks and airplanes are running around using mesh networks,' said Chase. 'It works, it's secure, it's robust. If a node or device disappears, the network just reroutes the data.' And, perhaps most important, it's in motion. ... Build a smart electrical grid that uses Internet protocols and puts a mesh network device in every structure that has an electric meter. Sweep out the half dozen networks in our cars and replace them with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh router. A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network. It's cooperative gain gone national, gone mobile, gone open."

Payback

[Statecraftsman]

Does this mean I can be alerted when I get near someone who cut me off before?

Re:"Only those with something to hide..."

[PetriBORG]

Not to rain on your parade here, because I really would love a sweet mesh network, but our phones and PDAs are already used by the gov to track us - remember that the FBI can turn on the voice mic (and for sure the GPS and maybe the camera by now) of any phone - even if that phone doesn't appear to be on.

Damn it...

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Hello? Sorry, I'm going to be late for work. I'm trying to get out of my driveway, but the car just says "Buffering..."

Stevens was wrong

[rubberchickenboy]

So, the internet could someday actually *be* a big truck?

Re:One thing of note

[The End Of Days]

Hell, I'd like the ability to overlay the windshield with a HUD conveying speed information and wheel angles so I know what everyone around me is doing. Maybe shade the lanes so I know when it's safe to change. Or something. Apple will figure it out when they produce the iCar system, found only in select fancy-ass cars.