BMW Connected Drive, an In-Car Internet Access System

[Ahmad]

BMW has unveiled a prototype Connected Drive at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, which is being held from 06 Mar 2008 - 16 Mar 2008. So what exactly is Connected Drive? It is a system that will allow drivers and passengers to surf online whilst traveling. But hold on, you can surf ONLY and ONLY when your car is NOT in motion. This surely makes sense or else the technology would have served to be quite a risk for the pedestrians.



Coming back to this highly innovative technology, the device can hit any URL, along with a string of custom favorites, and then display the result in the iDrive panel in the center of the dashboard.

The system is controlled with the iDrive controller, which when moved reflects a move of the cursor on the screen, while pressing it down acts as a left-button mouse click. What’s more, one can zoom into web pages as well by a factor of 1.5 or 2.0.

According to Technoride, while Connected Drive works on EDGE technology, BMW reformats pages on their own servers and then sends them to the car display. Users can also send and receive e-mails from the car, and in the future they would perhaps be able to access online banking sites too.

BMW claims that the display’s resolution is comparable to that on standard laptops

The latest BMW ConnectedDrive will be available as an option in all BMW models and its costs will be covered through a flat-rate plan. It will be available by anytime this year itself.