Nearly 88% of Americans drive to work each day, with an average round-trip taking 52 minutes. But what's now dead time is quickly becoming productive with these high-tech car toys--if you can give up your addiction to Jack FM.
If checking your BlackBerry has ever caused you to narrowly miss a head-on collision, try getting your email read to you over the phone. Once you get used to hearing email from your boss (or worse, your significant other) narrated to you by a monotonic computerized voice, the jConnect service ($15 a month) is actually quite liberating. JConnect even lets you create an oral reply, which it then sends as an audio file attachment.
www.jconnect.com
Now that the phone carriers are finally building high-speed wireless networks (called EV-DO), you can drive for miles without losing your Internet connection. Both Verizon Wireless and Sprint can hit speeds that rival a home broadband connection. The modem will cost you more than $200, and the service is $80 a month. If you truly want a mobile office, buy Kyocera's KR1 Mobile Router ($299.99), which will let everyone in a vehicle share a single connection. Except the driver, we hope.
www.kyocera-wireless.com
Instead of just firing up your computer in your car, you can install a car computer. The StreetDeck ($1,699, plus roughly $500 for custom installation) lives in your trunk and has a touch-screen display in the dash. A simple swipe of your finger will pull up driving directions, MP3s, satellite radio, or even a DVD. You can perform system diagnostics and even hook up a rearview camera. So live out your Knight Rider fantasies--although you'll still have to wait for a car that can pick you up at the curb.
www.streetdeck.com
Related Stories: | Topics:Technology, Work/Life, business travel, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Kyocera Corporation, Verizon Communications Inc., Knight Rider, BlackBerry Mobile Devices |
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