IBM's Cramming a Butler in the Dashboard

Posted 26 Jun 2003 at 03:37 UTC by The Swirling Brain

CNN says that IBM will be cramming a butler in your car's dashboard. This butler is a kin to Clippy from MS Office versions. The Butler can make suggestions like if you get drowsy, it can do annoying things like tell you to wake up and suggest you play name that tune or sing Karaoke. It can also take voice commands and if it can't hear you, it can even read your lips with a camera mounted on the rear view mirror (you could make like 007 and mouth "eject passenger" without them even knowing). It can do all the cool geeky stuff similar to OnStar like give directions, weather, and tell you if your flight is delayed, and it can even send emails, etc. The only thing this car butler can't seem to do is get you into the HOV lane or allow you to say, "Home James," and drive you there. Seems like it would be a cool geeky thing to have in your luxury car. In other news, Japanese engineers are developing collision-avoidance systems in cars.