AJ 2011 Ford Fiesta – A car that tweets

Till now we have been tweeting on the most popular social networking site called Twitter. But now someone else will join this chat group. And this time it’s no human, it’s a car that will tweet. It is the special AJ 2011 Ford Fiesta.  This time the engineers are testing on what happens when an automobile  gets connected to internet . In May, the car was driven from Ann Arbor, Michigan , to San Mateo, California, to participate in the Maker Faire and along the way it sent twitter messages like “It’s getting pretty dark; time to put the headlights on,”. Sounds cute!

So what is the technology behind this tweeting car? Well..AJ is using a software called  “Auto”matic Blog which taps all the available data on the car that includes telemetry information, for example, location, speed, acceleration and braking. It also gathers information from the windshield wipers, steering input and GPS data and further combines and correlates it with live information from the web. In other words it is able to combine real-time traffic notices about congestion with its current situation. It also makes weather forecasts and we may read messages like , “Stuck in traffic; not looking forward to the next 50 miles, either.”

Apart from testing the twitter app software, Ford engineers also ran the location-based foursquare app. Through this software,  the car could check the team at restaurants and tourist spots along the way, automatically. A program developed by University of Michigan students called Caravan Track was also tested. This program allows a group of fellow travellers to be automatically informed about their friends’ locations and the conditions ahead.

The company is already on the way of adding smartphone apps, which will include a Twitter feed, to its Sync-based cars later this year. Ford has also announced that it will enable other phone apps which will be connected to its cars. This will essentially allow the third-party software programs to use a vehicle’s builtin controls like buttons on the steering wheel to control programs, including music players running on connected Android phones.

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