In October of 2009, Ford Motor Business, the University of Michigan and Intel created American Journey 2.0 – a competition to create Ford Apps. Journey 2.0 spawned “Cloud Computing within the Commute” a class and competition between students to create a new social-networking application for use in Ford research automobiles. The winner of this competition class was Caravan Track – an application that can be used within the Ford Fiesta research automobile.
What is Caravan Track
The winner of the “Cloud Computing in the Commute” course and competition is an application called Caravan Track. Caravan Track is a social network / internet / wifi application that helps members of a caravan keep track of one another. Caravan Track monitors the position, fuel level, road hazards and a lot more of all automobiles on a trip together. Caravan Track will even inform the entire caravan of restaurants, rest areas and other stop-over points of interest. Touchscreen messages eliminate the need to type when on the road.
Five other Ford App Competition entries
There were six teams within the competition to create the best Ford American Journey 2.0 application. Despite the fact that Caravan Track won the title, all five of the other applications have good promise. By using Facebook to match potential carpoolers together, GreenRide Challenge aims to cut back total trip miles. By allowing self-reported road hazards with one-touch systems, NostraMap creates real-time maps of areas to avoid. An application called Fuel Tracker is able to give feedback to drivers about the best mileage routes between two points. Intended to build a database of interests over time, Point-of-Interest provides details on restaurants, companies, and other locations that a driver may be interested in visiting. “Listen. Speak. Rate. Share.” is an app built to provide and share audio reviews for points of interest along a driver’s route.
Ford Fiesta with Caravan Track
A specially-designed Ford Fiesta is going to be loaded up with Caravan Track and other experimental programs, then it will head out for Silicon Valley. On May 14, this “research Fiesta” can be beginning a road trip to the annual Maker Faire and will attempt to social network the entire trip. Makers of Caravan Track and the other competitors within the U of M class will probably watch this trip very closely.
Resources for this article:
Edmunds Blog
http://blogs.edmunds.com/strategies/2010/05/with-help-from-ford-students-create-the-future-of-in-car-cloud-computing.html
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