UCLA researchers are working on a wireless communication network that will allow cars to simultaneously talk to one another, downloading information like road safety warnings, entertainment content, and navigational tools.BitTorrent may just just find another avenue of use, this time in the consoles of an automobile near you under a new name - CarTorrent. The idea is to create a wireless network that would allow vehicles moving within 100 meters(328ft) and 300 meters(984ft)of each other to connect and create a network with a wide range. The network would then allow drivers to download information from internet access points simply by driving by, and then share that information with other cars on the road. A UCLA engineering research team has apparently been working on the idea since 2004, when the popularity of P2P programs like BitTorrent really took off. "We had the idea from BitTorrent, and decided to extend BitTorrent to cars under the name of CarTorrent," says Mario Gerla, on of the lead researchers. "One of our dreams had always been to apply the technology to civilian applications." Gerla says the benefits of such a network are numerous: There will be immediate benefits in driving safety as well as in content distribution. Car-to-car communications can be used to avoid accidents by alerting the drivers of imminent danger. To prevent a crash we must act in fractions of a second. We are currently collaborating with vehicle manufacturers to help reduce accidents and fatalities on the road. For this latter application, vehicles are equipped with sensing devices, such as radars and video cameras. Imagine you're driving to a beach resort and want to find out what the best beaches are. You could stop at a gas station and download several video clips from an internet access point, but that's not very convenient. The network would consist of 3 categories of information: safe navigation (such as reporting on icy road conditions, traffic jams and possible collisions ahead), content distribution (locally relevant information, advertisements and videos of upcoming attractions) and urban surveillance (collecting information which could be used later by police for forensic investigations). However, Gerla says the network is not without faults: "The two most critical aspects that could go wrong if the network is implemented are location privacy, because drivers do not want others to know where they are; and attacks where a driver could maliciously inject wrong traffic congestion information to persuade other drivers to get out of its way." Current cost for the CarTorrent kit are estimated at $500 dollars, making a little overprices this far for anybody but the most frequent of commuters. CarTorrent signal an interestin new platofrm for P2P innovationa - the car. Imagine if network users could share information in real-time be it traffic hazards passed, movies playing or ongoing clothing sales at approaching malls. CarTorrent sounds like a very interesting new idea. Stay tuned for P2P coming to a car near you. [Via The Guardian ] |
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