The smartphone has greatly influenced and impacted our lives. It is increasingly becoming an accessory that cannot be put down. Walk on the streets, go to classrooms, walk into shopping malls, green parks and even transit stations you will notice how individuals concentrate on their smartphones oblivious of their surroundings. We have surprisingly learned to manoeuvre through crowded streets and walk ways while glued to our smartphones probably chatting and socializing on our social media sites. The use of smartphones is slowly being applied in many other sectors at a whole new level.
Smartphones on the Wheel
Your future driving experience will most likely sound something like this; imagine stepping out of your house summoning a car to your doorstep, sit and relax as you read the daily newspaper or a book as you are comfortably and safely cruised to your office. Better still you can listen to your favourite music collection as you take a nap in case you are on a long trip. So, are we heading towards this future? The answer is yes, the future of car driving holds unimaginable surprises for many of us courtesy of the smartphone. The smartphone has brought a whole new range of possibilities in the automobile industry. It is believed that the numerous and sometimes awkwardly placed control buttons and switches will soon be a thing of the past. This has been occasioned by the milestones achieved by many automobile companies such as Volkswagen towards introducing a touchscreen smartphone that will change your driving experience. Some of the expected roles of smartphones in future car driving include;
i) Smartphones are expected to offer touch screens for control of car accessories such as air conditioning, navigation and stereo entertainment, replacing the common switches and control buttons.
ii) Smartphones also provide traffic updates by gathering information from surrounding vehicles and advice the driver accordingly.
iii) Smartphones will enable the passengers on the passenger seat to control infotainment, air conditioning and even access social media through the inbuilt Wi-Fi.
Glimpse of the Future
The role of smartphones has taken root in the current automobile industry with great milestones exhibited in the recent automobile exhibitions. This only gives us a glimpse of how smartphones will play a central role in the future of car driving.
i) Major automobile players from Chevrolet to Lexus have integrated mobile phone operations on their dashboards. They have gone further and surpassed the normal texting, talking and navigation to include social applications such as Facebook, Twitter among others. Additionally, they have created an app that is able to analyse and give you the most exciting social places you can visit within your driving area.
ii) Bentley has gone further to release an automobile with an inbuilt system that allows the driver to make video calls over high speed Wi-Fi connection.
iii) The major milestone towards the smartphone driven future is the project that is run by the University of Michigan that intends to create a vehicle with an intelligent system that will offer safety and comfortable driving.
The significant role of the smartphone will greatly affect other stakeholders in the transport industry such as the driving standard agency. It is beyond doubt that with these advancements and significant changes in the automobile industry, they will have to consider revising the dsa driving test to accommodate these changes.