The Network Reserach Lab (NRL) a part of the University of California’s Computer Science Dept is working on turning your car into a Wi-Fi hotpsot. Its stated aim is to “enable communications with “roadside base station” and also between vehicles, for the purposes of safety, driving assistance, and entertainment.” Read more about it here.

Naturally any new technology has to have its own set of acronyms and this introduces:

VSN = Vehicular Sensor Network

VANET = Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

There are obvious privacy issues here so initially it would be installed in emergency response vehicles only. As the tech proves itself I am certain there will be drivers who want to take up the service. Additionally I’ll add that governments will be very interested in this so that they can progress an alternative vehicle tracking and charging system.

[tags]wifi, vanet, vsn[/tags]