Will traditional radios make it in new cars?

In 2014, GM is going to have Internet access in all their new vehicles. You will be able to hand the kids a tablet and they can watch video or play games, or listen to Internet music, or whatever it is they’ll do online.

The downside is the distraction for drivers. The upside is it will make it much more pleasant on long car rides.

Toyota has Entune in many of its cars that lets you listen to Pandora and other sites. Ford has Sync and they’re putting Spotify in their cars. It will become routine that you can listen to or watch whatever content you want in your car.

Just don’t watch anything other than the road when you’re driving!

The thing I’ve noticed is that the kids, although they’re much more patient on a road trip, they miss everything on that road trip. There’s no more looking out the window and seeing America because they have their noses buried in their gadgets.

So you have the good and the bad.

But this is just the start of things. In another example, airlines haven’t figured out how to block Google so you can have video calls for free and use instant messaging back and forth while you’re in the air. So you’re not disturbing your fellow passenger and you can actually do video chat, albeit silently. And that’s only the beginning.