Will the Autonomous Vehicle be the New Medium?

Is it that farflung to think that the car will be the new medium amp160Hasn39t it always been a media vehicle amp160For years it has played host to the radio And with screens and WiFi creeping into cars especially AVs computers and TVs will become the next prevalent type of entertainment housed on four wheels As Apple39s Jeff Williams says quotThe car is the ultimate mobile devicequot Some are calling AVs the new platform Whether a platform or a medium or both less filling tastes great big changes are afootRight now commuters spend between 125 and 375 hours a year getting to work and that number continues to rise 2x over the last 30 years according to Mary Meeker39s latest report That39s more time than is spent on vacation each year Over 85 of people commute via auto and 75 of those people commute solo In San Francisco only 16 of people commute via public transit and it is home to the highest concentration of mega commuters over 90 minutes or 50 miles amp160AVs are projected to reduce this drive time via driving efficiencies Some predict that this will enable people to live even further from work With it being easier than ever to get from point A to point B the real question we should be debating is will the ubiquity of AVs actually result in more people going more places It39s the paradox that always comes with time You have to fill it somehowOne thing is clear amp160If AVs maintain their projected path those minutes and hours will no longer be filled with radio and reverie but with visual content digestion From streaming video to gaming to just plain old surfing the web the driving experience will transition from its primary purpose of transportation to a combination of work and pleasure quotfoundquot timeNever have we had a new medium created from scratch with a blank slate of time Yes the smart phone is definitely a new medium but the time spent has been sliced out of other activities Historically radio and associated media podcasts tapes cassettes CDs and now streaming music have ruled the road If you don39t have to pay attention to the road video or computer time becomes a natural new medium Radio won39t die but it is compromised and will need to reinvent itself one more timeMany car manufacturers are showing highend concept cars where the dashboard rotates to become a video screen and the chair reclines to become a lounger which looks awesome but I can39t help but think many more will be strippeddown models that are used primarily for transportation most of us carry the devices we need The growth of Augmented Reality think about a vastly improved Google Glasses product could result in us having everything we need via wearables What are the potential uses whether through wearables or through embedded video screens in the AV1 Work scheduling emails conference calls etc while on the way to work instead of spending your first hour in the office on these and similar tasks2 Entertainment potentially the greatest use of these video screens Will it just be an extension of TV Of Web video Hard to say but I don39t see a lot written about development against this platform VentureBeat recently talked about mobile apps in the AV in a recent article and while that makes sense the reality is that given the option many people will choose to relax with lean back videoThis leads us to our closing question Who will own the new medium Who wants a piece of the pie Will AVs be owned individually or will sponsored fleets and sharing culture be the next wave of automotive ownership Tesla Motors wants to think it will be personal ownership as they have an enormous amount of stake in the game especially with the latest statement by Elon Musk about Tesla39s need to build 500000 cars a year to keep up with the demandamp160 It is my conjecture that companies like Google despite their little bumblebee cars amp160just want to own the software and aren39t getting into the automotive industry race anytime soon In other words they are definitely in as a publisher right along with Apple Even the government which is often last in line when it comes to jumping on emerging technologies has proposed spending 4 billion for selfdriving carsThere is little doubt that the upcoming AV epoch will add the car to the list of newest media alongside Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies In fact the car might be best suited as the platform to contain both of these enhancements I would have to agree with Jeff Williams the car is going to be the ultimate deviceThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Will the Autonomous Vehicle be the New Medium?

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David Smith

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Will the Autonomous Vehicle be the New Medium?

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