Intel pushes digital car

CHIPMAKER INTEL showcased its concept of a digital car at the CeBit show in Hanover, Germany, today.

Naturally, it picked a German model - a BMW 7 Series machine - to demonstrate the technology.

Built with the help of Hewlett-Packard which provided the hardware and somewhat surprisingly, Oracle, which supplied the backend software, the whole shebang is powered by a Centrino based Tablet PC.

Although you can't buy one yet, future owners will be able to enjoy a wireless home-office on the move.

In terms of connectivity, the car offers connexions to 3G (UMTS), GPRS and Bluetooth. Naturally there is also a built-in wireless access point so that passengers can surf the Net using Wi-Fi as you drive along.

The car is built to DHWG (Digital Home Working Group) standards which Kevin Corbett, CTO with Intel, says are now available as 0.9 specs and will be completed (v 1.0) by May or June. µ