Well, Google has finally moved beyond the desktop and internet with their new project titled Gaware. Google’s new (and free) product hits the road in the form of a technologically advanced automobile, home, and internet integration system.
The system is a combination of GPS, Google Maps, real-time traffic, and wifi connectivity. The system will actually connect to your home computer allowing you to access anything your home computer can access including email, important documents, and instant messaging.
Gaware will be able to track the places you go to and the purchases you make using the GPS navigation. By doing so, the car and/or your computer can alert you to items you may need to pick up on your way home from work, like groceries or remind you to drop off some bills that may be due.
The system will also roll out with a new enhancement to Gmail and Google Talk where emails and IMs can be “tagged” as a specific alert. These alerts will be things like changes in schedules, location changes, or reminders. What that means is that somebody can email or IM somebody (or themselves) with a specific tag that will let Gaware know to alert the driver that something has changed.
For example, let’s say you get in your car to head to a meeting that is scheduled for 1:00 pm at a park. On your way your assistant gets a phone call saying your client can’t make it until 1:30 pm and that they want to meet at their office instead. If your assistant emails your email account with a tag saying that the schedule and the location have changed, Gaware will pick it up and alert you. But it won’t just alert you, it will also update your GPS points to the office location specified in the email along with a tag of the new time.
That’s not all though; Gaware can also then determine that between you and your new meeting location there is an Home Depot and that your spouse emailed you earlier saying to pick up some paint for a project. It will take the extra 30 minutes time into consideration and ask you if you’d like it to plan a route to Home Depot first then to the meeting. If you do go to Home Depot, you can then tell the system what you picked up and it will email back to your spouse what you’ve picked up.
So, you’re thinking this is all pretty amazing but why would Google spend time and money on such a large, free product? Like everything Google… it’s in the ads. Google’s Gaware will track everything you do in your car along with all the purchases you make. With that information Gaware will place small ads on the navigational unit. Google says that these ads will not only bring in money, but will be an added benefit for its users since the ads will be targeted to the individual’s needs, making the ads very relevant. There is also rumor that Gaware may eventually be linked to specific radio stations so that radio ads can be tied to the individual driver’s spending habits.
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