U-M students team up with Ford on in-car cloud computing

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 | Source: Concentrate

The University of Michigan and Ford have come up with a new way to help streamline the commute by combining some of the biggest buzzwords in the tech world – cloud computing, GPS and social media.

Students at U-M taking a "Cloud Computing in the Commute" course developed a set of applications that combine social networks, GPS location awareness, and real-time vehicle data. The idea is to help commuters get from Point A to Point B in the most efficient way possible.

"It allows people who are going to a common destination keep track of each other," says Jason Flinn, associate professor of Computer Science & Engineering for the University of Michigan.

Ford Research & Advanced Engineering helped organize the course as part of American Journey 2.0 initiative, a joint research project where students could help mold the future of the in-car experience. The winning application, Caravan Track, runs on a Windows 7 PC in a Ford Fiesta research vehicle that will make a socially networked road trip from the university to Maker Faire, the world's largest do-it-yourself ideas festival in Silicon Valley, later this month.

The students built the applications based on access to Ford's developmental operating system. They harnessed the power of social networks and accessed to vehicle performance data, networking services, voice recognition, social networking tools and other data. Think taking a lot of information from lots of different sources to come up with one steady stream of knowledge that helps commuters avoid things like construction or accidents.

"This is really an exploratory class," Flinn says. "The Ford folks gave us a really interesting sand box to play in."

Source: Jason Flinn, associate professor of Computer Science & Engineering for the University of Michigan
Writer: Jon Zemke