Premium car maker Daimler Benz will unveil mbrace2, a new state of the art vehicle telematics system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, which will make possible to use the social network site Facebook while driving a 2013 SL class Mercedes Benz.
The apps of mbrace2 telematics will be supported by a high-resolution color screen near the dashboard and a high-speed wireless Internet connection. Though the app may not go down well with the law makers striving to keep distractions away from the drivers, the car maker says that it will permit only limited features after ensuring that they are safe and useful for the driver.
The Facebook offer with the Mercedes Benz will be a stripped down utility version with limited features specially built around the location map and friends and businesses said the the Product Manager of the Telematics division.
Dan Rose, VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing at Facebook feels that with the advent of internet in motor vehicles, it is logical that social media also follows suit. “Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that,” he stated in an interview to Reuters “One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people.”
Robert Policano the Product Manager of the Mercedes engineering team that spent months at Palo Alto to build the application says that any Facebook activity that is required to enter text while driving is automatically disabled during driving. However a list of standard pre-written postings like destination, likely time of arrival at a location and updates can be made by turning a knob or taps if the route is entered into the vehicles navigational system. Drivers can also check on restaurants or stores liked by friends at a nearby location. However all 3rd party applications like the popular games Farmville and Angry Birds shall be kept out of the system, though other social networks like Google and Yelp shall be permitted.
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