The Car as The Ultimate Mobile Device The American Journey 2.0

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In this case, the mobile device is the new 2011 Ford Fiesta . On May 13th, two Fiestas left the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, headed to Maker Faire, Silicon Valley's annual ideas festival.

Photo: Ford

Both cars may have left separately but they are linked to each other and the global community through the Internet during this cross-country trip. According to Ford, this is the first time that a car will be socially connected to the world-wide-web will cruising the landscape.

The first of the feisty Fiestas is being driven by a team from Ford Research & Advanced Engineering (R&AE) and IT. They will be demonstrating three experimental apps (Virtual Road Rally, "Auto"matic Blog and Local Search) built for Ford's application development platform which is based on Windows 7 and Microsoft Robotics.

The second one is piloted by U-M students who will be using their own app named Caravan Track. They developed it as part of a 12-week Ford-initiated course called Cloud Computing in the Commute.

Photo: Ford