The context sensitive shopping list

With the introduction of the digital world in all areas of life new appliances were also installed in cars. In the past, the radio and the cassette player were the main means for infotainment in a car. Today, the car navigation systems have taken over the dominant position of modern car infotainment. Current off-the-shelf navigation systems feature a satellite navigation device, media player, radio and TV reception. The idea to connect a car with the web is more than 10 years old (Lind et al. 1999), cars with a web connection are available meanwhile (Gafron 2008). Another convergence that has taken place is the increasing usage of mobile phones in the car world. Hands-free sets allow mobile phone usage while driving, offering different ways of communication and more. Nevertheless, all these exciting technologies and available functionalities are only first steps towards what will be possible in the future through the usage of a web connection in the car. The idea of using web services while driving around seems to be promising as shown in the following examples, which are not limited only to automotive but can also be used by a driver. Based on a text-to-speech engine, the German provider talkingNote1 offers to read texts from various web sources, such as Twitter messages, RSS feeds, Google Notebook and Calendar, websites and emails, to a recipient using a phone connection. This is of course possible with a mobile phone in a car. The service provider Jott2 offers a similar service like talkingNote, and it additionally provides the possibility of posting entries to popular web services like Twitter, Facebook, Toodledo, Wordpress and many more (Jott 2009). In co-operation with a major OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) our goal was to develop a social network application for cars based solely on web services. The application chosen, from a jointly developed overview of possible applications, was a social network enhanced, context sensitive shopping list. What makes this application attractive and why it is useful for cars explains the following scenario.