and I’m actually quite enthused. The company’s current release is fairly lean on details, but Lego filled me in on some of the broader details of his company’s new product.
Dash has actually been around for about three years and is now launching a consumer product for release in Summer, 2007. The company will be showing a sample at DEMOfall on September 26 and is also working on beta tests in California and New York.
The product is a mix of device and software, and will first emerge as a small, in-car product that connects to Dash.net via cellular or Wi-Fi. The device has a GPS system built-in as well as real-time traffic information, and can communicate with other devices on the road, creating a mesh network of Dash users.
Lego calls their software a “55 mph user interface” so it won’t have email or browsing features in its first iteration. Instead, it will anonymously report speed and location on an exception basis, which means that when you’re stuck on a highway going 1 mph, the device will report a traffic jam and help others route around it. Too bad for you, though.
The product will supply traffic information, destinations, nearby service locations, and weather as well as “all the kind of stuff you could imagine,” said Lego. What that is and what the device will look like are still under wraps, but we’re pretty stoked.
GPS devices are fairly dumb machines, designed to get you from point A to point B in a perfect world devoid of bad drivers and deer. This product promises real time updates and some innovative mesh networking technology that just might bring something brand new to the table.
Product Page [Dash.net]