Mercedes Innovation:   Internet On Wheels
"www.FUTURE.car"

As the Internet continues to become a daily platform for communication, the automotive engineers are faced with the growing challenge of how to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of cyberspace in a four-wheel environment.

The communications revolution has not yet reached the automobile. The challenge is to apply the Internet's multimedia capability in the automobile's limited bandwidth environment in a way that optimizes safety for drivers and passengers thereby enabling a whole new class of services to and from the car.

Until today, information could not be personalized and adapted to the driver's needs and interactive data transaction was not possible.

The Internet Mutimedia on Wheels "Concept Car" prototype has an on-board communication system which provides access to any specific server on the Internet. The car has its own Internet-Protocol (IP) address like any other node on the Internet. Perhaps cars of the future might use their vehicle identification number. Perhaps ".car" might even emerge as a new Internet domain one day.