iPhone application steps up a gear with car controller

It is something that is usually seen in a James Bond movie, a car driving down the street or runway in this case, but there is nobody at the wheel. Instead there is a guy standing at the end of the field using his mobile phone to control his car. Do not panic just yet, we are not about to be overrun with driverless cars on our already busy streets. It is the brainchild of an artificial intelligence team based at Free University in Berlin. The researchers liken the iPhone application to a hand held arcade game.

The iDriver application, how it has become to be known, is capable of controlling a two-tonne vehicle just by the touch of a button. There is one for the accelerator and one for the brake as well using the iPhone’s motion sensitive abilities to control the steering. The car is sent signals on what to do via wire internet that is hooked up into the car. The driver, standing well away from the car, can see all that is going on by a small camera fixed to the roof. Something like is obviously not available to download to you iPhone just yet and the guys that were testing their machine were doing so on private land.

This is the latest innovation in iPhone technology, and soon as well as booking a car rental via an application; customers could well drive the car to their location instead of travelling to the car. There are already many advances in driverless cars and this seems like the next step in evolution with technology and cars.