It is well known that you shouldn’t use your cell phone while driving.  It is dangerous, and in many places illegal.  More specifically, you should not drive while texting, sending emails, updating Twitter or Facebook using your Smartphone. But what happens if your car is actually the computer itself?

Making a car a computer-on-wheels is not a sci-fi movie idea anymore, but a reality. Soon enough, not only the expensive cars will have this kind of technology.

Last week, Broadcom Corporation announced the world's broadest automotive Ethernet, which means bringing communication connectivity to cars. “There are hundreds of sensors in a car, and this can connect and power them. Five years from now it could be an interesting part of our total sales”, says Scott McGregor, Broadcom’s chief executive, to The New York Times.

The report gives an example of these communications abilities: with a few wires it would be possible to put several cameras on the back of a vehicle and provide the driver with a panoramic view when a car is backing up. The company also claims that it will be possible to deliver 100Mbps over unshielded single twisted pair cable, high-bandwidth connectivity for in-vehicle network applications (driver assist, diagnostics, infotainment) and enables migration from multiple closed applications to single open, scalable Ethernet-based network.

Are Traditional Industries Over?

With all this new technology that keeps mounting day by day, we can only wonder: is the era of separating traditional industries and technology industries over? Cars, clothes, furniture and even plastic bags industries nowadays have a touch of a software company. Those businesses that can’t find a way to adapt themselves are becoming obsolete.

“Bill Ford said recently that when he was growing up he used to worry about making more cars,” says Venkatesh Prasad, senior technical leader at Ford, to Forbes. “Now he worries—what if we only made more cars? Just making more cars is not our future.”

And it doesn’t matter if your company is not a giant industry. Every single person, from your employees to your customers, not forgetting the competition, have in their hands great tools to analyze, communicate and generate all sorts of data about your brand or products. Not using all the hardware and software available to add value to a business is a waste of time and money.