Look what's just around the bend

Zooming in on your own apartment is one of the joys of Google Street View. But the prodigious attempt to photograph where we live could be about to extend beyond mere novelty.

The search engine giant is road-testing a self-drive car, which uses maps, cameras, sensors and a laser finder to recognise and react to oncoming traffic. A souped-up Toyota Prius has already been seen on the streets of Nevada and California in the US, clocking up more than 225,000 kilometres - with just a single accident. And that was blamed on the car behind.

Software, it seems, is more reliable than humans behind the wheel. But even though the Google car has a special licence, it's still decades in the future for most of us. Between then and now, the humble combustion engine has a lot of connections to make as we enter the era of the so-called smart car.

It's a revolution that's already happening. At its most basic, it's merely about what the car industry is calling infotainment. Installing intra-car systems that use iPads and personal Wi-fi hot spots to enable gaming, movies, web browsing and communication may be distracting to the driver, depending on your point of view.

But connecting to a home PC to download music and updating navigation software on the go should appeal to some. An early effort is the Parrot Asteroid (HK$2,999, parrot.com).

This is an Android-powered retrofit device that bundles slick Bluetooth hands-free calling, voice-controlled playback of digital music from an iPhone, and FM radio with web access and a series of apps and maps. Getting online means adding a USB wireless 3G dongle.