Innovation Of The Day: Your iPhone Can Control Your Car

Siri, the "personal digital assistant" loaded into the Apple iPhone 4S, can give restaurant recommendations and tell you the weather. However, with a little effort (and a hardware/software connection to your vehicle's electronics system), she can now go one step further, out into the real world. She can control several of your car's systems for you.

"On his website, New York-based IT professional Brandon Fiquett showed how, using a proxy Siri server, he built a custom plugin that enables him to use Siri, the new iPhone 4S's voice-activated assistant, to send remote commands to his Acura TL.

The plugin forward Siri commands to his personal Web server, which in turn connects to a Viper SmartStart module installed in the car. The end result is that (using simple voice commands) Siri can start and kill the engine, arm and disarm the alarm system, pop the trunk, lock and unlock the doors and set the alarm to "panic" mode."

Supposedly it can be connected to Cadillac's OnStar system as well.

This story reminded me of an iPhone-controlled "drive by wire" system developed in Germany (that I wrote about in 2009), and is yet another example of how "hackers", working at the fringes of what companies produce and connecting technologies together in new and interesting ways, add value and provide a roadmap for future product development on both sides.