We've seen how companies plan to tap into the Web to make roads safer; now a government- and industry-led coalition is looking to equip cars with wirelessly connected computers, and has gone to Linux for a prototype design. The Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium (VII-C) hopes to lower driver death rates, reduce traffic jams, and media-enable cars before 2017.

VII-C is funded by the government and seven manufacturers already involved in the Department of Transportation's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative: BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota. According to the VII-C, 21,000 of the 43,000 traffic fatalities in 2003 were caused by vehicles leaving the road or entering intersections at the wrong time. VII-C is hoping a massive network connecting cars to each other and roadsides can help.

So far it has developed prototype hardware based on Celeron-powered PC/104 form-factor single-board computers which will run the Linux operating system. The technology could improve driving experience by alerting cars about approaching emergency vehicles, collecting data to map weather patterns with high precision, media-enabling cars, and allowing for vehicle firmware upgrades over-the-air. The decision to deploy the technology should happen some time in the next two years with full deployment expected around 2016.