Digital dashboard

You’re on the road and it’s time to find a hotel. Today, you might fumble with your phone, use an app to search for something nearby, and get directions. Or maybe you’d use that GPS device suction-cupped to your window.
But by 2020, your dashboard will likely resemble a giant iPad. Ideally, that means your car’s system can be linked to whatever cloud service your smartphones and tablets use, allowing you to keep up with texts, calls, emails, social network updates, and apps from behind the wheel. So when you’re ready to check in, you can just open apps like HRS Hotel Portal with a vocal command and talk your car through a map-based search, browse rates and room types, view photos and videos (while you’re parked, hopefully), and book a room.
Toyota calls it HMI (Human-Machine Interface), a system they’re already working on in partnership with Intel and Microsoft. These digital dashboards may turn your USB mobile broadband modem or smartphone into a wireless router, like Ford’s Sync system. Or they could connect with Bluetooth devices like Kia’s Uvo, so making calls and finding music are all voice-controlled.