Remember when I wrote about SpokePOV that allowed you to display images on your bike’s wheels while you were pedaling your ass around the park? Do you recall that I wondered how long it would be before some toy maker stole the idea and made it into a commercial product?
Well I was right about someone taking the idea and running with it, but I was wrong about it being a toymaker that does it. Or at least not toys aimed at kids. Instead someone has taken the idea and applied it to your Pimp’mobile via the Pimpstar LED Car Rims:
The PimpStar is a huge leap forward in the evolution of the wheel. With the PimpStar’s built-in full color LED lights, microprocessor and wireless modem, you can display virtually any image, including text, graphics, logos, and even digital photos!
The included software allows you to create your own images and send them to each wheel individually or all wheels at the same time as you drive! You can even pre-load up to six images into each wheel and program them to change automatically at the time intervals you select. The wheels are environmentally sealed, so you don’t have to worry about going to the car wash; and they are powered by the vehicle electrical system so there are no batteries to run out or change, ever.
As mentioned in the Gizmodo entry I got this link from, the fact that these are WiFi enabled makes them ripe for hackers having fun with your ride. Just sitting here in the last five minutes I’ve thought up at least a dozen different highly amusing things I’d put on someone’s wheels. The thought that someone may be trying to program these things while they’re driving the car, though, is just scary in the extreme.
If these start showing up with any frequency in Michigan they’ll probably be banned before too long. We’ve already outlawed using those neon lights under the car kits for being too distracting, I’m sure this will go over real well with the state legislators.
Neat-looking, but defintely too distracting. You know what else is too distracting? DVD players in cars.
[rant] I absolutely hate it when I am on the road and I encounter a monster SUV in which a movie is playing for the brats in the backseat. The colors and movements really distract me, particularly at night. I’ve been tempted to rear-end one of these idiots and explain, “Sorry, I was watching the movie playing in your car. You brought this one on yourself.”
I think it’s a sad comment on our society that anymore people (particularly kids) are incapable of even sitting in a car for a few hours without watching something on TV. Whatever happened to just watching the outside world as it flew by at 75 mph? That’s what I always did as a kid, and I greatly enjoyed it. [/rant]