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A car that talks to a toaster [Star, The (South Africa)](Star, The (South Africa) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOYOTA and Panasonic will soon make it possible to avoid those "oh-no" moments after leaving home, such as forgetting to switch off the stove or the air conditioning. The two companies are co-operating on a cloud-based in-car system to monitor and operate home appliances. It will make life easier and less stressful by letting people keep tabs on and operate their home appliances from the wheel of their car. The technology was presented by Toyota at the Smart Community Japan 2014 exhibition in Tokyo this month, prior to the new service being launched on the Japanese market as soon as the second half of this year. It could be rolled out to other markets as well. The companies agreed a year ago to co-develop next-generation telematics services that link cars to home appliances. Since then, they have succeeded in developing an interface to link their respective cloud services and laid the groundwork for new services. For example, an application linked to a vehicle's GPS data can remind the user to turn off the air conditioning before leaving home and enable them to turn it on remotely before returning. - Motoring Staff The Star (c) 2014 Independent Newspapers (Pty) Limited. All rights strictly reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |