Macenstein

I’m not sure if they will solve as many ridiculously unimportant, driving-related crimes as Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. did on the original 1980’s Knight Rider series (I mean, how many corrupt racing competitions can you bust up?), but faithful Swedish Macenstein reader Sascha and his Mac mini-powered Ford Focus, or F.O.X. (Focus ‘0 siX) will certainly be able to launch iTunes while trying.

That’s right. Thanks to the power of OS X, Sascha now has both music AND a clock in his car while driving, two things even H.G Wells couldn’t have imagined. Truly the future is NOW!

Writes Sascha:

Since i am a huge fan of Knight Rider (80’s and 2008 version), i decided to have my own “KITT”.
No, it’s not a Pontiac Trans AM. And not a Ford Mustang either.
But it’s the Mustang’s little brother: Ford Focus.

and it’s called F.O.X. (Focus ‘0 siX).

For the car’s “A.I.” i put a Mac Mini (1 GB ram, 1,66GHz, Mac Os 10.5.8) in the glovecompartment.
I wanted to use the Mac as a multimedia center (video/dvd/mp3/ tv for long trips); now many people would say, this is not very special…

But i can talk to it. And it can talk back!
I use the speech recognition from Mac Speech Dictate (the Mac Os own wouldn’t work on the mini btw) and only AppleScript to build up conversations.

A good example of my .. ehm.. “A.I.” would be this:
If i say just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without a context, the computer talks back with “you are quite positive, right?” (or negative).
But if “he” suggest me a program to run, “he” would react correctly to the short answers of “yes” or “no”.
And maybe in the future i install a small camera to use the face recognition of iLife 09 😉

I must say F.O.X could benefit from a snobby, effeminate British accent (And Bonnie, of course), but aside from that it seems F.O.X is every bit the chick magnet K.I.T.T. was. Plus the Ford Focus has a bigger back seat than the Trans Am so it can hold MULTIPLE chicks with feathered hair styles.