Ford continues to think ahead with connected cars, showing off a concept car that’s as intelligent as the best smartphones. Thanks to mobile broadband, access to a driver’s calendar and entertainment preferences and smart engineering, the Ford Evos is an example how the cloud can power cars of the future. In conjunction with the IFA show in Berlin, the auto-maker is showing off the Evos concept vehicle in this video, released today.

As impressive and futuristic as the Evos concept is, many of the features don’t seem too far-fetched because of their “connectedness.” Why couldn’t a car re-route you to a more scenic drive if your early work meeting was cancelled or postponed en route? If you have a favorite Internet radio station, perhaps your car should know about it and auto-tune on the drive. And Ford has already touted smart mapping apps for electric vehicles that automatically direct you to the closest recharging station.

We’ve seen so many personalization options in smartphones — where the devices start learning about us and act as intelligent secretaries — that in my mind, these concepts are a natural progression to vehicles. Cars can easily have the sensors and silicon to make this future a reality, but having access to our digital identities in the cloud is the fuel for this future. We’ll talk more about this connectedness among the Internet of things at our Mobilize event later this month, where I expect to hear about many other intelligent devices.

Related: Om’s interview earlier this month with Ford Motor Company’s chief technology officer Paul Mascarenas, on how connectedness will change cars.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation
• From car to cloud: the future of the in-vehicle app landscape
• Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends

Forget about roadside flares. You don’t need them anymore now that there’s a gadget that can do the same thing. The Duroflash LEDs are simple little lights that do the same job but better. They’re waterproof, super bright, available in several colors, and can support up to 20,000 lbs. But they’re a bit pricey, and so chances are you’re not going to see your local police officers using these if there are budget issues.

Each one is $180. Yeah, pricey. But at least their storage case doubles as a recharging station. Simply take one out and it turns on. Plug it back in, it turns off and resumes recharging. That’s nifty, but the high starting price might make some companies resistant at first.

As a huge conglomerate, NEC is active in a lot of areas. But unknown to many people outside Japan, the company is quite aggressive in the robotics field, too. Their PaPeRo, a cute helper robot, for example, has been around since 1997 already. And now, just in time for a robot exhibition that currently takes place in Tokyo, the company shows an updated version of the little guy.

The new PaPerRo R500 stands 38cm tall and weighs 6.5kg. It can perform about 200 different operations, for example holding simple conversations with humans. NEC equipped the robot with special face recognition software so that PaPeRo can identify up to 30 different people and change his behavior depending on who he’s speaking to.

Powered by a lithium-ion battery, PaPeRo can work for around 100 minutes before having to return to the recharging station, which you can see on the picture above (he does this automatically).

NEC plans to lease out the robots to anyone interested for $600 per month soon – but only in Japan.

Via Robot Watch [JP]

If you’re a stickler for clean floors (note: I am not) but you can’t afford a live-in maid to clean them every day (note: I can not) and you’re not afraid of robots (note: I am, deathly) then perhaps you need a Roomba.

Woot.com has the iRobot Roomba 535 for $149.99 with $5 shipping. That, my friends, is an excellent deal as this unit goes for $250 and up just about everywhere else. This is a new unit that Woot’s selling, too, not a refurb.

The 535 comes with a recharging station so it’ll clean the floor and then find its way back to said station when it’s all done. It also comes with a “Virtual Wall Lighthouse” which is a little base unit you put on the floor next to a doorway to keep the Roomba in a certain room while blocking off other areas of your house.

iRobot Roomba 535 [Woot.com]