Email address: rebeccad@stanford.edu
Phone: 607-272-8845
Other Information: Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University
I drive a 94 Honda Civic named Clarissa. While she's a good car, she's getting a little old and fragile, and my ideal car now is the Toyota Prius- I had initially thought that I'd want to stick with a Honda, because Clarissa has been such a good car, but I was won over by the Prius I got as a rental car last June. I loved the box instead of the key, the shifter on the dashboard that made me feel almost like I could drive stick, the touchscreen display that kept track of how much energy I saved as I braked, and the general new, exciting feel of the thing. For roughly the same price as a new Civic hybrid, which looks almost exactly like the non-hybrid Civic, I could get a Prius, which looks all space age and fancy. And the options on it include stuff like Bluetooth, to hook up with my phone so I wouldn't have to mess around with that annoying hands free crap.
In Clarissa, I started out with a casette player, which I switched for a CD player. I've got an iPod, but it's relatively new and I don't actually have a way to connect it to the car yet. I use my phone a lot in the car, and I detest the hands free set-up I have.
I found this sony media-related story sort of at random, but i think it presents some interesting possibilities we should consider.
http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5245