Okay, this is just plain cool.
Volkswagen teamed up with British electronic musicians Karl Hyde and Rick Smith—together known as Underworld—to create the “Play the Road” app that creates music dynamically based on how you drive your car. The way you swing the car around the road, accelerate, change gears, change locations, go from the city to the country, and even slightly nudge the steering wheel, is all factored in to create a unique musical experience based on how you drive, all in real-time.
So far Volkswagen hasn’t released Play the Road to the public yet, but instead it’s creating events where drivers can test it out for themselves. Check out Wired’s write-up of how the app works, why it’s superior to every other app that’s tried to do this, and how Underworld even developed a process to make the thing. Wired’s link above includes three videos that show Play the Road in action, one of which is 17-minutes long, so you can see and hear it for yourself.
Seriously, using a car as a musical conductor? I am impressed.