You've probably heard a lot about LTE over the last year. Maybe you even have a smartphone with support for the LTE standard. But what about your car? Don't laugh. That day might not be all that far off.
Audi this week became the first company to bring LTE to cars. The German car manufacturer will integrate LTE support into its S3 Sportback. Customers will need get a SIM card with a data plan for their car, but once they do that, they'll be able to get on their car's WLAN hotspot and surf the web via their phone or tablet. Get a generous enough data plan and passengers can stream video while you drive. Drivers will be able to access services like Google Earth and Google Street View as well as stream music via internet radio and access online traffic data via Audi Connect. What's more, Audi is offering text-to-speech functionality for sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as for email and SMS.
LTE will be available in the Audi S3 Sportback from July and all other variants of the A3 family from November, though it's not immediately clear if this is a Germany-only option for now.