GM is looking to release a driver-less vehicle dubbed the EN-V (pronounced “envy” and short for “Electric Networked Vehicle”)  as soon as 2030.  While it is still two decades out, it isn’t hard to believe that network coverage, and computing speed will soon be able to keep up with the demands of a grid of networked motor vehicles.

While it wouldn’t be much fun for a leisurely drive, it would be convenient to get an extra 30 minutes of sleep every morning on my way to work.

For more, check out CNN.

Would you own one?

Finally.  A way to work as a urologist without having to touch phalii.

Will surgeons join the ever-growing populous of work-from-home employees?

According to the ubergeeks at Northeastern University, the mood of the country can be detected by sampling open tweets on Twitter.  They sampled tweets which contained keyword indicators that could translate to a tweet being more likely to represent someone being in a good mood or a bad mood, and matched them against geography and time.  There is a pretty cool video, which shows how the country’s mood shifts throughout the day.

Take into account that the scientists who created the experiment are aware that there are some posts where the keyword is ‘happy,’ but the post might have actually been “I’m not very happy right now.”  They say the sheer volume of the data mitigates the effect.

There have been many who have predicted that Twitter may eventually be used to discover group think opinions, and ultimately predict the future—everything from movie openings, to business philosophies, to the next hot product.  Ultimately, I think that equity markets can be predicted.  Think public sentiment to the Droid-X, and the recent pop that Motorola stock has had. 

So let’s hear it, Tweeps.  What do you think is the killer dataset that Twitter can provide to predict the future?