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Rplate Digital License Plates Now Legal In Michigan
Well, we can't fix potholes, apparently - but we can buy digital license plates. Score one for technology.
You can see a demonstration at about 4:00 minutes into the video.
The Rplate, which launched on the roads in California in June 2018, transforms today’s stamped metal license plate into a sleek, digital, high-definition display and offers a platform to simplify daily life with vast potential for future innovation. The Rplate’s connected car platform can automate vehicle renewals, replacing legacy stickers with digital decals, and add new levels of personalization to the license plate, including promoting charitable causes, passion for a sports team, or even a child’s academic/athletic achievements. The Rplate also enables stolen vehicle and plate detached information, as well as geo-fencing capabilities for business and/or governmental entities. Future features include Amber and weather alerts, automated parking, trips taken, vehicle miles traveled, marketing capabilities and much more.Michigan, the home of the automotive industry and the heart of its technology innovations, is the first state in the nation to enact a law to allow implementation of digital license plates, helping to open up a digital gateway to a world of innovation opportunities – from Smart Cities initiatives to autonomous vehicle technology – while also offering new efficiencies for consumers such as simplifying and expediting the process for renewing automobile registration.
This development was predicted by Daniel Suarez in his truly excellent 2009 novel Daemon:
Gragg motioned with one black-gloved hand... Gragg's digital ink license plates flicked from California to Oregon vanity tags that read GECCO...
(Read more about digital ink license plates)
I'm going to give an honorable mention to Robert Heinlein for the alterable license number in his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children.
Via CNet.
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