Team A'Hearn

I support Google as much as possible; they’re my go-to brand for calendaring, emails, mapping/directions, image searching, photo storage/manipulation, and of course, web searching. And today’s news regarding Google Maps at gas pumps sounds pretty exciting to us techies. A net-enabled terminal for directions right at the pump? Nice. But after some more thought, I think I’m having doubts:

What will happen when there’s a line of cars around the block waiting on Grandma to print out directions to the Piggly Wiggly? Or the Griswold family mapping out all the stops of their week’s vacation? In 1997, Mobil spent a good amount of money introducing the SpeedPass, a device designed to speed up our time at the pump. But now it seems that I might be forced to wait for internet playtime to finish as the minutes tick away and my fuel tank empties.

And what about security? Google is a very responsible company, but how long until these terminals are hacked and I’m staring at … well … something questionable … as I pump my gas? Don’t get me wrong – that will be hilarious; but depending on the severity and dispersal of the exploit, it’s something that could potentially make Google look bad.

I can’t help but wonder if someone at Gilbarco was so excited about if they could, they never thought about if they should.