Ford engineers used no high tech hardware. Instead they used a high speed cellular date connection, a Wi-Fi router and a Dell computer running Windows 7 in the trunk.  The car was linked to the computer through an app called "Auto"matic Blog. The software captured information about acceleration, braking, steering, and other car functions which then correlated with information on the web.

For example, if heavy breaking was recorded and traffic data was pulled from the web, the car might Tweet something about the being stuck in traffic and how annoying it is.

This technology was tested during a trip in the Ford Fiesta from Ann Arbor, MI to San Mateo, CA. The car, whose name is "AJ," tweeted the whole way while garnering hundreds of followers in the process.  The popular location based app, Foursquare was also tested during the Fiesta trip.

The connecting of social media to artificial intelligence systems may be the future for cars. Ford is already on track to add other smartphone apps, including a Twitter feed, to its Sync-based cars later this year. Ford has also stated that they will be enabling third party phone apps to connect to console features like steering wheel buttons which will then control programs, like music players running on Android phones.

"The tests with AJ were a natural extension of this strategy", according to Mr. Rork, an information technology architect with Ford's in-vehicle research and strategy team, "to see what's possible when the car is connected and online all the time."