Enterprise Intro (Rod Stewart Version) on the occasion...

Hopefully not to meet a similar premature fate (in spite of the track record)...

While the topic makes tempting discussions on distracted driving, the more interesting questions should turn to technical prerequisites:

VNC, allowing any smartphone to use the larger dashboard display for its apps

This solution seems to imply that all Androids and Blackberries can actually export their screen using VNC, even to displays of different resolution than their own.
Can they, out of the box?
Joe Avg. Upmarket BMW Buyer does not seem the most likely tinkerer to root his phone (or even delve into e.g. Google Play's lengthy ToS to download an app from there).

A price point around $100 would be reasonable, and would make the NUC an ideal HTPC

With fan noise, no chance of being admitted to the average living room ("Wife Acceptance Factor").
Even if you claim to have found the rare bird known as geek girl... ;-)

I'll never forget your line: "Come on, Linus, infect the mothership."
I still believe that was the best recruiting pitch ever uttered.
We both took a lot of criticism from our partisans, but look what we've accomplished.
The world is using software that doesn't suck!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/microsoft.html

http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html - switchable to English of course.
While it is primarily advertised for flash media these days (and indispensable since there have been numerous forgeries or DOAs at least on the European market lately), it evolved as an HDD tester in the first place.

On Linux in particular, a combination of dd and smartctl (before&after writing the entire disk, as well as for self-tests) may come in handy too, of course.

In his book "Who says elephants can't dance?":

[...] the [IBM] board was not looking for a technologist, but rather a broad-based leader and change agent. [...] My consumer packaged goods background helps me understand the emotional attachment companies have for their products. [...]

Later on, he explains (t)his "insight" and what was made of it as follows:

What my colleagues seemed unwilling or unable to accept was that the war was already over and was a resounding defeat - 90 percent market share for Windows to OS/2's 5 percent or 6 percent. [...] The last gasp was the introduction of a product called OS/2 Warp in 1994, but in my mind the exit strategy was a foregone conclusion.

To be sure, Windows 95 was not on the shelves at this point, so IT as a whole could have been spared that much, and yet:

The OS/2 decision created immense emotional distress in the company. Thousands of IBMers of all stripes - technical, marketing, and strategy - had been engaged in this struggle. They believed in their product and the cause for which they were fighting. The doomsday scenario of IBM's losing its role in the industry because it didnâ(TM)t make PC operating systems proved to be little more than an emotional reaction, but I still get letters from a small number of OS/2 diehards.

A quarter-century later, with the Warp 3 & 4 machines still in use, and IBM having found quite a different "role in the industry" indeed, a couple of these claims may merit re-assessment.

Follow the links, Luke: ;-)

Need for a LIRC-like 'transceiver of all trades'
And yes, (RF/IP-extended if need be) IR-controlled LED strip(e)s integrate nicely with this, especially since the most common controller has been supported by LIRC for a while: http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/i24/

There's also a thread with the building blocks (albeit documented in German) to link it up to a weather service for automated action based e.g. on their rain radar.

Re:X10 makes cool stuff for automation
BTW, contrary to the Future House movie linked near the top of the page, this LCARS thing is real (looks like many Dutch and German developers are at this, probably because more likely to buy just one house, and for a lifetime).

The projector+blinds approach, much underestimated
However, beware, "Neighborhood Watch" works both ways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuiIobbZjHM (English subtitles, anyone?)

Oblig http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country#Dialogue:

Chekov: Course heading, Captain?
Kirk: Second star to the right... and straight on till morning.

...i.e. his final orders, quoting Peter Pan.

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download - some schools in South Carolina and elsewhere might be badly in need of that too...

At least unlike British politicians the authories of Brazil do not seem to have proposed that kids be implanted with radio IDs (just yet).