Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, January 9

• Move Over Mobile Phone: The Next Ad Frontier is the Windshield. The next frontier in digital advertising may be your car’s windshield. Automakers, technology companies and glass manufacturers are teaming up to turn the display that graces the front of an iPhone into the windshield of a car -- one that can show ads, directions and vehicle information to the person behind the wheel. The advent of connected cars is creating a new sales battleground, and using a vehicle’s windshield may be the next way to pitch more products and services to consumers. McKinsey & Co. estimates that mobile and data-driven services in autos will generate $1.5 trillion by 2030. At least part of that will be spent projecting information to drivers and passengers right before their eyes. “When you think of a person driving and what your needs are when you’re on a typical trip, it’s food, it’s fuel and it’s rest stops,” said John Butler, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “Owning the inside of the car is critical, it’s really where the money is made. The real value is locked up in the ad opportunity.” Here’s how a smart windshield may work. A driver that’s close to running out of gas would see an alert pop up that notes the fuel situation and offers to find a nearby gas station. The car’s virtual assistant will offer a choice, again on the windshield, of two options, including directions to a station where the driver is eligible for a free cup of coffee -- an ad placed by the gas company that fits with the driver’s buying patterns, also known by his smart car. Panasonic Corp. demonstrated technology at CES, the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas this week, that lets a driver order and pay for fast food through a heads-up display, before pulling off the freeway to collect it.

• The NBA is streaming a game live to Facebook for the first time — but only in India: The NBA will livestream a regular season basketball game directly to Facebook for the first time on Sunday, but there’s a catch: The game, a matchup between the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings, will only be available to Facebook users in India. The livestream is tied to an in-stadium promotion from the Sacramento Kings — Sunday at the arena is Bollywood Night. (Kings owner Vivek Ranadive also grew up in India.) Facebook users in India won’t need to pay to watch the game, and will see the local Kings and Warriors broadcasts that are usually available as part of the NBA’s International League Pass subscription, according to a league spokesperson. The stream won’t include commercials, so viewers will see the in-stadium entertainment during stoppages in play. It’s unknown if Facebook paid the NBA to stream the game. A League spokesperson declined to comment on financial terms of the deal, and Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NBA already streams a lot of content on both Facebook and Twitter, but has never livestreamed an actual NBA game on those platforms. Those games are valuable, and broadcasters like Turner and ESPN pay billions of dollars for the rights to stream them weekly in the U.S.

• Saudi embrace of ride-hailing apps drives economic, social change: Saudi Arabia hopes its plan to bring a further 1.3 million women into the workforce by 2030 will be given a lift from ride-hailing apps Uber and Dubai-based rival Careem. The cars, which the government says should only be driven by Saudi men, offer women, who are banned from driving in the conservative Muslim country, an alternative to being driven to work by chauffeurs, male relatives or the shabby taxi system. Ride-hailing apps have come under intense scrutiny from governments and regulators across the globe as they disrupt traditional taxi businesses. But Saudi Arabia courted Uber and Careem, offering state investments, to support its Vision 2030 economic reform plan. With a budget squeezed by lower oil prices, the plan aims to draw workers away from government jobs by creating 450,000 private sector positions by 2020. Uber and Careem say they will create up to 200,000 jobs for Saudi men in the next two years. By offering women a way to get to work, it should also help meet the plan's goal of increasing the female workforce by five percentage points in the next five years to 28 percent. "This is the next best thing to women being able to drive, because you are in control of your time, no more wasteful waiting around,” said Marwa Afandi, a 36-year-old marketing executive. With the workforces of Uber and Careem easily expected to overtake the 65,000 nationals employed by state oil giant Saudi Aramco, the kingdom has invested in both companies. Saudi's sovereign wealth fund put $3.5 billion into Uber in June 2016 while state-controlled Saudi Telecom Co announced on Dec. 18 it bought 10 percent of Careem for $100 million.