By: Sean Clark on 05-13-2009 in Products and Technology



Lilliput is getting ready to release their new 7" touchscreen that has native DVI and component digital out. Previous models such as the 629 had only VGA, Composite and S-Video.

What is great about this monitor is that it's now extra versatile. They left the pigtail plug on the monitor and just added the extra DVI and component cables. That means you have the option to output to 5 different video sources, DVI, VGA, composite, component and s-video.

The connectors for DVI came out of the bottom of the unit, whereas the pigtail connector came out of the side. So this may affect some installations but just be aware that it *may* be changed.

The digital output was, in our opinion, more defined in terms of the colors. More specifically the blacks were blacker and the whites were whiter.

The only down side we noticed is that the DVI output seemed to have off colors. The ocean in the video seemed very green, even though on VGA it was blue.

All the settings for the test were brightness 50% Green 50% blue 50% and red 50% with a resolution of 800x600. They ran from the same ATI graphics card playing BBC's blue ocean on VLC player.

This product should be coming soon to the mp3Car store, so look out for it.



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By: Sean Clark on 05-06-2009 in How To Videos, mp3Car News



You don't need an expensive hybrid vehicle or car computer to get the most miles per gallon out of your car. Hypermiling is a set of techniques that maximize your MPG.

Some common techniques are:
Don't drive aggressively
Don't go over the speed limit
Avoid traffic
Avoid coming to a complete stop
Try to accelerate as slowly as possible
Using neutral when going down hills

Some uncommon techniques are"
Drafting behind trucks
Using centripetal force to go around turns fast
Over-inflating your tires to reduce friction

We took a look at how what kind of MPG we got out of our Toyota Matrix when doing basic hypermiling around town. We averaged 61 MPG when hypermiling and 27 MPG when driving normal. At some points on the trip going down hill in neutral we got up to 247 MPG.

If you have any of your own techniques or stories of your own hypermiling let's hear it.



By: Heather on 04-30-2009 in mp3Car News

Thanks to Seagate - mp3Car had 3 EE25.2 80GB ST980817AM hard drives to hand out to forum members for their contributions to the mp3Car community. It was a hard decision, but the mp3Car forum moderators selected Malcom 2073 for his work on creating a Fusion Brain driver for Linux and DarquePervert for his valuable contributions across the forums.

Other members in the running for awards were:

Civic Modz for his creation of the EyeR

Clockwork for Open source FE Driveline

Chunkyks for OBDII GPS logger for OS X and Linux so thanks for your contributions!

Also - there was an open contest on the forums, for whomever could do something cool to support the community. GizmoQ plans to attend 2-3 meets per month this spring and summer - so look out for him at your local meet, he already made his way via plane to one here in DC.

There will be more forum recognitions to come so the mods are on the look out for contributions - not quite up to giving away a car yet, but just maybe someday we will get there.

And if you have any suggestions for who deserves an mp3Car recognition award in the future - let one of the moderators know.



By: Robert Wray on 04-21-2009 in mp3Car News



Community development

IBUS interpreter - Community member Wanted has written a plug-in for Ride Runner that interprets BMW steering wheel button commands and relays them to your car PC. The plug-in is an attempt to improve on some of the issues he's experienced with the IBUSCOMM plug-in. It runs as a Windows service and allows the user to switch screens using the R/T key press. Support for up to 255 screens is available.
Don't own an I-BUS equipped BMW? You can build an IBUS-2-COMport adaptor! Read post #8 for discussion and a link to how-to.
Mac front end. The duo from down under, New Zealand brothers Stephen and Kevin Ramsay, have released ICE3 version 2.1, a front end for Mac that has quickly gained popularity on the OSX platform. Version 2.1 brings improvements to coverflow, native use of iTunes library, better video controls, among other improvements. The next version will begin to incorporate non-media functionality such as XM and OBDII. Read about it here.
One-click web cam recording. Want to know how to record from a web cam while on the go? Capture! is a one-click web cam application by community member Prefect. Currently, members are working on adding the ability to overlay information on the recorded video. (See a similiar project in OBDII, below) Read about it in a loooong running thread since 2005!
DVR capability for radio. Member Extide is working on a C# proof of concept application that allows DVR capability for radio or nearly any line-in source like XM Direct. He's targeting the SiLabs tuner, since that's what he owns. This is a work in progress, but head over and see what he's done so far.
OBDII

OBDII gauges - Member malcolm 2073 has released a GaugeDisplay application here. GaugeDisplay is a standalone app that provides gauges for frontends that may not have support for it but that do support external program embedding - like Ride Runner. Users can configure GaugeDisplay to display numerous values by editing the XML file.


Overlay driving information on video - New member dirtysanchez from Poland scores on his very first post with an application that combines data from a VAG-COM OBDII cable and a webcam to record the RPMs, Throttle position, and speed over the video stream, allowing it to be played back at a later date. Check it out here.

Fabrication

New member lanceam24 is getting some tips on how to smooth out his fiberglas sub boxes over in the fabrication forum. Want to know how to get a smooth appearance without wavy lines? Check it out here.
Wanna get rid of the fan noise? Watercool it. Member WuNgUn is 95% complete with his water-cooled system and custom fab job on his front bezel. Beautiful job and a nice, clean install. Check it out here.
New forums

Congratulations to Robby BMW! His long running thread on a Tire Pressure Management System (TPMS) is a great example of the community coming together to bring a hack to product status. The TPMS version 2.0 is available soon. The TPMS system is a wireless tire pressure monitoring system that integrates into Ride Runner via a USB receiver and plug-in, displaying pressures on the PC. This device was developed by the mp3car.com community first as a project and now as a product for the community.
Here's a photo of version 1 and 2 side by side.


Driveline - open source front end. User ClockWork has released a functional frontend in VB6 with source code. It uses VB.net 2005 and Win32API's. No external components except Windows Medial Player. A new forum has been created to allow bug reports, testing, news and notes.
OBDII GPS logger.

Member chunkyks has developed an OBDII GPS logger for Mac OS X and Linux. This is the first community developed and released software for OS X OBDII. A forum has been created for bug reports and testing of the software.
The Unexpected

Proving that the car pc scene is indeed global, check out user mpower86's install in a Mitsubishi Pajero 2004. The install is quite nice with double screens but the location is rather more unexpected - Iraq. As far as we know, this is the first Iraqi install of a car PC. mpower86 says he struggled to find all the parts he needed, but using an inverter and a Compaq Presario 2500 laptop, managed to make it work. Well done!



By: Robert Wray on 04-14-2009 in mp3Car News

Check out this Microsoft video of touch features in windows 7. It will be interesting to see how many car computer developers and touch screen fleet users implement these new features in their applications. The video certianly makes it look easy. More details are on the "Touching Windows 7" blog.


http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&play...wPlaylist=true



By: Robert Wray on 04-14-2009 in How To Videos, mp3Car News




Here is the transcript to those two videos:

Hi. My name’s Rob Wray from MP3 Car. We’re doing this video blog today to give you some news. The PND, the Personal Navigation Device, it’s dying. It’s dying fast. I mean Garmin, Tom-Tom, Dash – say your final prayers. Even our beloved car computer has numbered days.

What’s killing them? A deadly virus? No. It’s an infestation. An infestation of millions of cheap globally-available connected devices. Never heard of such a device? Well, I bet you have. You have one in your pocket. This device, your mobile phone, combined with new hardware and software innovations, are allowing you to connect your mobile phone to your car and kill your Tom-Tom. Let’s go take a look.

So I’m sitting in a standard Toyota Scion. This happens to be a fancy aftermarket car stereo, but this could just as easily have been your standard display that came with your Prius or Range Rover or other luxury car. It also could have been a host of aftermarket radios and displays that have built-in video inputs.

Alright, so now that we’re in the car, let’s go through the process. You’ve got a couple steps here, some of which are already done. You take the video cable that you get from the Apple store and you plug that into the video input in the back of your screen. Again, this can happen in any car with a screen. You can go out and get an accessory adapter that takes this video input. So get the cable, plug it into your iPhone. Hack your iPhone which is about a thirty-minute process. There’s tons of websites that explain how you do it, and lots of developers have gotten together and made nice apps that make it really easy to do this

So hack your iPhone. Then you want to install an apps called Screen Splitter, which I’ll link below. Install Screen Splitter. That allows you to duplicate the content of this screen onto this screen. And then you install the app of your choice.

We’re going to do our drive test now with a little app called X-GPS. So both of these apps are in their infancy. They have a few flaws, but they’re really great in showing off this concept of why your Tom-Tom is going to die.

Let’s go for a drive. I’m going to run my Screen Splitter application. So now I’m sharing the video from my iPhone down to the car. I’m going to go ahead and run this little app here called X-GPS. It’s going to automatically tilt because it knows I have the screen in horizontal mode, which is then going to match the mode of the display down below. I’m going to go ahead and turn on my GPS signal. Aaah, I have to use the iPhone touch screen, and I’m going to go ahead and turn on my GPS signal, and off we go.

Let’s go for a drive. You think the most logical choice of applications would be Google maps. It’s built into the iPhone. The problem with Google maps though is that it doesn’t realign itself based on the horizontal position of the iPhone. So you can see that I’ve got maps running up here on top, but it’s displaying in a horizontal format down here. So let’s go take a look at some other apps that work well in the car.

So maybe your next thought is to use Google Earth. Well, Google Earth would be a great option except it crashes when you use it with Screen Splitter. So I’m not quite sure if it’s just there’s too much CPU load and Google Earth shuts off, but don’t use Google Earth. Try an app from a company called Earthscape. Earthscape’s app works great. It loads, it has the follow-me option, and it’s a great overview of where you are, give you some great side imagery while you’re driving around.

So let’s take a quick look at that. They have two modes. They have a pan mode and a follow-up mode which is perfect for driving. Let’s go for a drive.

Another great app I love to use in the car is Pandora. Let’s check this out. So we’ve got some Dave Matthews playing. [Music] You’ve got album art down here. All the Pandora controls on top here. The audio input comes through my device so I can control the audio levels right here on the device. The skip tracks. All these things that you can do with Pandora normally you can do and have it all amplified right here on the big screen.

So YouTube? Yep, that works, too. [Music] So any movie you have on your iPhone can also be played here, too.

Let me guess. You want to know how to get started. Okay. We’re going to need a couple of things. You’re going to need a cell phone that has video output. I happen to have an iPhone 3G, and you can buy this little cable over at the Apple store. It’s a little bit expensive, but it does some nifty things. It takes audio and video out, so this plugs into your iPhone, and this plugs into the audio and video input source in the back of your car.

So then your question is, how do you get audio and video into your car? Well, there’s a ton of aftermarket devices like this one here that’s made by Paq, but almost every car with a video screen has a device like this that you can install in your car and it has video and audio inputs to quickly allow any screen in your car to take the output from your cell phone. So get a cell phone with video output, get a cable, and get one of these adapters, and then you can get video in your car.

Now that we know that the PND is dying, you may ask what is the future of products in your car? Well, to answer that it’s going to be mesh-ups of existing consumer electronics hardware. In my right hand here I have a very simple wireless Bluetooth mouse from Apple. This is one piece of the future. In this hand I have a 7” touch screen, and this is just basically a four-wire resistive touch screen. And so what I think we’re going to see is we’re going to see hardware mesh-ups where electrical engineers and industrial designers mesh these two products together.

So we take the serial output of this touch screen display and we mesh it in with some Bluetooth wireless technology, and now we have a really quick instant aftermarket touch screen modification for your cell phone.

So now you can throw this guy, your cell phone, in your glove box with your video output device and then instead of even touching your cell phone, now you can control you cell phone with this wireless touch screen, so you can take it in and out between cars. It’ll be different sizes of screens manufactured based on what size screen that you have. Eventually multi-touch technology will be implemented in these aftermarket screen accessories. And that is just the beginning of the future.

Mark my word. Your cell phone will kill your Personal Navigation Device. It might take a year or two, but it’s going to happen. There are a million technologists and hackers that are visiting our website monthly that are getting technology like this into their cars.

Join them and help them kill your Tom-Tom and your Personal Navigation Device. This is exciting stuff. Thanks for watching our blog.



By: Stephen Jensen on 04-09-2009 in How To Videos

This document outlines the way to install a remote on/off button for your Mac Mini. This is a perfect fix for someone needing to install a Mac Mini inside a secure enclosure or a tight space, where limited access to the back panel is available.



Purchase this product here.



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