Airbiquity is the data link technology behind Ford Sync. What is exciting you ask? You can use any cell phone from any carrier to get 800bps of data to your telematics solution. Even if you have a nasty phone carrier like ATT or Verizon that doesn’t permit tethering, Airbiquity's technology will use your Bluetooth hands free profile to pull down the data you need or make an emergency call. In my opinion 800bps will cover the majority of remote data needs until you reach a broadband link. Lots of innovative stuff can be done with technology at very low costs due to the ability to leverage consumers existing devices.

As long time members on our forums, this team really shares in the passion for car computing. They have made an amazing prototype of their product which is on display at CES this year. Final units are expected in April. The unit without a rear seat entertainment (RSE) system will retail at $2,750. Add on an RSE package and it will cost $485 more. This may seem pricey, but they have made some custom cables and hardware devices which should help simply and speed up the installation process. Dashboard devices has 2 units being road tested in Amsterdam now. They have made some great progress with this product but as some of us know, one of the hardest things to do is move this from the 1-2 trial stage to being able to make, sell, market and support car computers at a larger scale production level. This is where most companies struggle. There are many companies who have failed completely and others who have announced product and several years later never released anything. We will talk more about the difficulties of bringing a car computing product to market in a later post.

Need a keyboard to match your colors? This video is for you.

Dashtop Devices has a demo car here at CES. Here is another example of a car computer hitting the market.

We found two amplifiers here at CES that take an optical input. They both are very expensive but for audiophiles you can’t put a price tag on good sound. Here is Focal’s version.

A different version of Giantec’s hardware was also in the Intel booth. We take a closer look at this version and the single din version as well. The single din is in a previously posted video.

A different version of Giantec’s hardware was also in the Intel booth. We take a closer look at this version and the double din version as well. The double din in a video coming soon.

Flir, the manufacturers of this camera tell us this is truly an infrared camera requiring no IR emitters and can see three to five times farther than most inexpensive cameras.