At the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Boston Rob Wray from mp3Car spoke to representatives from the PC manufacturer MSI which makes this ultra thin computer.

Forum users over at Laptop GPS world report that Garmin has quietly released their 2010 map data set on all currently shipping product. Can anyone confirm this? Talk about this more in our dedicated Garmin Mobile PC Forum

Mark Miller, President & Founder of Westminster Speed and sound gives us a tour of his Mercedes E55 show car at the First Mp3car AFKfest.

• The validation and realignment of 116,000 kilometers (72,000 miles) of secondary roads in the United States, a complement to the existing freeway network already in the database;
• The validation and realignment of approximately 25,000 kilometers (15,500 miles) in Germany, covering the country’s entire freeway network; and
• The addition of more than 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) of new road geometry in Ireland and more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in Turkey.
• More Details in the press release here.

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with MaxBob about his car installation. He has fabricated his own semi-circular dash extension to re-locate the face plate of his radio. He has actually left the radio installed, and just moved the face plate that way he can put the 7 inch touch screen in place while not losing his FM radio.

Mp3car is at ESC Boston checking out what's new in the world of windows embedded. We will tweeting our findings all day today and tomorrow. Check it out @mp3car

http://Twitter.com/mp3car

If you have never heard of crowd sourced maps, checkout our previous blog post here or an example of a growing Philippine map in timelapse.

I was recently given the opportunity to complete a review of scantool.nets OBDlink CI by mp3 car. After having tested The OBDlink CI on multiple makes and models I've found it's limited to vehicles newer than 2004. It does however work very well on all the U.S. Models as well as Honda's and Toyota's. This tool is also very simple to work with, after loading the software and choosing the correct com port I was up and running. It picked up multiple trouble codes and monitored each sensor on the vehicle just as accurately as my $2000 snap on scanner.

After trying a couple more things to get the scanner to work on older vehicles and failing I contacted Vitaliy through the scantool.net forum because the new CI can have firmware upgrades made to it. I thought he would have some insight as to how I could set up the CI to work on vehicles like my 2001 Focus, or my fathers 2002 Cadillac DHS. Instead I was delightfully surprised at how personable and helpful he was (customer service is worth more than anything to me these days). Although there was no software or means to get the unit to work on older vehicles hen explained people that purchased the Cl were eligible to get a discount on the new OBDLINK which was coming out soon. We however worked out a deal where I would also get to review the new OBDLINK. So the pluses are; Easy to load software, Easy to hook everything up, works great on vehicles newer than 2004. Easy to read sensor information, DTC's are not only shown but the description is given as well. Negatives; This unit only works on vehicles newer than 2004.