MP3Car.com - Blogs - Fiberoptic

Drive Testing The Latest Safety Systems With Ford

Fiberoptic — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:08:00 GMT

Mike Shulman, a technology leader at Ford, explains current efforts to expand active safety technology in vehicles. As opposed to passive safety technology, in which cars are designed to protect passengers in the event of an accident, active safety technology is designed to avoid an accident in the first place. This is done by designing vehicles that are capable of collecting information from their surroundings: lane markings, other vehicles, traffic signals, etc. The challenge is developing technology that can communicate quickly, frequently, effectively, and securely. But, the potential upside is clear: a dramatic decrease in the number of traffic accidents (early estimates are in the 80% range).

This is why Ford is cooperating with its competitors�virtually every other auto manufacturer�to try to establish an all-inclusive standard for equipping all vehicles with wireless communications technology. Toward that end, the FCC has allocated a certain range of wireless space that is dedicated to this project and shared by the entire industry.

Ford has been showing off these new features by conducting WiFi and crash avoidance demonstrations with its new vehicles. Each is equipped with wireless technology that allows each vehicle to communicate with each other. So, information like which lane a car is in or if another driver is about to run a red light is sent from one vehicle to another, warning the driver of a potential collision. Because the vehicles are communicating with each other in addition to transmitting GPS information, the relative accuracy is surprisingly good: less than one meter.

The idea is to securely transmit safety information about ten times a second that is accurate within one meter.Perhaps even more exciting is the aftermarket possibilities for this technology. For a nominal cost, any vehicle can be equipped with a gadget that will incorporate this technology. There is even discussion about integrating it into smartphones and other devices, which may decrease vehicle/pedestrian accidents as well. In addition, because traffic information could be transmitted more effectively and accurately, drivers could avoid congested areas by responding to constantly updated traffic data.

A look at the antennas and the technology behind the safety systems with Joe Stinnett

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We take the Car for a Drive with Ford Engineers Joe Stinnett & Farid Ahmed-Zaid

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An Interview with Mike Shulman about some more of the technical details of the systemsand some thoughts about when you can buy this technology and how much it will cost.

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Garmin Mobile PC Nav software dies, no replacement planned

Fiberoptic — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:31:00 GMT

Garmin's Windows based Navigation software marketed as "Garmin Mobile PC" has officially been discontinued.

Mp3car reviewed the software back in May of 2008. *The community has loved it and even created their own graphics skins and on screen keyboards that were lacking in the original version. (photo of discontinued logo).

It should also be noted that this was the navigation software shipped with companies like Toshiba and Fujitsu for their smaller form factor Ultra mobile windows computers. One of our community members emailed Garmin and here was the response:

"Dear Customer, Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I will be happy to help you with this. I am sorry that Mobile PC has been discontinued. No further product releases have been announced for this sector at this time, I apologize for any inconvenience. Please reply to this email if you have any additional questions. "

Another Iphone controlled car

Fiberoptic — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:04:00 GMT

Jalopnik has an article about Dave Phipps who uses an iphone to control his car. We shot a video like this at SEMA a few months ago. Thanks Tom Berry for the tip!

The iPad's role in your car?

Fiberoptic — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:54:00 GMT

At first glance, the idea of having a 7.5" x 9.5" iPad in or around my dash doesn't sound realistic or desirable at all. The New York Times liked the concept. Navigadget hates it. I hated it, but the more I think about it the more I like it. About a year ago we did a video of how the iphone was the death of the PND and the concept here is similar. The iPad's size and a few other details aren't perfect but many people will find a way to mount these in their car. Why? Love it? Hate it? Let's get the debate rolling on the mp3Car forums. Some key pieces of technology and features contained in the iPad are leapfrogging features currently available in the car:

A GPS: (Assisted GPS) From the specs, the GPS looks great on the GSM models but it is hard to know until we test it. If it is as good as the iphone we have a winner. AGPS should be an improvement over the location technology in the majority of navigation devices. GPS accuracy and speed to a location fix is dramatically improved by quickly sensing the wifi and cellular towers nearby. This gives the user an approximate location until the GPS can lock you down to within a few feet.

Connected features built in: Traffic, Real time Map updates, weather, gas prices, streaming entertainment, others.

Enhanced voice recognition: I have been amazed at the accuracy of voice recognition on the iphone, specifically using built in voice recognition as well as third party applications like Dragon. A great microphone and a decent CPU are two critical elements to good voice recognition. The Ipad has about twice the CPU power of the iphone and most likely one of Apple's high quality microphones.

Multipurpose device: Apple does a good job explaining the multiple uses outside of the car

Touch Screen: How many times have you fought with an inferior touch screen on your factory navigation, Car Computer or PND? Why are these touch screens so poor? There are several reasons:

Most nav devices use cheap resistive touch screens. Those that use capacitive screens use low quality versions or don't have the software to match the screen type.
For after market devices, there is tremendous pressure to keep the total product cost low due to profit margins in the distribution chain.
For factory navigation, auto manufacturers are forced to start planning their products years in advance before newer technology is released.
Designers are also heavily limited in their materials and technology selection due to the consumer expectation that your in car nav device work for a decade or more in extreme environments with a very low failure rate.
Touch screen for car computers are also slightly behind the times due to the lack of market demand.
The bottom line is that new cars rolling off the lot have yesterday's technology.

Larger screen: Since I am hitting the ripe old age of 30, my eyes aren't what they used to be. Even for you young wiper snappers, you should be able to read your device out of peripheral vision. A larger screen will help us stay focused on the road by limiting squinting to get us the data we need.

Sunlight readability: There is a good chance the iPad will be sunlight readable, and we will find out on April 3rd.

In Car mounting & Docking: The cables to make an ipad connect to your car radio are readily available. The key to making this feasible is a proper universal docking solution that is driver friendly. I have an e-mail into some docking station vendors to see if anything is on the horizon.

Stop playing FaceBook and computer games. Help Haiti with no cash in 10 minutes

Fiberoptic — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:37:00 GMT

This Saturday, Robert Wray from Mp3car went down to check out the Crisis Commons. The event was a mind blowing collaboration of over 1,000 technical volunteers on three continents. Crowd-sourced community-generated maps have become the official on the ground map resource in Haiti. In this video, Fortiusone's CTO Andrew Turner explains how you can start helping Haiti in 10 minutes with no cash, just some of your time. Links talked about in the video are ushahidi - Haiti SMS disaster relief collaboration, Crisis Commons ,and ImapHaiti.

How you get started in less than 10 minutes: http://imaphaiti.com The event was also covered by internal media originations such as CNN, BBC, Washington Post, LA Times, Wired and O'Reilly Media.

Onstar GMLan & CAN bus GPS hacking

Fiberoptic — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:52:00 GMT

A clever engineer over at radioetcetera has released code to convert Onstar / GMLan bus to plain NMEA data. There is a little bit of work left to be done, but it looks like most of the heavy lifting has been completed. Why would you want to do this?

GM has put a great external GPS antenna in your car. Why do you need to buy another one?
It is fun weekend project and a great exhibit of your geek talent
Using an external GPS should give you much better reception

All someone needs to do is make a single wire CAN to RS-232 adapter and tweak the provided code to finish the project. The guys over at hack a day say Andy is having a baby and has to stop working on the project. Maybe some mp3car CAN gurus could pick this up? We might consider issuing an innovation grant if cash is an issue. Let the discussion begin!

1988 Rx-7 goes 100% Electric

Fiberoptic — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:44:00 GMT

Forum member no_hazmats had previously been working to do an electric van conversion controlled by his car computer. Due to the lack of some available parts he has switched to an RX-7. He has started a new work log to show off some of his progress on the new 100% electric rx-7. Things are moving very fast. They hope to do test rides before new years. no_hazmats is an electrical geek with basic programing skills. For those of you who are advanced car computer users and programmers, he could use some of your help. Join the conversion conversation.

Intel to Turn Moblin Over to Linux Foundation

Fiberoptic — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:27:00 GMT

According to CIO.com Intel on Thursday plans to turn over the reins of its Moblin Linux-based platform project to the Linux Foundation, putting the work in neutral territory in the hopes of attracting more community support for it. Full details at CIO.com

iPhone Car Navigation Kit, In The Car

Fiberoptic — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:52:00 GMT

Robert Wray of mp3Car shows us how to duplicate one's iPhone screen for automotive use. The kit, available now on the mp3Car store, includes all the hardware you need to replicate this setup in your own car. See this product here.

iPhone Car Navigation Kit, Introduction

Fiberoptic — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:51:00 GMT

Robert Wray of mp3Car shows off the new mp3Car store product, the Ultimate In-Car iPhone Screen Duplicating Kit available here.

iPhone Car Navigation Kit, Simplify Music 2 App

Fiberoptic — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:34:00 GMT

Robert Wray of mp3Car shows us how to stream music from a remote library in his car. This kit to duplicate one's iPhone screen in a car is available here.

Crowd sourcing reveals worst traffic in the United States

Fiberoptic — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:42:00 GMT

TomTom and TeleAtlas use their crowd sourced contributors to plot worst congestion in the United States.
Congestion is considered traffic that is 70% or less of the posted speed limit.
TeleAtlas has an audio podcast on this here and a full press release here.

Rank CITY/REGION % of congested roadways
1 Seattle, WA 43%
2 Los Angeles, CA 38%
3 Chicago, IL 37%
4 Montgomery County, MD 37%
5 San Francisco, CA 35%
6 New York, NY 31%
7 Washington, DC 30%
8 San Jose, CA 29%
9 Alexandria, VA 28%
10 Oakland, CA (Alameda County) 28% (read more for #20-30)

11 Atlanta, GA (Cobb County) 27%
12 Boston, MA 27%
13 Fairfax County, VA 26%
14 Philadelphia, PA 25%
15 Austin, TX 25%
16 Phoenix, AZ 25%
17 Long Island, NY (Nassau County) 24%
18 San Juan, Puerto Rico 24%
19 Portland, OR 23%
20 Houston, TX 23%
21 Contra Costa County, CA 23%
22 Arlington, VA 23%
23 Orange County, CA 20%
24 New Orleans, LA 20%
25 Norfolk County, MA 20%
26 Denver, CO 20%
27 Morris County, NJ 20%
28 Miami-Dade, FL 20%
29 Dallas, TX 20%
30 Charlottesville, VA 19%

CES 2009 - MiMo USB Monitor from Nanovision

Fiberoptic — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:31:00 GMT

This MiMo display by NanoVision is 800x480 and powered by usb port only. It is easy to fabricate into a project and the screen tilts vertically.

SEMA 2009 - Ford Dewalt Part 2

Fiberoptic — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:26:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a more in depth look at all of the features of the 2010 Ford Dewalt. Crew Chief is an optional feature that allows a user to track their fleet of trucks or vans, with information such as mileage, usage, idle time and more.

SEMA 2009 - Ford Dewalt Truck

Fiberoptic — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car checks out the new 2010 ford super duty truck with built in nav and tool kit. This truck has a really great work feature that let's you have a mobile office. You can use "log me in" to log into a users computer. The RFID tool tracker system allows one to keep track of those expensive tools.

DIY 1cm accuracy RTK-GPS

Fiberoptic — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:43:00 GMT

This project claiming to provide 1cm GPS accuracy is getting a lot of heckling over on the Make Blog. A geophysical survey engineer claims this has little practical purpose without lots of time, pro survey skills and equipment. What does the mp3car community think about this?

SEMA 2009 - Optima Tech Truck

Fiberoptic — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a look at what one can accomplish with a car computer. This truck has a huge LCD in the back of the truck, plus custom keyboard, built in navigation, media player and tons of other tech goodies.

SEMA 2009 - iPhone Hydraulic System

Fiberoptic — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:46:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car finds a company called Prautogy that creates the amazing iPhone app. The iPhone can control everything from your doors, windows, lights, locks to the hydraulic lift system. There seems to be an iPhone app for everything now.

SEMA 2009 - mp3Car Forum Member Nathan

Fiberoptic — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:43:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car finds Nathan from the mp3Car forums. Nathan takes us through a tour of this tech'ed out car. He has taken the no PC approach and outfitted his car with a 32 gig iPod Touch. The touch is the central brain of this car computer.

SEMA 2009 - CEO of X Prize Foundation, Peter Diamandis

Fiberoptic — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with the CEO of X Prize, Peter Diamandis. The goal of X Prize is a to give a goal to engineers to meet special challenges when building fuel economic and powerful vehicles.

SEMA 2009 - Aptera Electric Car

Fiberoptic — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:37:00 GMT

The aptera electric car is really cool. This car gets 100 miles per charge, and it only takes about 2.2 hours to charge. The 0-60 second time is only 10 seconds and it can achieve speeds up to 90 mph.

SEMA 2009 - Rev App Iphone Diagnostics

Fiberoptic — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:16:00 GMT

Mp3Car reviewed Rev App for iPhone about 6 months ago. Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a look at what is new with this OBD2 app. New features include, horizontal mode, customizing screen, and vehicle saves.

SEMA 2009 - Rear View Screen, SD Memory Storage

Fiberoptic — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:11:00 GMT

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Rob Wray from mp3Car looks at a rear view screen that replaces your current rear view mirror. This screen comes complete with 2 camera, audio input, SD slot for recording, and 2 more inputs to add a total of 4 cameras on this devices. The SDHC slot can record up to 64 hours of audio/video.

SEMA 2009 - Fuel Level Sensor

Fiberoptic — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:47:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a look at a self calibrating fuel level sensor. It uses a new technology called variable capacitance to measure the fuel level. Because this reads via voltage, it should be able to integrate with a fusion brain.

SEMA 2009 - Mavizen 0 Carbon Linux Electric Motorcycle

Fiberoptic — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:18:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks to Azhar about the new TTxo2 bike. This bike is fully electric, has a built in screen with custom open sourced software. The bike's electronics are completely USB driven, even the boot is off of a USB stick. The bike is the first motorcycle to run a Linux OS.

2011 Lexus LFA Engine Rev at SEMA 2009 Las Vegas

Fiberoptic — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:01:00 GMT

This isn't really car computing related, but here is some exclusive video after hours at the Lexus booth at SEMA 2009. Apparently there are no other places where you can get a first hand view of the 2011 LFA engine running so we are posting the engine piece now and will post the rest of our video review later. For those of you who are crazy about Lexus, you can download the ring tone on our forums.

SEMA 2009 - Optimoto Pure Electric Vehicle

Fiberoptic — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Robert from Optimoto about his "Battle Bot" inspired electric vehicle.Robert takes his experience from building fighting robots to make a very ruggedized electric car.

SEMA 2009 - The Carbon 0

Fiberoptic — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Simon Saba from Saba motors and his car the Carbon 0. The Carbon 0 is a fully electric vehicle that aims for performance and economy.The Carbon 0 gets about 200 MPG!

SEMA 2009 - 275 MPG Electric Car

Fiberoptic — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Frank from Future Vehicle Technologies about his electric car.This car has 4 screens on the dash, and is still being built with diagnostic and monitoring information.

SEMA 2009 - Electric MPGs Explained

Fiberoptic — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:25:00 GMT

Rob Wray talks with Ron to explain how MPG is calculated with electric vehicles considering they do not have "gallons".Basically, you calculate how much mileage you get to get the same power that the equivalent number of gallons gives you.

SEMA 2009 - The Wave 2

Fiberoptic — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:41:00 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Ron about the Wave 2. This car is a fully electric car, complete with a ton of monitoring equipment.This car has a built in computer and even has a couple USB ports to support the future of mobile electronics.The Wave gets about 140 MPG!

SEMA 2009 - Inside a Car Battery

Fiberoptic — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:52:00 GMT

In the vehicle world knowing the ins and outs of car batteries can be very helpful. Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Ron Rizzo from Optima Batteries to explain the strengths and restrictions of what certain types of battery offer.

SEMA 2009 - Comparing AGM, GEL, and Wet Batteries

Fiberoptic — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:57:15 GMT

Rob Wray from mp3Car talks with Ron Rizzo from Optima Batteries about the different advantages of an AGM battery over other types of batteries for in-vehicle use.

mp3Car Tweeting live from SEMA 2009

Fiberoptic — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:09:00 GMT

Follow us on twitter as we explore the latest in in-vehicle computing technology at SEMA 2009! @mp3car

XOHMs Wimax network Shutdown - Current hardware is worthless

Fiberoptic — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:22:00 GMT

It is sad to see, but now my XOHM hardware is in the trash. On October 5, 2008 mp3Car.com reported that XOHM service was online a week before the launch party. We also did a mobile drive test and used in other cities before their networks were officially active. Those blog posts were syndicated in news stories around the country. Our test equipment sat on the shelf until today when I decided I was fed up with terrible service from Comcast and Verizon. Out came the Xohm equipment again - but guess what? After a year and a few days, Xohm wimax has turned off ALL new accounts. What does this mean?

4 days ago they froze activation of new accounts on the xohm network to pave the way for a transition to Clearwire technology
There is no hope to get your Xohm hardware activated
We tried to reactive hardware on two old accounts
We tried to active two pieces of hardware on one currently active account
We tried to active online through the website and the Xohm network
Phone reps refuse to activate devices
Managers refuse to activate devices
Phone reps suggested returning the device to the vendor if you can.
Current customers with subscriptions active as of 4 days ago will get free upgrades to clear wire equipment at the beginning of the year.
Current customers with inactive hardware appear to be screwed.
The return to your vendor advice is great advice except refunds are only available on the hardware if it was bought within the last 7 days. Furthermore, "Xohm equipment might be compatible with the new Clearwire network but probably not."We are waiting to get comments back from Xohm or Clearwire representatives. This certainly isn't a great way to treat early adopters or to build out confidence in a new network or new technology. Do you know more about this? We would love to hear from you in our mobile wimax forums.Previous posts on this topic include: In car / Computer based vehicle test in Baltimore, Vehicle testing Xohm in Boston Suburbs 10-9-2008, Bench Testing Xohm in Boston 10-10-2008

SEMA 2009 - We would like to hear from you.

Fiberoptic — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:51:00 GMT

Stephen Jensen and Robert Wray pack up and head west for Las Vegas and SEMA 2009. Check out our ghost themed video blog post in the spirit of Halloween.

Get in touch with us to meet up in Las Vegas
Get in touch with us to tell us to video or review something
Get in touch with us if you think your product is irresistible and needs some press coverage.
Press at mp3car dotty com

mp3Car Forum Members in the NY Times - car computing is catching on.

Fiberoptic — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:52:00 GMT

mp3Car forum members Greg Planthaber(profile), Tom Berry(profile), Will Meyer(profile)(blog), and Silvio Fiorito (profile) are highlighted by Peter Wayner in today's NY Times. The article is a follow up to Peter Wayner's visit to the mp3car AFKFest in Baltimore.

For an in-depth tour of Greg's car computer set-up take a look at the video shot at the AFKFest.

If you are new to car computing, watch some videos or read our faq on how to get started.
Will Meyer's video from AFKfest is also here:

AFKFest Video - Mitch Solomon shows off his lab car

Fiberoptic — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:33:55 GMT

Mitch Solomon gives us a tour of his lab car at AFKfest 2009. You can see Mitch's gadgets in the store.

Plan and test your in-vehicle computer installation on the bench

Fiberoptic — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:15:55 GMT

Testing is one of the most important steps in putting a computer in your vehicle or car and is often skipped. We highly recommend testing your system on the bench for a day or two before you put the device in your car. We previously did a video on how to build your own car computer. This video will give you some insights into this next step.

Google plots a course for war with Teleatlas and Navteq . USA is victory#1

Fiberoptic — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:29:09 GMT

All signs indicate that Google is gearing up to be a competitor of Navteq and Teleatlas by using a combination of StreetView, Crowd sourcing and government data. Google just dropped Teleatlas map data usage in the United States and is now using Google data only. In 2008 Google dropped Navteq for US coverage. Both Navteq and Teleatlas have been rumored to be tough to work with, insist on complicated licensing agreements and are very expensive. Both Navteq (owned by Nokia) and teleatlas (owned by TomTom) are also at heavy conflict with their data licensees because they also produce hardware and compete with their customers like Garmin. Readwriteweb has details of some recent Google changes.

This may make for better tech and lower prices but this still leaves the problem that there isn't a free and open solution. We need a passive, free, open crowd sourced global map solution. Open street maps, Google and others don't offer that.

While we are talking about crowd sourcing and Google, checkout our post on Google Crowd sourcing 3d buildings and map repairs (video below)
Talk about this in our crowd sourced map forums.

Google releases software to crowd source 3d building data

Fiberoptic — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:20:15 GMT

Today on Google's blog, Google announced the release of an application called Google Building Maker to crowd source 3d building data. This will pave the way for some really interesting navigation and turn by turn applications. Is this going to be as addictive as Google implies in this video? Talk about this in our map crowd sourcing forums.

Vote for the best mp3Car community innovations EVER!

Fiberoptic — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:58:41 GMT

The mp3car forums are about 10 years old. It is about time we recognized some of the innovators that have made this community great. Please take a minute to recognize the efforts which made car computing feasible and vote for your top 5 products or innovations which were generated by the community.

Windows Embedded 7 - Multi-touch demonstration & Sensor integration

Fiberoptic — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:50:17 GMT

At the Embeded Systems Conference Boston in Fall of 2009, Mp3car gets a first hand tour of newly released windows 7 embedded. This demo shows of some exciting stuff:

Multitouch
accelerometer integration
ambient light integration
Integration with a mock up assembly line

Mark Miller Demos a Mercedes E55 at Mp3car AFKFest

Fiberoptic — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:21:51 GMT

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

Community edits ignite TeleAtlas map database with 1.25 million edits

Fiberoptic — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:49:31 GMT

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.

Lilliput 7" Canadian Coast Guard Install

Fiberoptic — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:37:00 GMT

Looking to equip your yacht or sailing vessel with a low cost display option? Maybe you want a cost effective solution and don't want to overpay just for the marine stamp on the prodct. You aren't alone. Mp3car outfitted the Canadian Coast Guard vessels with the $239 Lilliput 629 monitors earlier in the year and we thought we would share some photos. These monitors aren't specifically made for marine use, but they do the job in an enclosed wheel house.

Video Tour - Fanless Micro Intel Vehicle Computer (Built by Mp3car)

Fiberoptic — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:59:19 GMT

Video Tour of the New - New- Fanless Micro Intel Vehicle Computer (Built by Mp3car)

Mp3car picks the best of the best, reliable and low cost components for their new custom computer package.

1.2 amps at basic resting configuration peaking at 1.9 amps with 100% cpu load.
Less Than 300$
Expandable and customizable
Ignition Integrated with the P2140
Based on proven components

Fanless D945GSEJT Motherboard

T-1610 Case
EE25 Ruggedized Hard drive
P2140 Industrial Power Supply

To Be released On Friday on the Mp3car Store

Pricing currently at 287$

For a limited time, we are making some of the add on components available at a large discount.

The Vehicle power kit including the p2140 is 15$ off retail prices.
The ee25 Industrial grade hard drives are being sold for only a 20$ upgrade.

For 10 or more units we can customize the enclosure to provide access to other motherboard features or make other customizations:

SSD Or Flash Storage
Linux/XP Embedded or other OS preinstalled
Audio input ports
External Wifi Port
Serial Ports
4 more USB Ports
Less Memory
Com Ports
PS2 Ports
LVDS Connectors
ESATA
Parallel port

the New Fanless Morex T-1610 Case Only for D945GSEJT

Fiberoptic — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:57:40 GMT

We have added the New Fanless Morex T-1610 Case Only for D945GSEJT to our store. These cases will begin shipping on Friday August 7, 2009.
Fanless Morex T-1610 Mini-ITX Case - White
Model No.: T1610
Dimensions(mm): 38mm (H) x 178mm (W) x 178mm(D)
Suitable M/B: Intel D945GSEJT M/B
Main Board Size(mm): Mini-ITX Form Factor (170 x 170)
Front Port: N/A
Device Support::
CD / DVD Device: N/A
HDD Device: (1) 2.5" mounting bracket
PCI Slots: N/A
System Fan: N/A (fanless)
Application: Vehicle or Car-PC with Carnetix P2140, Thin Client, Transportation, Networking, All-In-One
Power Supply: (not included in above price)
Optonal Carnetix P2140 (for vehicle/Marine Use) (7.5-34 VDC input) (ignition integrated startup/shut down timer*)
Optional Accessory: AC Adapter (12V/5A)

*ignition integrated startup/shut down timing requires XC3 Cable) and 3.5mm to MB header assembly (not included)

12v-24v Computer Quick Release Power Cable Kit M2-MTR-5-PWR

Fiberoptic — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:21:36 GMT

Our new quick release power kit was just put on the store today.
Feature: Takes unregulated power in and gives you regulated power out all from a single snap in cable.

Watch the Video On the Left
Download a spec sheet (PDF)
Buy the cable by itself (10$ intro price)
Buy the case and cable
Talk about this on our forums

Scenario: After a clean install you can easily power your touch screen monitor with clean DC power by just connecting the barrel connector coming from your pc. No cutting into the regulated power source required.

Mp3car partners heat up August waterfront event with prize packs and speaker series

Fiberoptic — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:47:06 GMT

A morning of speaking events
A speaker series has been anouced to kick off our August 22nd waterfront event. Agenda items will be partially directed by our forum members. The first speaker announced is Mark Miller. Please see his bio here and a discussion about recommended topics. Attendees will be guiding discussion topics through discussions on our forums. The speaker series will occur at the mp3car office from 9am 11am on Saturday August 22nd at the mp3car office at 2400 Boston Street. Videos will be broadcast in HD online after the event.
Best car of the show contest - Thousands of dollars in prizes
There will be a first, second and third place prizes. Prizes have been donated by Centrafuse, Scantool, Mo-Co-So, Mp3car and Lilliput. Contest rules announced here.

More details here or jump in and get get your ticket here
Talk about the event here.

D945GSEJT is now for sale

Fiberoptic — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:36:00 GMT

The D945GSEJT is live on the store and ready for purchase.

View the Video of the board (link).- SSD Not Incuded
View the D945GSEJT Intel Product Breif (link)
View the D945GSEJT Intel Product Guide (link)

Talk about this board on our forums.

At 34% taller, WD releases 1TB 2.5" shock resistant hard drive - Scorpio Blue

Fiberoptic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:23:56 GMT

Western digital was able to cram 1TB of data into this new laptop drive. They are 34% taller at 12.5mm as compared to the standard 9.5mm height.

This drive appears to mainly be developed for the consumer electronics market, but they do advertise shock resistant features:

"ShockGuard� - Leading-edge ShockGuard technology combines firmware and hardware advancements to meet the highest combined shock tolerance specifications required for mobile and notebook applications.
SecurePark� - Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface, resulting in improved long-term reliability due to less head wear and improved shock tolerance. "

You can only get it packaged in a USB passport (WD10TEVT) for now and the price is $249.99

Talk about this on our forums here.

location based services (LBS) Double in 2009

Fiberoptic — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:31:16 GMT

Gartner's new report shows location based services (LBS) subscribers and revenue are on pace to double in 2009. " LBS subscribers are forecast to grow from 41.0 million in 2008 to 95.7 million in 2009 while revenue is anticipated to increase from $998.3 million in 2008 to $2.2 billion in 2009"

This hopefully means a lot more mass market technology will be able to leveraged for use in our mobile computing mash ups that happens in our forums. how do you think this explosion of services and users will impact the stuff our community has been doing? Will there be more tools and APIs for developers or are all these LBSs goign to be locked down to specific devices or carriers? Talk about this on our forums here.

August Mid-Atlantic MP3car meetup

Fiberoptic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:33:00 GMT

mp3Car Mid-Atlantic Car Computer AFK Fest

August 22nd, 2009

mp3Car is hosting a one-of-a-kind show and BBQ, Saturday August 22, in Baltimore, Maryland. Join computer hackers, car enthusiasts, techies, and audiophiles in a day of informative talks, car computer install presentations, socializing and innovating. Enjoy a free interactive speaker series on mobile computing at the m3pCar offices followed by an informal, outdoor BBQ and Car Computer Show by the Baltimore Harbor.

Schedule for August 22nd Event:

8am-11am (11:30am BBQ starts about 2 miles west)
Bring your ticket. We are almost "sold out" of the free tickets.
5 Speakers, 36 minutes allocated to each speaker including setup time.
20-30 minutes of presentation, remaining time will be used for Q&A
Coffee, Fruit and pastries will be available..

8am - 8:36am
Vitaliy Maksimov � What is "OBD", anyway?

What is OBD
OBD Applications
Getting at the data
Future of OBD
Other Resources & Links to check out

8:36am - 9:12am
Cabe Sipes - Experiences in car audio � Installing for an audience

Mp3car Founder Robert Wray interviews Cabe Sipes about his days at MTV and Rock the Boat
Audience Q&A

9:12am - 9:48am
Eric Brier - Underserved Computing Markets

The white-space between mobile handsets and laptop/desktop.
Designing for environments where a traditional mouse & keyboard are not desirable.
Alternate Inputs: Touch, Voice, Hardware Button, Remote
Market Trends: Broadband Connectivity, Convergence, Moore's Law
New Computing Markets: Auto, Air, Hotels, Boating, Kitchen, Restaurant/Bar, etc�

9:48am - 10:24am
Mark Miller

Capacitors, power systems.
How to get the best car computer sound quality with a budget.
Things to think about before starting your project or contacting an installer

10:24am - 11:00am
Silvio Fiorito� Windows Embedded in the mobile environment. What is it (101), tips, tricks, best practices, DIY.

What is windows embedded, the history, background, architecture
How to develop a windows embedded image
Strengths and Weaknesses of Windows embedded
Other tools and DIY windows embedded
Performance and reliability optimizations
Gui Customizations for the OEM look
XP embed with Solid State disks and USB
Audience Q/A

11:30am - 4pm

mp3Car BBQ and Car Computer Show at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, MD with Centrafuse, Scantool and many other companies from the mp3Car Community. Get a Free Ticket See map below.
Confirmed Attendees

The mp3Car Team
Centrafuse Team - Founders and Creators of the Centrafuse software
Mark Miller, SEMA Judge, Founder of Westminster Speed and Sound. (bio Here)
MJS Gadgets represented by founder Mitch Solomon
OpenStreetmaps
RevFE Founder and lead developer
Cabe Sipes, audio guru from MTV's "Pimp My Ride" and OLN's "Rock The Boat"
John Shepley's 100% electric computer controlled van.
Dashboard Devices represented by founder Michael Murphy
Mo-Co-So represented by founder Chris Wood
Scantool.net, represented by founder Vitaliy Maksimov
Circuitronics Corporation, Creators of x86 TMPS System, represented by founder Alok Patel

3pm

Car judging for the best of show contest and prizes awarded. Best car of the show contest - Thousands of dollars in prizes. There will be a first, second and third place prize. Prizes have been donated by mp3Car, Centrafuse, Scantool, Mo-Co-So, and Lilliput.
Contest rules

You Must bring your car to the event.
You Must have your car listed in the "Show off your project" section on the mp3Car Forums with 10 photos and some written information.
Voting by the attendees the day of the event.
Prize pack to be provided to the winners at the event.

4pm

mp3Car lab & Office Tour, and get a Free Ticket (required as seating is limited).

Lodging & Site seeing:

Check this website http://baltimore.org for some interesting ideas or post questions in our forums events thread.

What to bring:

Your car to enter the contest
Beach towel or chair
Your ticket (digital copy is fine)
Frisbee
A camera
A friend

Getting There and Parking:

Fort McHenry National Park Navigate to 2400 East Fort Avenue, 21230 (see map below)
mp3Car office - Navigate to 2400 Boston Street, 21224 (see map below)

Questions

If you have any questions about the events while you are in town, please call Heather at (410) 526-2852 ext. 317. This extension is for AFKFest event related questions only not covered on the events page. Please e-mail store@mp3car.com for sales or customer service related questions.

Plan B

In the event of rain, the BBQ will be held in our office building parking lot. Office is located at 2400 Boston ST, Baltimore. This page will be updated the day of the event to disclose the change in location of the BBQ in the event of inclement weather. Please check here before coming. Thanks and we look forward to seeing everyone there!

All events are free, however we ask that you get a Free Ticket for each event for planning purposes.

Talk about this on our forums

Community Generated Map Data - Passive Vs. Active / Teleatlas Vs. Openstreetmaps

Fiberoptic — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:14:38 GMT

There has been a lot of discussion about community generated maps. Cloudmade and openstreetmap have made immense progress, but their big drawback is that it required active user input to have the data be routable or reliable. Teleatlas has jumpstarted community generated maps by releasing a paid passively generated database that has been created and augmented by free passive user inputs. (teleatlas press release )

In this Youtube interview Rik Temmink boasts 7 million reports in 18 months which have generated 1 trillion gps measurements on the road network. He describes the beauty of passive user inputs.
The big drawback here is that Teletlas is now charging for these maps generated by their users. Why can't we hack our PDAs, phones, and other devices to create free maps? Most people don't think about the super high costs of map data. Hopefully the community can unite:

Collecting and sharing GPS data
Writing an algorithm to process this data into routable and usable information
Cleaning up open source algorithms to use this new data
Make the data free and globally available

There are a lot of business and innovation blocks created when you have a monopoly of map data providers(Teleatlas/Navteq). How do we fix this?

Via makes ivp-7500 automotive platform? Hmmm. We think Not.

Fiberoptic — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:00:53 GMT

Back in march VIA announced the new automotive ivp-7500 (press release ). The announcement got some press from slashgear , crunchgear and has spurred discussions on our forums . Via claims onboard support for Bluetooth and GPS, which in all reality appear to just be add on modules. It seems like VIA took an off the shelf board, slapped on a few modules and rebranded old tech to create the appearance of an automotive solution. This might be perfect for a hobbyist or an R&D lab but you can forget about auto provider shipping silicone with a 0c-60c spec. If someone from VIA would like to explain the press release in more details, please post on the forums or e-mail us. We would be happy to write some revised commentary if there is something we are missing. Talk about this Blog post on our forums.

Continue discussion here on our forums.

Intel D945GCLF2D motherboard

Fiberoptic — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:28:00 GMT

Some forum members were already talking about this mobo but I thought I would shine some light on the subject. I had a chance to play a little bit with it and see if it's working etc.

Form factor Mini-ITX /micro-ATX compatible
Processor Integrated Intel� Atom� processor 330 with a 533 MHz system bus
* One 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) sockets
* Support for DDR2 533/667 MHz DIMMs
* Support for up to 2 GBΣ of system memory

Chipset Intel� 945GC Express Chipset and
Intel� I/O Controller Hub 7 (ICH7)

* Eight USB 2.0 ports
* Two Serial SATA ports (3.0 GB/s)
* One parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA 33, ATA-66/100 support
* One serial port
* One parallel port
* PS/2* keyboard and mouse ports

I tested this board with the following config:
- 80 gig seagate SATA hdd
- 300 w power supply
- 2g of DDR2 800MHz Buffalo ram (1 stick)
- Dell mouse and keyboard (both usb)
- memorex external DVD via usb

The board was able to install XP Home flawlessly, and so far, is very quick. Startup time 46.8 seconds and shutdown time was 8.5 seconds.

You can't look at this board without comparing it to the previous LF2 model.
Unfortunately the only thing I was able to find, along with others here on the forum, the S-Video is the only difference. The previous model has it and is priced on newegg for 79.99 and this model doesn't have priced at 76.99 on newegg.

So it seems for $3 less you can get a board without S-Video. Why not include DVI or display port on the next model?

Talk about this, and see other pictures on our forums

Best of Mp3Car - volume 2, 4.21.09

Fiberoptic — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:10:08 GMT

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!

Gesture features in windows 7

Fiberoptic — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:06:24 GMT

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

IPhone Car Navigation - The Death of your PND

Fiberoptic — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:32:16 GMT

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.

Interview Mathieu Monney, creator of XGPS iPhone navigation application

Fiberoptic — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:45:20 GMT

[media]http://www.mp3car.com/podcast/xgps%20creator%20interview%203_2009%20part1.mp3[/media] 5.2MB (5:41 MIN)
[media]http://www.mp3car.com/podcast/xgps%20creator%20interview%203_2009%20part2.mp3[/media] 4.1MB (4:27 MIN)
[media]http://www.mp3car.com/podcast/xgps%20creator%20interview%203_2009%20part3.mp3[/media] 7.6MB (8:17 MIN)

Mp3car�s Founder, Robert Wray, interviewed Mathieu Monney, creator of iphone navigation application XGPS. We talk about his turn by turn navigation application which has been downloaded almost 589,000+ times in the two months since it left beta. Don�t get out your calculator, that is about 10,000 times per day!

We expect the interview to be transcribed within the next couple of days.

Robert Wray: Hi. My name is Rob Wray, with Mp3car. We're talking today with Mathieu Monney in Switzerland. Mathieu is the creator and lead developer of the wildly successful turn by turn iPhone navigation application called XGPS. I call it wildly successful, because according to Cedia, the application has been downloaded about a half a million times in just the several months that it's been out.

A lot of the industry analysts all want to know how big the market is, and I think this is an amazing indicator that there's a lot of pent-up demand for XGPS and applications similar to this that do navigation and turn by turn directions. So Mathieu, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with us today.

Mathieu Monney: Hi, Rob. Your welcome.

Robert Wray: As of iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is allowing developers to use the core location; meaning turn by turn map creators now have the access to the combination of GPS, WiFi, cell towers, and all those utilities to do routing.

Mathieu Monney: Yes.

Robert Wray: So I guess the key is that you have to bring your own maps. How far do you think you can go with the free Google map solution that you're using right now?

Mathieu Monney: So right now, it will not be possible to use the current position to publish it on the app store, because it's completely forbidden by the Google terms and conditions and by Apple.

Robert Wray: Okay. Clearly the free thing has probably been one of the things that's driven the 500,000 number.

Mathieu Monney: Yes. That's true.

Robert Wray: So I guess right now you're using the Google maps. What do you use for your routing algorithms? Do you have your own routing algorithms, or are you using Google's routing algorithms?

Mathieu Monney: No. We are using Google's routing services, because the maps that we get from Google are only pictures or images. So when you display a map on your iPhone, you can't use GPS. It's only a picture, an image. And you can�t have any information about where roads are, or anything like that. So you cannot do any routing algorithm on it.

That's why we are thinking and we are trying to develop another solution based on other third party sources to use vectorial maps to be able to do outlier routings and vectorial routings, and stuff like that, to overcome this Google map problem.

Robert Wray: So that kind of leads me into my next question. There's a lot of really interesting free applications and free data sources that are out there, like OpenStreetMap. How much will XGPS contribute and be able to utilize OpenStreetMap or other data collection efforts?

Mathieu Monney: Actually, it's a go for the next version of XGPS to use OpenStreetMap.

Robert Wray: So that's great. That allows you to keep this application really low cost. So would you imagine that you would still license a routing algorithm? Or do you plan to develop your own routing algorithm?

Mathieu Monney: Yes. Sure. The long term goal is to be able to use your iPhone as a normal GPS, like TomTom. You enter a start location and end location, and the routing is done by itself offline, without any WiFi or GSM connection or whatever. So yes.

Robert Wray: I was looking at your website, and it looks like you're funding XGPS off of donations. How do you plan to fund the development of XGPS in the future?

Mathieu Monney: For now, for the current version, we will remain free and we'll be funded with donations. But for the next version, which will use vectorial map and so on, we haven't decided now what we will do. But maybe we will make some kind of licensing, or it will still be free, I can't really tell you now, because it will really depend on how the new GPS software will come up on the app store. I mean, with the new OS 3.0.

Robert Wray: So do you expect to release your application on the app store as soon as the OS 3.0 is available?

Mathieu Monney: I will not say as soon as, but we'll try to release it as soon as I get something working with OpenStreetMap and so on, because it will then be a legal application in terms of Apple�s point of view.

Robert Wray: It looks like you were able to keep a lot of your costs down by doing things like crowd sourcing the language translation into 25 languages.

Mathieu Monney: Yeah.

Robert Wray: How else are you planning to use the community in the future for your application?

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. That's definitely a good option. The problem with releasing your beta application or free application is that you get more people from it, and it's really easy to build a community, which helps the project growing.

On the other hand, with the pay application, there is less involved people, and people say, "Okay. I want this feature. Why is this feature not here, and why is this feature not in my language" or so on.

Robert Wray: Do you have any other ways in which you plan to use your forums? You have lots of active people in the community that are contributing in your forums, as far as feature suggestions. Do you plan to do any of your development with input from the community? Or do you plan to keep it a closed project, aside from the language translation and things like that?

Mathieu Monney: Again, it's an open question. For sure it will speed up the development of XGPS if we put it in an open source way. But the thing I don't want is that if the first project falls, all the projects are created on the basis of XGPS, and that will be a terribly bad thing for me.

And the other thing is that you cannot control, really control, how the development will go with the totally open source solution. So that's the two major problems. That's why I'm still debating if I will keep the project closed source or put it in open source.

Robert Wray: So I noticed that there was a competing navigation application that came out. It's about $40.00 on the app store, made by XRoads, called G-Maps. It's interesting that it came out and then really quickly was pulled off the iPhone store, on March 18th. Why do you think Apple is still being so aggressive, even with their 3.0 announcement?

Mathieu Monney: I don't know. This G-Maps application is not so � actually, it was not so good. I mean, at first, it was providing features with a lot of good functionality, like voice navigation, and offline routing, and turn by turn directions, and so on. But I think I've heard that they proposed G-Maps software to Apple one time, and Apple refused to put it on the app store, because it was not following their agreement rules.

So they removed some unwanted features, like turn by turn direction, and so on. So with the final release there were no more interesting features, like turn by turn direction. So G-Maps was only like the map applications on the iPhone, but without the need to download the maps over WiFi or GSM connection.

Robert Wray: So basically, it looked really interesting, and the app slowly got watered down and watered down until it was finally allowed to go on the store, and then it was pulled?

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. I don't like the way Apple is acting with all this software, because I think there can be really good software nowadays without all these Apple restrictions. But unfortunately Apple is placing so many restrictions that since there is no really good application which has come up on the app store, I think Apple is really handling it in a bad way.

However, it's still successful, and the app store is a good thing, but Apple could be a little less aggressive on their agreements.

Robert Wray: So I wanted to get back to the question before. We were talking about OpenStreetMaps. How much do you think XGPS will be able to contribute to OpenStreetMaps?

Mathieu Monney: XGPS could bring many users to OpenStreetMap, but the main problem is that you cannot build the software which can upload data automatically to OpenStreetMap, and automatically improve the map itself. There is always the need of a human to draw roads and so on on the map, on the basis of data given by GPS.

Robert Wray: Do you think that there will be algorithms that are eventually developed to translate the GPS trails into accurate road information?

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. You can already make simple software to take GPS position, GPS tracker, and so on, to automatically build the maps. But the main problem is still in naming the roads. The crossing of the road, you sometimes cannot turn right, or can't turn left, or sometimes there is a one-way road, or so on.

All this stuff makes automatically creating the maps a big problem, because if you develop an algorithm to create the maps automatically on the basis of a GPS track, maybe you can get a map that looks beautiful to the eye, but for the routing algorithm, it will be really, really difficult to create a route from a point A to a point B without going down a one-way street. That's the main problem.

And still, with humans there is a lot of errors now in OpenStreetMap, especially in Europe countries.

Robert Wray: So basically, the collected data is unroutable, but we have this situation where there's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario here. You have to have a certain mass of tracks and data that's collected in order for algorithms to be applied to them. Again, this chicken or egg type of scenario.

Why not collect the data now, since you have 500,000 users that are out there? Why not collect the data so that when algorithms are developed to process this data, and as more users are willing to properly label roads, and make them routable, why not collect this data, so that as users get more passionate about it, the data is there for people to work on?

Mathieu Monney: Sure. It will be an option. For now, the current version of XGPS already allows you to do this. Manually. But to do it automatically, the first problem is the privacy issue. I mean, not everybody wants to share where they go.

It will be an option. We are thinking about it for next version.

Robert Wray: Surely there has to be a way to anonymize the data, so that people don't have to worry about tracking issues, and they can still help contribute to the maps that they're getting for free, that they would otherwise have to pay $50.00 US or more for � even at the cheapest solutions, you have to pay $50.00 for map data.

Mathieu Monney: Sure. For you or me guys like us, it will be okay, but for the people who cannot imagine to have their position on the net, and to be anonymized by that. Not all the people are really interested in the iPhone and so on.

But a software like XGPS could allow them to use their iPhone as a GPS. And if we tell them, okay, you can use XGPS, but your position will be logged and sent over the internet, even if we say, okay, it's totally � it's totally anonymized, � I don't know. They will have some fears about it, I think.

Robert Wray: Yeah. You will always have skeptics, and I think that's a really important thing to be aware of. Do you have any plans to implement some of the more advanced location-based services, like petroleum prices, or traffic, speed cameras, and things like that?

Mathieu Monney: For traffic things, for now, it's as usual, the main problem with all of that GPS stuff software is data source. I mean, for maps, it's where the roads are, what are the road names, and so on. For traffic, you have to access some information given by the government or cities to know where the traffic density is, and etcetera. So it's always a problem of data sources.

But as long as we could get reliable data sources to show places with traffic on the map, we could do it. But I think for now, it's a little too advanced to think about it.

Robert Wray: I'd imagine, with 500,000 users, you certainly have enough volume to get data suppliers interested in buying the data. Maybe there's an option where you could have your core free products, and allow paid upgrades for premium services like speed cameras and traffic, and other things that have made some of the other connected navigation devices wildly successful.

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. Sure. It will be an option. We haven't thought about that yet, but it could definitely be an option. It will be able to create some kind of community around these data sources, as OpenStreetMap did. When you are on a road where there are too many cars and you cannot go on, you tap into iPhone, okay, I�m stuck on the road. And this information will be propagated on all the connected iPhones, and you will get some kind of peer to peer network with information about the current traffic.

You can do the same for speed cameras.

Robert Wray: There's been some commercial companies that have tried to do that. I mean, Dash was the big one here in the United States which had a little bit less success. They made a device that's all in one unit, they got more accurate as the number of users grew, because they were all committing to the amount of data. So the big win here with an application like that would be allowing lots and lots of users, even users other than XGPS, to be able to contribute to those data pools.

Would you see collecting this data and making it open for GPS applications of all types, maybe even PC type applications, or PND applications? Or would you see XGPS being the controller of this community-collected data?

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. I mean, it would be better if more products can be developed like this, because I think there is only the new XGPS that can act like that. It will be good for there to be some kind of constraint.

And I think if there is more products and more software, the more GPS products are involved and the bigger the community is, the more accurate it can be.

Robert Wray: Well, we're at a very exciting time in navigation and mobile computing, and it's great you're being a part of it, and developing apps to help it grow. So thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with us today out of your busy schedule. We appreciate it.

Mathieu Monney: Yeah. Your welcome.

Mp3car.com, Digital-car.co.uk, and mp3car.ru acquired

Fiberoptic — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:52:09 GMT

Mp3car.com, Digital-car.co.uk, and mp3car.ru have been acquired by Mr. Jack Smittinghurst, a new mp3car forum user that goes by the name Abolition. The cash only deal was signed late in the evening last night at 6pm GMT for 8 million British pounds sterling. Details of how the money was split are unavailable. Founders of Mp3car.com and Digital-car.co.uk have been unavailable for comment.

Mr. Smittinghurst is expected to meet later this week in Washington, DC with President Obama�s CTO Vivek Kundram on how this new international mobile computing partnership could help spur growth in the economy and inspire international cooperation.

Mr. Smittinghurst was quoted as saying �We look forward to using technology from the three communities to facilitate �greener� transportation.� We also hope to expand into other markets. Specifically, we hope to use this global technology and community to make international warfare more eco-friendly by documenting and supplying spud cannon parts and accessories through a redesigned mp3car.com store�

Best of Mp3Car - volume 1, 4.1.09

Fiberoptic — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:22:00 GMT

The best of innovation and development from the Mp3Car.com forums.

Fabrication

Want to see how to mold a dash in your Cadillac Escalade? Member Brian at Nexations Creations has posted pictures of his latest work here .

Member WuNgUn is making progress on his bezel and paintwork and is asking for forum members to critique it. The fab includes a Griffin powermate and custom gauges mounted into the bezel. Nice work!

OBDII

Finally, an OBDII implementation for OSX and Unix! Community member chunkyks has created an OBD GPS logger application that does exactly what it says - reads OBDII data from any ELM 327 device and logs it to a file. You can output the information to a visualizer like Google Earth. A GREAT start to the OBDII issue for Macs and Unix systems! We hope to see this implementation extended to provide full functionality on both platforms. See more info at chunkyks website: http://icculus.org/obdgpslogger/

Member willmeyer has an OBDII plug that is big and ugly and sticks straight out of the socket into the footwell. He found a solution to his problem form michbound, OBDPros vendor that keeps him from reorienting the car's OBDII plug. Read about it here .

Emerging technology

My quest to kill my car PC is investigating using a bluetooth touchscreen controller to control the iPhone. Know anything about this hardware or software for the iPhone? Head on over and give me a hand !

Community development

Community continues to work on Bluetooth integration - Standalone BlueSoleil wrapper from lambosprit. Rather than continue to suffer headaches with integrating bluetooth into the PC environment for mobile phones, lambosprit has decided to fix it using the Bluesoleil bluetooth stack. This week, he released a standalone BlueSoleil wrapper for Ride Runner. The wrapper comes complete with a sample VB.net express 2008 project that demonstrates how to use it. Developers can now use the wrapper to build their own custom bluetooth functions in RR plugins or standalone applications.

Interested in Bluetooth on the PC but aren't a coder? Don't miss lambosprit's mobilephone plugin for Ride Runner. The plugin is based on ANOTHER member's work (Lucifer) on a mobilephone plugin. lambosprit has added the BlueSoleil bluetooth stack to the mix. Several members, including tempgp are helping, offering, or testing the plug-in.

Excellent worklog and install - I rarely read people's worklogs because they usually depress me. My car PC used to be a slick and well disguised OEM looking installation but lately it's looked more like Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory with cables all over the interior. It's driving me nuts but that's the cost of experimentation. However, if you'd like to see what a great install looks like, with TONS of detail and nearly 500 posts actively following the progress, check out member rdholtz's great worklog. There's lots of advice and information. You'll find plenty to learn and his detailed index to the thread on post 1 will save you reading the whole thing.

Ride Runner

Love the iPhone interface and want it on your PC? Member route78 has released a beta.1 of an iPhone skin. It handles music and video and next version plans to support external gps, web browser, settings, mixer, background changes and possibly phone. Looks gorgeous! Check it out.

Something different

Those crazy Aussies are at it again. Member Abolition has been posting with questions about how to install twin spud cannons in his car. So far, he's been dissuaded by forum members from his original plan to fire it using gasoline or LP from his dual fuel vehicle. He's currently searching for the right materials to fire it using compressed air. Check in on his progress here .

Korean �Infill� Car Computer R&D team back in action?

Fiberoptic — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:18:52 GMT

A blast of e-mail was sent out on Monday to all the car computer and telematics stores around the globe by some former employees of the now defunct Infill and Maxan. (we were open cced). Apparently they have formed a new company called HTS. The e-mail states they are accepting advanced orders on their FunDi G7. There are lots of concerns, but maybe it is just because they are still in stealth mode.

�As of Monday 3/23/2009 their domain carpcmall.com points to a parked website.
�Their PDF looks like CAD rendered image
��Accepting advanced orders� Hmm. Have we heard that before in the car PC world?

Dash Command Lite Goes for a Test Drive

Fiberoptic — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:17:00 GMT

In this video blog we test out Dash Command Lite � an innovative way of displaying OBD-II data. Talk about this on our forums in our blog talk section. Buy dash command lite here & get 10$ off the final version when it comes out in late spring or early summer

More ways to tether your iPhone to your car

Fiberoptic — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:17:00 GMT

Community and Forum user Bugbyte (AKA: Tom Berry) explores more ways to connect your iphone to the screen in your car.
Follow this discussion in our forums.

DIY � Wireless USB monitor

Fiberoptic — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:55:52 GMT

How to build your own wireless USB monitor - We took an IOGear wireless VGA device (GUC2015V), an M1-ATX, a Lilliput 10� monitor and a laptop battery to make a super hacked wireless monitor. If you spent more than an hour on this you could really make this hack usable. We couldn�t get more than 15� of range out of this with line of sight, but it was fun to try. Based on the amperage of the devices, we could theoretically get a few hours out of this per charge.

***Update 2-26-2009
Other power supplies that could be used:
The m3-atx is probably a better supply to use for this project.

How much Power does this use?
260 milli amps for just the receiver.
1.1 amps for the receiver and screen.
Our battery has a capacity at 14.8 volts of 6600mAH.
Does this mean we get 6 hours of run time? Wow.

Host CPU Loads tested on my desktop
DisplayLinkManager is what does the processing for the Wireless VGA adapter.

Hardware used for testing
3 year old 2.8 Ghz Pentium D Dual core CPU
4gb of Ram
Windows XP
800x480 output

CPU Load Results
0% - CPU load with an idle screen (desktop only)
0-2% - CPU load with google talk
2-3% - VLC movie paused
9%-12% - VLC playing a movie

Part 2 Video Transcript:

Hi. My name is Rob Wray with MP3 Car. I told you we would test out this wireless monitor in the car, so for the last hour we�ve been goofing around in the parking lot of our office trying to get this to work. And actually it worked perfectly right off the bat the same way as it did work in our office. I just wanted to do something off-the-wall with it.

So it�s working perfectly. I happen to have a Centrifuge help video loaded on the monitor right now. We�ve got a great wireless signal. We�ve done some calculations recently. We think this little hack job here can get about six hours of wireless time using the 10� monitor. So that�s pretty exciting. And we�ve been really happy with the video quality playback.

The first thing that we tried to do to hack it, to make it look kind of cool and newsworthy was to hack in a USB HDTV tuner. So we did that. It worked well except the HDTV won�t play on this monitor. There�s certain things that don�t work well over ultra wideband USB and apparently the GT HD tuner that we sell in our store is one of those things that doesn�t work well.

We also had some problems with getting StreetDeck to work well wirelessly over ultra wideband, but things like VLC which I used in my previous demo worked wonderfully. You get great frame rate playback, and that sort of thing. So I�m going to go ahead and start this movie here, and you can see that the picture quality�s pretty good.

So we�ve been pretty happy with this as a solution. The only thing that we�ve seen is that, again it doesn�t support all video formats, and you also get � every now and then you�ll get a little bit of a wiggle over here on the left side. I�m assuming that�s from some type of interference that�s happening as a result of the engine alternator or various other little things. But it was happening before and now it�s completely gone away, so I think it�s almost unnoticeable.

So try this at home. Thanks for watching our blog.

Mobile phone meshing - Connect your car to the internet cloud

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:15:00 GMT

Based on our experiences at CES this year MP3car is creating this new forum. �Mobile phone meshing � Safely Connect your car to the internet cloud �

This forum is going to be a lot more than just connecting. This is going to be the place to talk about hacking and meshing your mobile computing devices into the car. If we can find a way to connect Iphones and smart phones into existing in vehicle displays and controls, this will be a wonderful benefit for those of us who just want to carry one device and developers trying to prove out connected car concepts.

Same of the challenges we need to work on:

Phone user interface retooling and modifications for the driver
Connecting your smart phone to the car
Connecting accessories to the above (hard drives, flash memory, GPS, engine diagnostics, tracking)
Mirroring your built in phone display with the display in the car.

We have also created a specific iphone section to talk about some of the early progress already being made to mirror the video content of the iphone with external displays - an excellent start to phone phone car meshing.

CES 2009 - Wrap Up

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:50:20 GMT

Tom Berry (bugbyte) and I talk about our closing thoughts on CES 2009. The main theme this year from CES is having all of your devices connected and having location aware content. The biggest challenge is going to be for device manufacturers and software developers to create products which will deliver this explosion of data in a way that users can consume it. These products must be aware of the users activity and location. For example, if you are sitting down you will consume and control data in a different way than you would if you were walking or driving a car. Our favorites from this year were Airbiquity's innovations, Intel SSD, and the hardware that Giantec is developing for themselves(here and here) and for Intel. We are also very excited about the possibilities that ICO's satellite system opens up.

CES 2009 - Lilliput & Their New Products

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:35:32 GMT

We talk with John Xu, the US representative for Lilliput. He tells us about some new models that are in the works.

CES 2009 - Intel SSD, SLC, MLC and why Intel

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:33:53 GMT

We talk with Robert Allshouse, Business Development manager of Intel's NAND group. He talks about Intel's SSDs which are now hitting mass production. The products are guaranteed to work from 0c-70c. They use less power and take far more of a beating than their disk counterparts. Just get ready to unload your wallet.

Transcript:

Rob Wray: Hi, my name�s Rob from MP3 Car. We�re here at CES 2009 at Intel�s booth, and Rob from Intel is here with us giving us a quick demo of some of their memory that�s been in the press recently. So you�ve got three different modules of memory here which are all very interesting.

So this guy here, he�s an eighty gigabyte module that sells for what? About $500 on New Egg? This guy�s about, is $1,000, and how ��

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: That�s 160 gigabyte. And this little one down here is another eighty gigabyte. It�s the same drive in a slightly smaller form factor for your more small form factor net tops and other smaller applications.

Rob Wray: Okay.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: Using a micro static connector instead of the standard static.

Rob Wray: So how long do these last?

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: The typical life for the consumer level drives is they�re expected a five-year useful life, and that useful life is at a ten-gigabyte write per day.

Rob Wray: Right.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: So since the technology has finite write cycles. You can read as much as you want, so it�s a read-intensive application. By continually reading maps from there, you�re not affecting the life.

Rob Wray: Right. So you were telling me a little bit before about multilevel drives. So the multilevel drives, you can write two bits of data per transistor, and the single level drives you can write one bit of data per transistor. So it sounded to me like most of our readers are really going to be interested in the multilevel, because you get the same read performance off the multilevel versus the single level, and just your write performance is degraded, and it sounds like with five years writing ten gigs a day, the MLC is going to capture everybody unless you�re trying to run a database server or something with tons of writes.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: That�s right. The SLC drives, our thirty-two and sixty-four gigabyte drives, at near the same price points, are really focused on those sequel server guys with high write intensive applications. The five-year useful life for these drives is for most consumers plenty, and it�s actually more than enough. The difference in the writes as you were saying, it�s about seventy megabytes per second write on the MLC drive. And it�s 150 megabytes per second write on the SLC drive.

Rob Wray: Right.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: The reads are about the same. They both flood the SATA bus at about 250 megabytes per second in reading. So you�re read performance between the consumer level and the enterprise level drive are the same.

Rob Wray: We were also talking about boot times. So boot times you said was one of the least impressive benefits out of flash, but a lot of people that we work with decide to resume from hibernate, and since that�s just a read application we should get a pretty good boost and resume from hibernate, but not boost � booting.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: Yeah, you definitely � I mean, you see definite improvements in your boost. You know, five, ten seconds. But a lot of what�s happening, if you go look at a boot demo side by side, you�ll see the IO light is not flashing as much because it�s going so much faster, but you�re still waiting. And there are a lot of other things that happen during boot besides just IO.

I�m less impressed by that as much as something like hibernate, or really application load performance. Because application load where you�re random IO performance shows the huge difference, and you�ll see a demo on that where you can see you know, files transferring and applications loading immediately in real time.

Rob Wray: Well, let�s get into that demo.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: Alright. So the primary purpose of this demo is to show how while file transfers are happening in large applications, you don�t slow down the rest of your system. So right now we�re copying a 680-meg set of files, at the same time we�re going to open up Picasso, look at six large pictures, create a collage, and then choose another IO-intensive application like opening up iTunes, which then looks in your folders, sees if there are new songs to look for, all while that�s happening. And this takes about thirty seconds before the collage is done, and playing.

Rob Wray: So the CES show floor is loaded with tons of vendors, probably hundreds of vendors, trying to sell you memory for your laptop. What�s the difference between stuff that would go in an inexpensive laptop or it�s floating all around the halls versus what we see here?

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: So there definitely is a big difference, and they�re all based on the same NAN technology with the exception of MLC and SLC, but really underlying it is NAN. But what you do for say additional camera where you�re writing maybe a couple hundred times maximum in the life of the drive, and you�re writing at the speed of moving a five-megapixel image or maybe even high def video at thirty megabytes per second, it�s different than what you�re trying to do on a laptop. And so you do have different rates.

The most simple grade would be a USB or an SD card, and those are designed around consumers who are just moving small amounts of data rarely. You�re not using it all day, every day. And then you move to your net top, net book type design, where it�s still small density and it�s off-the-shelf components building a small density low cost SSD. And at the high end, you have some drives like this one that have architecture design and route very high performance. Ten channels and parallel operating versus maybe two or four in the lower end drives for net book type applications.

Rob Wray: Right. So the other thing you guys have done, you were telling me before is you�ve written some � in your controllers, you�ve written things to optimize the write processes so it�s faster. You have more DRAM and things like that that you wouldn�t see in consumer grade.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: Absolutely. A problem inherent in technology behind these is you can�t write a single bit, and so what you may run into is depending on how a vendor writes their algorithms, they may have to do two, four, ten times the amount of writes to change the amount of data they want to change. We�ve optimized that to get down to about 1.1 times. The term�s called write amplification. So it says that if you�re at two times versus one time, you�re getting half useful life. We�re only doing about 10% extra writes and we�re best in class in the industry.

Rob Wray: That�s great. Well, thanks for taking the time to give us such a thorough interview.

Intel�s Robert Allshouse: My pleasure. Thank you, Rob.

[End of Audio]

CES 2009 - ICO Connects your car via Satellite

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:32:14 GMT

We have been working with ICO for about 2 years to build out the in vehicle user interface for the satellite they launched late last summer. We built a new custom UI based on StreetDeck, integrated with their satellite modems, added data services and even implemented a program listings interface. We are a bit biased but this looks like it is going to blow away cruise cast with a small antenna, a great price point and an array of bi-directional data services all augmenting their 10-15 channels of high quality video.

CES 2009 - WiFli iphone RDS

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:31:14 GMT

We were ambushed by this company�s PR team in the central hall of CES 2009. We thought the last thing we need to do is talk about yet ANOHER iPod accessory. We saw the product again in the Sands show case and decide this was worthy of a story. It would be great to test one of these guys. Let us know if you have tried one.

CES 2009 - Small Computers

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:29:41 GMT

It is amazing how small, cheap and low power computers are getting. The show floor was littered with them so we took a sample of one in this clip below. Running a quicktime MOV on the faster unit in this movie took up 60% of the CPU so some testing is probably in order. Over the last 12 years of working on computers I have seen tons of motherboards. Even some that are very expensive from big name companies can be riddled with driver problems or other small quirks.

CES 2009 - Car Computing - The Tough Road

Fiberoptic — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:27:57 GMT

The brutal trail to bringing a car computer to market is littered with casualties of failed products. We certainly have gotten run over a few times. Vizualogic's booth at SEMA was significantly scaled down. At CES this year, they have no booth and no published display suites. Audiovox is suing them for patent infringement. Anyone who is bringing a computing product to market better fasten their seat belt. It is a rough ride.

CES 2009 - Audison TH Quatro - Optical In Amp

Fiberoptic — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:40:11 GMT

This product might actually have been around for a few years but we haven�t seen people talk about it on our forums. We weren�t able to make it up to their booth before the show closed, but there units are all hand made in Italy. If Audison reads this, we would love to borrow one for a few weeks to test it and compare it to the Focal Amp. We found a website showing a price of 3,000 Euro. As a non-audiophile, the big advantage I can see here over the focal unit is that this unit has 4 channels. If we can get both units in for testing it would be fun to do a side by side comparison.

CES 2009 - Airbiquity

Fiberoptic — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:24:05 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Dashboard Devices

Fiberoptic — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:10:25 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Color customizable keyboard

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:28:21 GMT

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

CES 2009 - Dashtop Devices

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:26:48 GMT

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

CES 2009 - Focal Optical Input Amp

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:24:32 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Giantec Double Din Car Computer

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:00:19 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Giantec Single Din Car Computer

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:58:42 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Get Superman Vision with FLIR

Fiberoptic — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:44:44 GMT

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.

CES 2009 - Forum member redgti�s car

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:42:56 GMT

We run into forum member RedGTI on the CES 2009 Show floor

CES 2009 - Interview with Xenarc

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:37:03 GMT

We sit down with Xenarc to find out what happened in 2008 and what the future holds for 2009. Like other large companies, Xenarc has decided to opt out of buying a booth this year.

Transcript of the interview is online here:

Rob Wray: Hi, my name is Rob with MP3 Car. We�re here at CES 2009, and I�m sitting down with Jason Huang from Xenarc. We�re talking about new products, things that happened last year, things that are happening next year. So you�ve got a couple of new monitors coming out. You�ve got an 8� and a 10�. Give us some details about what�s happening.

Jason Huang: Sure. Anyone who�s familiar with our 706 TSA, it�s a DVI 7� screen with a separate input box. We�re launching an 8� and a 10.2 that basically implements the same technologies, so you�re going to have separate input boxes and you�re going to have the DVI input along with your VGA composite video and USB. All on a separate input box.

Rob Wray: We�re hoping to get both of those samples in February sometime where we can do some more video and writing about how will they compare to previous models, and things like that.

Jason Huang: I�ve seen them firsthand, and the picture quality on these monitors are significantly better than the previous generation monitors.

Rob Wray: That�s great. Yeah.

Jason Huang: And we�ll still be offering those other monitors as well, so those will still be available. This is an addition to our line.

Rob Wray: How much of a price increase do you expect over the newer?

Jason Huang: Well, what we�re actually looking to do is a slight price increase over what you�re currently paying for those size screens, and then there�s going to be a slight price reduction actually in the current line, and that�s going to be helpful for everybody.

Rob Wray: Oh, that�s great. So I�ve heard a bunch of things about orders being slow for you guys in the middle of the summer. You�ve got some factory things. What�s happening?

Jason Huang: Yeah. Business was good but in terms of turnaround and getting product out the door, we had a factory go down in Asia that does the assembly for like three different models of our screens.

Rob Wray: Right.

Jason Huang: And that held us up really bad.

Rob Wray: Right.

Jason Huang: We were backordered for about three to four months.

Rob Wray: Right.

Jason Huang: So now we�re back up and running. We�ve got all the parts in the new factory, and we�re at 100% right now.

Rob Wray: Lots of new stuff on the way it sounds like, too.

Jason Huang: Yeah. Definitely.

Rob Wray: Alright, well thanks a lot for taking the time to chat with us today.

Jason Huang: Thank you.

[End of Audio]

CES 2009 - Capacitive touch screens

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:32:42 GMT

We take a quick look at when we might be able to get 7� capacitive touch screens in our cars.

CES 2009 - What�s new at Azentek

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:30:04 GMT

After 2-3 years of never shipping the Azentek Atlas, Azentek is taking a more conservative approach to launching product. They were planning on showing their single din car computer here at CES, but have decided to hold off until it becomes available for sale. Azentek also got car computing some exposure on good morning America.

Check out our video for more details.

CES 2009 - Wireless Charging, Is it ready?

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:43:15 GMT

With all the hype around wireless charging, we really expected more. Before you throw out your chargers and wires, watch this video.

CES 2009 - Get buzzed off Force Feedback Touch Screens

Fiberoptic — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:30:45 GMT

Immersion has licensed their force feedback technology to several vendors. We give touch screen force feedback a test run.

Intel talks car computing

Fiberoptic — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:13:00 GMT

CES 2009 - Monster Cable Gets Social

Fiberoptic — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:10:53 GMT

We promised to write about a few eccentric things.

Monster cable was kind enough to invite us to their party and share the entire CES press list with everyone who is here. Thanks! This will come in handy at some point. Everyone from the Wall Street Journal, ABC and Toms Hardware Guide have all been virtually introduced. Erick from Monster Cable signs his e-mail as "social media Monster". What a great title!

I figured a thank you was in order for these wonderful introductions. Replying to all choked my dual core 2 ghz macbookpro and crashed my iphone mail app. Yes!

Original Message:
__________
From: Erik Sebellin-Ross
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 19:30:15 -0800
To: (entire CES press list removed) (no space on blog)
Subject: CES: Come to Monster Cable's digital media party!

Are you at CES? Have you finished your work for the day? Monster wants YOU! Come to our party tonight. Entertainment from Dj Irie. Surprise celebrity guests. Food. Drink!
This is a casual, no-work party. Monster wants to get to know you and vice versa. No need to RSVP, though it would be great to know if you are coming to ensure we have enough booze.
WHERE: Paris Hotel. Empire Louis Suite 3395P. Las Vegas. Nevada. North America. Planet URF!
WHEN: 10:00PM Thursday night at CES
WHO: We'll have some celebrity guests stopping by (you know Monster is much beloved by performers, right?)
WHAT: Food. Open bar. Meet our product managers. Ask them questions. Get them drunk and ask them questions.
Sorry for the spam folks, this will be our last message on this matter. We hope CES has been a successful one for you so far and will continue to be. Let's bring in 2009 RIGHT!
Erik
Monster's Social Media Monster

CES 2009 - 60 Seconds about why we are here

Fiberoptic — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:12:00 GMT

CES 2009 - Writing From the Press Room

Fiberoptic — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:10:00 GMT

The CES 2009 show floor opens today. We are writing from the press lounge on the show floor and our first video is uploading now.

For this show, our main areas of focus:

In Vehicle, mobile computing technology
Audio, specifically amplifiers with optical or digital inputs
New Display Technology
What technology can be transported from Home theatre into car computing?
Car Computer Software

Expect a few slightly off topic eccentric things as well.

Talk about this on our forums or give us tips on what to shoot here:

Consumer Telematics Seminar 2009

Fiberoptic — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:13:03 GMT

Give us feedback
Give us Tips on what we should write about.
Comment on our stories

CES 2009 Car Computers and telematics Discussions

Fiberoptic — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:06:03 GMT

We are doing a lot of blogging this week.

Give us feedback
Give us Tips on what we should write about.
Comment on our stories

Amazing Audi CarPC Case Mod - Community Innovation

Fiberoptic — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Forum member coucouillu Has something rather outrageous in the works. He has modified his existing Symphony II radio from his 2006 Audi A3 to incorporate a motorized touchscreen. But this project goes way beyond that:

Coucouillu began his mission with some simple Cad drawings to determine if this project was even feasible. Understanding his space limitations he began to modify his hardware to suit his needs. He turned the atx connector on an M3 sideways and desoldered some motherboard components and extended them for additional space. Following this he began to shape the face panel of the radio enclosure. The CD player and Cassette deck were unnecessary for this design so they were removed, patched, and modified to fit a lilliput motorized monitor.

Now how the heck do you manage to merge a stock Audi radio and a motorized Screen? By converging the mechanism from a LM Digital 6501 and the screen from a motorized Lilliput with a custom pcb all cut and hacked to fit into double-din Symphony's footprint. Oo Yeah, a computer fits in there too. Maybe these pictures explain a little better�

Just when you thought this job was complicated enough, coucouillu decided that the Lilliput microcontroller just wasn�t going to make the cut. After some testing and help from fellow forum members, coucouillu was able to devise his own PICBASIC microcontroller for the functions of the monitor. Here is a little video for proof.

Final customizations include a custom faceplate pcb, altered leds to match the Symphony II�s appeal, and a front USB port. -- Coucouillu recently scrapped his existing Jetway mobo for a smaller more powerful Commell LS-372. He has added a custom heatpipe, and completely hacked a uSDC to plug directly into the motherboard. I am expecting to see a finished product in the near future! To completely appreciate this project, I advise taking a few minutes to browse the thread. As alway, if you have a project you are working on or know of a community innovation, send a PM or post here .

CES 2009 - Miroamer makes first Internet Car radio? We think not.

Fiberoptic — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:36:48 GMT

We think not. Our users have been doing internet radio in their cars for years (at least 2005) . We will most likely stop by their booth to �hear� how this compares to competing solutions like Panodora.
It is hard to beat 160kb radio streams from stations like Radioparadise . In my opinion current miRoamer streams sound HORRIBLE!

See the full release and Talk about this here:

Full pre-release:

"miRoamer (www.miroamer.com), a global innovator in the Internet radio industry, will announce a partnership with Blaupunkt, one of the world�s leading consumer electronics manufacturers and specialists in car multimedia, at CES 2009. The partnership will introduce the world�s first Internet car radio, giving drivers access the world�s largest and most diverse selection of Internet radio content through their car stereo.
Today, users want to jump in their car and go � no pulling out third-party devices or plugging in cords to access their music and information. The world�s first Internet car radio enables drivers of vehicles fitted with new Blaupunkt stereos to tune into miRoamer�s tens of thousands of radio stations from around the world. Now, with the simple push of a button, users can access AM/FM stations or Internet radio�s thousands of music, entertainment, news and talk stations from around the world, all from the same car stereo.

miRoamer will be giving live demonstrations at Booth #5418 in the North Hall at CES, as well as at Table # 43 at CES Unveiled. Any interest in being one of the first to see the world�s first Internet car radio? Thanks!

Best,
Ryan

Ryan Greives
BLASTmedia"

Now where do we put the airbag?

Fiberoptic — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:57:00 GMT

Now what would really be cool is to have an accelerometer or some other sensor built into the steering wheel so the image always rotated and was rendered based on the steering wheel position. I bet there is a patent there. :) That woudl sell some dual core CPUS. Talk about it here.

Magden Linux OBDII & Gauge, Performance Software

Fiberoptic — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:43:10 GMT

Magden has a current business model of selling an x86 PC with their linux gauge software. I can see how this would be great for people who don't want to integrate their own apps and want the power of a computer in their car with less setup hassle. We strongly encouraged the magden team to consider the sale of their software and hardware to the community, even if they release it with little or no support.

mp3Car.com - 2008 SEMA Wrap up

Fiberoptic — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:36:46 GMT

Goce and Rob talk about the highs & lows of mobile computing technology at SEMA 2008. Talk about this Here.

Palmer Performance - Dash Command - A video demo of their software and demo car.

Fiberoptic — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:36:17 GMT

Palmer Performance - Dash Command - A video demo of their software and demo car.

Fusion Brain Version 4

Fiberoptic — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:59:00 GMT

Designed with the supprot and feedback of our community, the fusion brain guys have done it again � At midnight EST today they released version 4 of their fusion brain control center.
Improvements over Brain v3:

16 Digital Outputs
13 Analog Inputs
Selectable Power Source (USB or 12vDC Jack)
30% smaller form factor (70mm X 45mm)
Better power filtering and protection
Ability to update firmware via USB
Ability to update firmware via ICSP header in event of bootloader corruption
Improved signal routing for analog inputs
Pulse Width Modulation, 256 steps with 42uS minimum pulse width (may need firmware update, provided free and uploadable over USB)

Previous versions of the fusion brain have been used for:

Christmas Car
GPS Steered Tractor
Steering wheel controls
HVAC control

Buy Fusion Brain Version 4
Fusion Brain Version 4 Manual
Discussions about Fusion Brain version 4 on our forums

What is Las Vegas's SEMA show like in 60 seconds?

Fiberoptic — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:22:40 GMT

A picture (or video) is worth a thousand words...and it's only 60 seconds. What is SEMA like?

Talk about this video here.

Mp3car gets an OLED display briefing and demo.

Fiberoptic — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:42:32 GMT

Some people call this the next best thing in display technology. Manufacturers report very high levels of contrast and lots of sunlight readability. What do you think? Is OLED the next home run in mobile car computing and telematics display technology?

Please reply and post your comments in this thread.

GhostBusters. Who made the first car computer?

Fiberoptic — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:45:00 GMT

Ghostbusters:

We thought the forum members of mp3car made the first car computer in the late 90s. Wrong. Done by the ghostbuster guys first in 1984. See our video for 20 seconds of ghost busting fun. Who made the first car computer?

Video Interview - Raysat / AT&T CruiseCast CEO and Chairman

Fiberoptic — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:50:00 GMT

The CEO of Raysat/Cruisecast (AT&T partnership) gave us a 20 minute technical explanation on the satellite, antennas, transponders, compression and how they have made CruiseCast �cruise� . A product overview can be found with the interview of Cruiscast�s President . There are more technical details in our CruiseCast drive test video.

Talk about this on our forums here.

Rescue Tape for wire management?

Fiberoptic — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:13:45 GMT

Even thought this isn�t super techie, we decided to take a few minutes to check out rescue tape since they won an award this year.

Where was wardrobe in this scene? My collar is sticking up and my shirt is wrinkled. Expect a blast of videos over the next 2 days. I slowed down editing a bit to attend a three day wedding over the weekend.

What do you think? Is it better to use pieces of tech flex for wire management?

Tech in Jay Leno's Jet car, Mobile car comptuers, Bio Diesel B100

Fiberoptic — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:49:22 GMT

Thank you Steven for opening up the ropes and Jay's car at SEMA. I think the title says it all. See and comment in this thread below.

mp3Car.com interviews Azentek - navigation mirror and their car computers

Fiberoptic — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:21:15 GMT

At the SEMA 2008 Azentek booth, we interviewed Donnie to hear a little bit about their new navigation smart mirror product. Windows Mobile devices really don�t fall in mp3car�s sweet spot, but this is an interesting form factor for a PND. Without giving it a full run through or a drive test, this mirror seems like it would be perfect for users who wants something that works out of the box.

So What is happening with their car computing efforts? Azentek is no longer bringing their original double din car PC into production and are starting on a brand new double din model which will be on display at CES, but not available for purchase until Q1 or Q2 2009.

The main features of this redesigned product set for release at CES will be increased tolerances to environmental and shock extremes as well as the ability for users to upgrade the Intel processor. More details will be available at CES.

Azentek also confirmed that Centrafuse is their software platform of choice and they will be using that in a modified Azentek branded form for the release at CES.

mp3Car.com interviews Brian Palmer - Iphone engine performance

Fiberoptic — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:45:08 GMT

Mp3car typically focuses on mobile computing applications. The reason why this fits on our blog is that Brian from Palmer Performance has ported his car PC OBD and performance application to the iphone. This is a two part interview. The first part is going to be a tour of his new iphone application. We will follow this up later in the week with a tour of his carpc installation and the features of his car computer software. Brian has made some interesting hooks in his windows application that will allow for integration into roadrunner, centrafuse or other applications.

Goce interviews Tony from Bluestar Technology

Fiberoptic — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:23:12 GMT

The Chinese manufacturer Bluestar has been making double din all in one units for a few years now. Online carPC retailers digitalww and hipepc have stocked blue star's products in the past but those retailers have now closed up shop.

Mp3car expects to test samples within the next few months to see if this something mp3Car will offer in the hobbyist marketplace(mp3car store). So far so good!

mp3Car.com Intervews Pete Colello - Apple Mac show car

Fiberoptic — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:57:54 GMT

Pete has spent 5 years building this show car and has used it to win many awards. Tour Pete's car and see how he integrated a car computer. Pete's website is here if you want more details. mummblesmarketing.com

The making of the Apple ,mac'ed out, Hyundai Genesis

Fiberoptic — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:48:00 GMT

mp3car interviews Steven from Lux designs, the creator and fabricator behind the Hyundai genesis Mac car computer setup. Talk about this on our forums

mp3Car.com interviews Hyundai product planner, Michael Dietz

Fiberoptic — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:46:00 GMT

Michael, product planner at Hyundai gives some specs on the New Hyundai genesis. He talks about Apple in the car, the future of car computing and connector services as well as the tour they have planned with Rides Magazine in NY city. Talk about this on our forums

AT&T launches "Cruisecast" 22 Video & 20 audio channels

Fiberoptic — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:28:16 GMT

UPDATE 11-16-08 - mp3Car.com has done three video reports on this topic:

Interview with President

Interview with CEO

Drive Test

AT&T has partnered up with RaySat to deliver 22 high quality video and 20 audio channels to the back seat of cars. They have launched a working preview of their services at SEMA 2008 with a consumer delivery promise set for sprint of 2009. Anticipated monthly services fees are 28$.

This is not the holly grail of a connected car, but AT&T has done a lot of hard work here that no other company has released yet.

Some juicy content deals appear to be done (full list below)

They have a relativity small Antenna
They have about a minute of data caching 'baked in' to allow for driving through parking garages short tunnels and other structures.

The reason why this isn�t so cool is there is no national or even local bidirectional link, which would allow for all of the services we have been dreaming of:

Mobile concierge.
Paid content, pay per view content.
Mobile Instant content gratification - I like this song or video, buy me now.

You can imagine that with AT&T�s network, these features will be on the roadmap.

Tomorrow we are taking a driving demo and will report on how you can install this in your car when it comes out. From the quick stuff I have read, this after market add on receiver product appears to be pretty easy to install in almost any car.

Content deals in place:
�Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Discovery Kids, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network Mobile, USA, COMEDY CENTRAL, MSNBC, CNN Mobile Live and CNBC. Twenty satellite radio music channels will also be available at the launch.�

Hyundai Genesis Apple Mac book / air / mini explosion & Sneak peek

Fiberoptic — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:13:00 GMT

Everyone has been setting up for SEMA for the last 3 days. I happened to walk by the Hyundai booth yesterday while one of the vice presidents was rehearsing for their 9:30am press conference today. They had the usual un-blanketing of cars and performance celebrities there to talk. What I was really there for was the car computer geerkery. The real details about this project will have to wait until Tuesday when the real press conference starts, but here are some sneak peek photos.

I am already slightly disappointed with the mac install. It seems like more of an attempt to get press than a functional implementation. I saw one of the macbook airs plugged into an AC port which would imply no ignition integration. It is always harder to put in a DC-DC regulator. Why do installers just use inverters especially on a high profile car like this? Is it laziness or unknown technical mojo that is driving this?
Answer this question and talk about this install on our forums.
If there is hot mobile computer tech at SEMA that we haven�t written about, Let us know.
For you Hyndai or Genesis addicts I posted a quick 1m video of their VP practicing, unveiling a car and doing a quick dance. See the forum post for more details.

Hyundai Genesis Apple Mac book / air / mini explosion

Fiberoptic — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:15:57 GMT

Hyundai Genesis Apple Mac book / air / mini explosion & Sneak peek
Everyone has been setting up for SEMA for the last 3 days. I happened to walk by the Hyundai booth yesterday while one of the vice presidents was rehearsing for their 9:30am press conference today. They had the usual un-blanketing of cars and performance celebrities there to talk. What I was really there for was the car computer geerkery. The real details about this project will have to wait until Tuesday when the real press conference starts, but here are some sneak peek photos.
I am already slightly disappointed with the mac install. It seems like more of an attempt to get press than a functional implementation. I saw one of the macbook airs plugged into an AC port which would imply no ignition integration. It is always harder to put in a DC-DC regulator. Why do installers just use inverters especially on a high profile car like this? Is it laziness or unknown technical mojo that is driving this?
Answer this question and talk about this install on our forums.
If there is hot mobile computer tech at SEMA that we haven�t written about, Let us know.

For you Hyundai or Genesis addicts I posted a quick 1m video of their VP practicing and doing a quick dance.

How to build your own car computer - Telematics bundle

Fiberoptic — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:39:57 GMT

This question has been asked over and over again so we decided to film the answer in HD as a way to test out our new camera. We have filmed the assembly of our telematics bundle.

mp3Car hits the road for SEMA 2008

Fiberoptic — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:12:00 GMT

Goce, Heather and I (Robert Wray) are heading to SEMA this week. Help us!

Tell us what you want you want to know more about. We will be blogging and shooting lots of HD video.
If your SEMA lead is time sensitve or confidential call us. 410-526-2852 xt 642
Give us ideas in our SEMA forum thread
Come to our SEMA party. RSVP Here. Talk about the party on our forums.