The Mp3Car Blog

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. Talk about this on our forums.

To kick this off, we are going to start with our interview with Ben Harris about Ride Magazine's outlook on car computing as well as details about the tour through New York Apple stores with Ride's Mac'ed out Hyundai.

Expect to see some more video tomorrow from SEMA about this car and other topics:

• How they made the Hyundai Genesis, an interview with the creator.
• An interview with Michael Detiz, Product Planning, Hyundai America
• Ongoing car computing interviews

Talk about this on our forums in the Hyundai Genesis discussion thread. 

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 holy grail of a connected car, but AT&T has done a lot of hard work here that no other company has released yet.  

• 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.
• Some juicy content deals appear to be done (full list below
• They have a commited shipping date
  

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 (or car comptuer system). 

Talk about this in our forums under the AT&T Cruisecast discussion.

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.”

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.

It is interesting to note that Intel and Microsoft don't show up on the exhibitor list this year.  I know they had some last minute involvement last year and the year before.   I wonder if this market slow down is going to have an impact on the show.  Off we go...

Talk about this in our SEMA 2008 forum thread

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.

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.

Talk about this video on our Forums

A very common topic on the Mp3Car Forums is getting rid of strange audio noise (typically synchronous with the rev of your engine); an odd humming or whining sound. This is generally caused from using multiple ground points in your setup. Because these points are connected to a common ground but from different locations, unsteady or irregular voltage may occur. We can separate the grounds from each other by using a Ground Loop Isolator.   

Here is an old one from the archives- 

Forum member Gip shows us how the poor man constructs his own Ground Loop Isolator. He uses two transformers removed from a couple of old 56k modems, an RCA adapter and some breadboard. Put it all together and viola... no more audio noise. Originally posted as a means to "remove power supply noise from audio".  See more pictures and a full explanation on the thread.

In addition to using a GLI, it is also preferred to use high quality shielded cables, and to keep any power lines away from your signal lines - Make Oersted proud!

For further information on this topic consult the Car Audio section of our forums or see the Induced noise FAQ

If you have an alternate solution to problematic audio noise you feel should be recognized make a post in the Mp3Car Blog Talk section .

The store has added a new car computer to the store specificallyfor telematics Labs, developers and power users.

Key features:

• 6-24v ready! - Variable voltage inputs to use in your automotive or marine project
• Dual core, Intel designed 1.6Ghz processor and motherboard.
• 8 powered USB 2.0 ports to run all of your devices (No hubs required!)*
• Seagate Extreme conditions automotive grade hard drive. (40gb)
• 2 Gigs of memory
• 5.1 Channel HD Audio
• 3 year warranty on Intel motherboard and CPU

Do you find yourself parking in tight spots all too often? Please don't scratch your bumper trying to fit into that tiny space. To help us carputer users, Robby_BMW has developed a USB interface for aftermarket parking sensor kits. These kits use ultra-sonic sensors which would normally report back to an LED or LCD to indicate the distance between your bumper and whatever else. Robby's interface uses a PIC 18F2550 microcontroller on a custom PCB to send the information to your computer. The device is recognized as a Plug & Play HID. It works as a wired or wireless connection. I suggest you read up on the technicals for customization options as there are limitations depending on your setup. This interface is device specific. Software is available with a multi-lingual Configuration tool. There are also plug-ins for RoadRunner and Centrafuse .

This has sparked much excitement in the Hardware Development section . I suggest you read the thread as Robby has done a great job of documenting the production. Members like Enforcer and _Dejan_ are also contributors and supporters of the project. Yet another ingenious solution to making a stand-alone device work with your computer. Great work guys! Check out the test video below to see it in action.

Parking Radar USB Test

Talk about this topic in the Mp3Car Blog Talk section .

If you have something you feel should be recognized as a community innovation, drop me a PM or post your creation in the User Innovations section .