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. Talk about this on our forums:
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.
Talk about this on our forums:
A different version of Giantec’s hardware was also in the Intel booth. Here is Giantec's double din model. We take a closer look at this version and the single din version as well. The single din is in a previously posted video.
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.
MP3Car.com – CES 2009 - Giantec Single Din Car Computer
A different version of Giantec’s hardware was also in the Intel booth. We take a closer look at this version and the double din version as well. The double din in a video coming soon.
Flir, the manufacturers of this camera tell us this is truly an infrared camera requiring no IR emitters and can see three to five times farther than most inexpensive cameras.
After 2 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 and talk about this on our forums here:
We take a quick look at when we might be able to get 7” capacitive touch screens in our cars.
Tags: Capacitive, Touch Screen, Car computer, mp3car, ces, ces 2009, multitouch, multi-touch Talk about this on our forums here:
We sit down with Xenarc to find out what happened in 2008 and what the future holds for 2009. Like some large companies, Xenarc has decided to opt out of buying a booth this year. Talk about this on our forums:
Talk about this on our forums: With all the hype around wireless charging, we really expected
more. Before you throw out your chargers and wires, watch this video.
Some people call OLED 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? Talk about this on our forums here.
At Azentek's SEMA 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.
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.
We expect to test samples within the next few months to see if this something mp3Car will offer in the store. So far so good!
Intel introduces new products for mobile computing; D945GCLF2 , DG45FC
Intel’s Little Valley boards have come a long way. Initially
started as a cheap fan cooled 1.3 GHz Celeron, it was then replaced by fanless
version with an addition of 2 SATA ports; shortly there after, Intel reverts
back to a fanned version. Each of these boards model low power consumption and
a cheap price to go with it.
Recently Intel released the Atom processor which promptly
introduced the successor to the Little Valley series, the D945GCLF (Code named
“Little Falls”); a 1.6 GHz ultra low power consuming board, driven by a chip
the size of a dime. Increased performance, efficiency and RAM capacity makes
this board more desirable.
If you thought that was impressive you should
check out the specs on the latest releases of Intel’s miniITX line. The
D945GCLF2 (a.k.a. Little Falls 2) has some notable improvements over the first
generation. For starters, it is a dual core Atom processor. Added functionality
includes: an S-video output and pin-outs for six channel audio. If that isn’t
enough for you, The DG45FC (or should I say “Flying Creek”) should give you
that extra boost of power you are looking for. This little guy takes Core 2 Duo/Quad
processors (socket 775) and provides up to 1333MHz FSB! 6 external USB ports
plus support for 4 more, HDMI output, an e-SATA port, and onboard 7.1 Audio.
Check out the specifications . These boards should tear through just about any
CarPC application like a hot knife through butter.
Intel's team expresses great excitement with the release/production of the Atom processor; they contend that such innovation will revolutionize the future of mobile computing. This leads all of us to ask the question What will they come up with next?
MJS Gadgets has introduced a new product. It is a USB controlled audio selection device. This enables you to turn your single "line-in" jack on your computer to 4 "line-in" jacks and control which input you would like to hear via software. The software has a systray app that allows fast switching between channels with hotkeys. There are also available plug-ins for Centrafuse and RoadRunner. Mp3car Store now carries the UAS, view additional product information here. Share information or opinions here in the Mp3car Blog Talk section .
The Mp3Car Store is excited to be selling the Fusion Brain and looks forward to the soon-to-be released 2.0 version. The Fusion Brain is the product of a little Mp3Car Forum demand, and a whole lot of work on the part of Mp3Car forum members Nick and Tim. This little device has been used by Mp3Car Forum members all over the world to control anything with an on/off switch, button, or relay in the car. You can even use the sensor to measure environmental conditions such as temperature, light, distance, acceleration, current draw, voltage levels, and more.
How are some Mp3Car Forum members using the Fusion Brain?
Nick uses it for home automation, and Tim has it in his car doing pressure and temperature readings and more. Nick was particularly impressed with Aaron's Christmas Light show including the reindeer on top his car all controlled by the Fusion Brain to the Trans Siberian Orchestra's music and suggested also checking out h3rk's completely automatic HVAC control which is still being developed.
How do you use your Fusion Brain? Share your innovations and ideas in the Mp3Car Forums Blog Talk section in the thread of this Mp3Car Blog post. And for all of you who are new to the Fusion Brain, take a look at what others are doing and spend some time reading up in the Fusion Brain Forum on the Mp3Car Forums.
How this product came to be developed is as interesting as the Fusion Brain itself. Nick and Tim, on opposite sides of the US, teamed up to develop prototypes for Forum users. They were both pleased and somewhat surprised when they found that demand exceeded the number of prototypes they had manufactured and got to work mass producing the Fusion Brain and other accessories. Living on opposite sides of the US, and still having yet to have met face to face, Nick and Tim are hard at work on Fusion Brain 2.0 – and we are waiting in great anticipation to see their results.
You can find the Fusion Brain and all related products in the Fusion Brain section of the Mp3Car Store!
MJS Gadgets has introduced a new product. It is a USB controlled audio selection device. This enables you to turn your single "line-in" jack on your computer to 4 "line-in" jacks and control which input you would like to hear via software. The software has a systray app that allows fast switching between channels with hotkeys. There are also available plug-ins for 
The double din Guru car computer has
