AFKFest Update: Three tech-guys walk into a bar...

Received some good news today regarding AFKFest indicating that my technical expertise will be put to use after all: I'm in charge of putting together the light breakfast on Saturday morning. I'm no line cook, but there will be some brain food to get us geared up to hear Sean tell us how to get a co-worker (Stephen Jensen) to put a computer in your car and utilize Mimics, and how much Rob loves his iPhone and its various apps. And that's just the beginning. Even sans the hackathon, this is going to be *the* nerdy event of the year. I'll be the one in the tuxedo t-shirt with the piano keyboard tie (does that still qualify as AFK?).

If you have questions, speaker ideas, or a car to show, just let us (Stephen) know. We're looking forward to a good turnout here in Charm City.

Chas., out.

Could I request a spot of tea and scones at the breakfast? No? Fine. Ill just give my speech with a bottle of smart water, blue jeans and black turtleneck (with chain)

make sure to have a carb/calorie free menu for us health nuts. And now that Heathers been away for awhile i hope you guys are all caught up on your sensitivity training.

Yea we'll need to chill out on all the profanity and 'man' talk that's been echoing in the halls of the office

@optikalefx, Tea is for thumb-suckers, twerps, trailer-trash, and travesties. So, no.

@sonicxtacy: Good point. Please let me know about allergies, aversions, and snotty food trends that you might be dipping your toe in at the moment. I'll do my darndest to accommodate absolutely none of them. I'll probably be zinging Egg McMuffins across the room like little frisbees until we start hearing from speakers (and, depending on their speeches, maybe during the talks as well).

Provided we have the time, I've been meaning to get my turtleneck support group back up and running. This would be a golden opportunity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jensen2000

Rob Wray is scheduled to speak about his 5 favorite iPhone apps.
Sean Clark is scheduled to speak his experience with both a traditional car computer and the Mimics iPhone interface device.

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I may not be too popular for bringing this up.... but I have always been honest, and believe in speaking frankly for the most part. No disrespect is meant in any way, but I just have to ask....

Does anyone else find that this could be signaling the end of "Traditional" CarPC's? The founder and owner of MP3Car, and the other tech Guru on staff, Sean, have scheduled 75% of the speaking events to be devoted to the iPhone. BugByte must be smiling from ear to ear about now ;)

Honestly, the Internet is flooded with the "Best of iPhone App's" blogs, tech sites and such...Hundreds of them actually. When it comes to CarPC's, MP3Car sets the standard, and just am a bit sad I guess to see it going the way of iPhone app reviewers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JohnWPB

I may not be too popular for bringing this up.... but I have always been honest, and believe in speaking frankly for the most part. No disrespect is meant in any way, but I just have to ask....

Does anyone else find that this could be signaling the end of "Traditional" CarPC's? The founder and owner of MP3Car, and the other tech Guru on staff, Sean, have scheduled 75% of the speaking events to be devoted to the iPhone. BugByte must be smiling from ear to ear about now ;)

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No disrespect taken.
The fact is: this idea of "traditional carPCs" is dying. If you watch the forum, you will see that even our own community is turning towards tablet and phone installs. Even our top contributors here on the forum, that have spent their dedicated time to sharing information and experiences about carPCs, have dwindled. New members have joined, new topics have spawned. The market is changing, the organic nature of the forum is changing with it.

There is always going to be people who yearn for the marriage of cars and technology. The form at which that happens may be different between generations. It was once giant boxes and crt displays. Then it was compact, bolted down PCs with a touchscreen. Now its iOS, Android and Multitouch. Tomorrow it might be OLED embedded windshields. Who knows.

The point is, mp3Car incubates cars + technology. Whatever that may currently be.

That makes sense about incubating the current technology for sure. That is a good thing.

I on the other hand wonder if it is a move against the CarPC as much as forums in general. I am a long standing member on 2 other major technology boards. CocoonTech, and HomeSeer forums. Over the past year, I have watched the traffic on both forums come to a crawl, much as has happened here at Mp3Car. CocoonTech forums cover just about anything technology related. So it is not dependent on just "in car tech". Where that forum used to have a hundred posts a day, it is lucky to have just 5%-10% of that traffic now.

This being said, I have been wondering lately, if forums themselves are becoming out dated. With the introduction of tons of other social networking, forums could seem pretty old school in comparison. It started with BBS's, then Internet Chat Rooms, newsgroups, then message forums. Now we have Twitter, Facebook, blogs, text messaging, Four Square, Yelp and and tons of other ways to communicate directly.

These are just my thoughts, but it does have some backing on how forums across the board (bad punn, sorry!) are without a doubt slowing down.

These guys have been apple geeks as long as i've known them, doesn't bother me that they spread their elitist ways :cool:

Don't get me wrong, I'm still jazzed about car computing tech. There are ton of things you can do only with a car computer that you can't do with a phone. We've been doing car PCs for years, there is a ton of data here on how to do it and there are still innovations taking place. Now phones and tablets are another way to get the same tech in your car. The processors are faster, the phones are cheaper and the software is modifiable by the user and developers. A lot of people are here half for the functionality the tech brings and the other half is the technical challenge, learning, and general creative process that takes place.

I know it's cheesy, but I'm reminded of a quote. "We choose to go to the moon install tablets, phones, and other junk in cars in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.."

Let's have this debate in person in Baltimore at AFKfest? What do you say?