New Sony CarPC - It has begun

Chairboy · 06-10-2004, 09:26 PM

Sony has just introduced some kick butt looking aftermarket Car PCs in Japan.

The day we all knew was coming is here.

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6146656870.html

fondoo · 06-10-2004, 09:27 PM

damn, those jap's are good!!

guitar333 · 06-10-2004, 09:39 PM

wow

yunusyu · 06-10-2004, 09:51 PM

yehhhhh..****ing me off

Chairboy · 06-10-2004, 11:19 PM

Screenshots from their software

[iG] · 06-10-2004, 11:25 PM

asldfkjasfh!@#!@ That's like reading/watching sci-fi here in north america.

That's it. Time to move my *** another 20k to the east.

Defiler · 06-11-2004, 12:35 AM

I just want the friggin' GPS software!!!

bubbrubb · 06-11-2004, 12:48 AM

why is everyone getting mad/scared of this. If this ever comes to North America, we can just use their professional software for our carputers instead of the amateur home-brews that we've been using all along. I for one, think its a hell of a lot better getting a full professional package that was made from the ground up to serve one purpose, to be the best carputing/gps software.

antimatter · 06-11-2004, 01:09 AM

Nobody is mad or scared of this dude. People are drooling with envy and ****ed that we don't have it yet

Chairboy · 06-11-2004, 02:44 AM

Yep. If this gets popular, it'll change the face of automotive computing because carputing won't be seen as crazy, risky stuff to invest in. Some company board of directors, previously cowering under their afghans whenever asked about car computers, will suddenly leap forward with money to throw at the subject.

GingerPrince · 06-11-2004, 03:48 AM

And there's not a chance of that coming west (US or Europe) for many years. We don't have the mapping data to generate that kind of maps. They do.

sxpert · 06-11-2004, 03:53 AM

ok, one thing to note though, is that this is japan, and sony is late in the game (search for "navi" in the panasonic, pioneer and alpine sites)
the second thing is that Japan has had a full featured traffic conditions computerized warning system for a while that will never show up in the US or anywhere else (it's handled by a gov/private sector joint venture), they're using a subcarrier on FM radios to transmit the warning information
Also, Japan itself is barely the size of the 13 colonies, so they can afford the required HDD space for the 3D buildings and the like.
Keep in mind that this stuff is 100% proprietary (it's sony after all) and that you'll never have the required maps for the US or the rest of the world

trdcpu · 06-11-2004, 01:53 PM

wow, thanks for ruining it for everyone, you jacka*s

god_of_cpu · 06-11-2004, 02:15 PM

Wow, this is the greatest invention ever, now I can see whats in front of me on a 7" screen rather then having to look out the windshield!

This actually looks incredibly cool, I would love to have somethign like this in my car, but besides the wow all your friends factor I don't see the representation being accurate enough to have too much practical value to having this vs. a typical bird's eye view GPS map. I'd be interested in seeing the actual photograph of the same area that the software is simulating and seeing how closely they compare. Given the level of detail the simulation tries to represent I would think that the representation would have a lot of inconsistencies with at least the textures if not the actual structures of the buildings and roads.

pip · 06-11-2004, 02:17 PM

With a market the size of the US they'd be daft not to sell it here. However, I doubt the data to make the 3D maps is available. All that means is the map won't be as pretty. I doubt they'll sell the software seperately though.