Hasta La Gadget!

We happen to think the future of the car dashboard is a gradual path to obsolescence, dying and getting replaced by a mobile device. Visteon also think there’s a future for mobile devices in a dash — but not for actually replacing the car stereo. Visteon showed off its Consumer Electronics Device to Vehicle HMI (human/machine interface), which is basically a stupidly long name for a system enabling device integration of the sort we haven’t seen yet. Yes, you can stream tunes through the car’s stereo but, more impressively, actually change the channel that it is tuned to.

That’s just the beginning, with a navigation display and even simplified web browsing, but most impressive is the ability to manage the rest of the car’s interior. You can change seat positions, adjust climate controls, and probably much, much more than the semi-functional demo unit we got our hands on can do. There is a dock connector for the iPad but that’s just for providing power: the connectivity is entirely wireless, meaning people in the back seat can change the channel — or push up the seat of the person in front of them. The box that handles all this is going into production soon and so should start showing up in cars sometime over the next year. Which cars? Your guess is as good as ours, as Visteon works with more car marques than it doesn’t.

Continue reading Visteon puts an iPad in a car dashboard, we go hands-on (video)

Visteon puts an iPad in a car dashboard, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each year we see more and more cars at CES, more and more infotainment systems, and more and more reasons to get excited about driving to work. But each time Ford is the company with the biggest presence, and this year there’s more Blue Oval than ever with the first CES unveil of a whole new car, the upcoming Focus Electric. Alan Mulally was kind enough to take a few minutes to speak with us about just what the heck the company is doing here and, more importantly, what kind of surprises are coming from his keynote speech on Friday. It’s all in the video below. And, yes, more of that Mustang too — which just so happens to be painted in our favorite color.

Continue reading Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally tells us why CES is important (video)

Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally tells us why CES is important (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember our good friends from AirStash at last year’s CES? Well, this year they’re back with the same wireless storage dongle, but now bolstered with a new firmware and smarter ways of transferring files to and from your mobile devices. As before, the AirStash is essentially an SD card reader that can be accessed as an ordinary USB storage device, or a basic read-only file server via WiFi tethering, meaning the host device doesn’t require a card reader or a USB host. Upon requests from many users, AirStash is now finalising an HTML5-based web app and a free native iOS app, both of which offer in-app image browsing and media streaming, including HD videos and Apple DRM content on iOS (associated with the appropriate Apple ID, of course).

What really surprised us was the claim that the AirStash’s minuscule 600mAh cell can do streaming for around five hours, regardless of the media type. That said, we were only given a demo with a standard-definition video clip, and even that took about 25 seconds to buffer over 802.11g WiFi, so you can imagine how many sunsets you might see while waiting for an HD clip to load. With about a full month away from release, AirStash thinks it can push the loading speed up in time for launch, so we shall see. Read on to see the other new features.

Continue reading AirStash wireless flash drive with media streaming and WebDAV update hands-on (video)

AirStash wireless flash drive with media streaming and WebDAV update hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If there’s a trend at this year’s CES in the infotainment world, a sort of new common denominator that’s unifying all the players, it’s having your social media read to you while you drive. Pioneer is playing along. New you’ll also be able to listen to Facebook and Twitter updates, pull down NPR podcasts and RSS feeds, even get Yelp reviews read to you. And, yes, that Pandora integration too. Aha Radio from Harman is the provider here and initially will be supported in two of the company’s higher-end models, the AVIC-Z130BT and AVIC-X930BT. Both look to be double-DIN units with large touchscreens and built-in navigation. That’s just the beginning, though. More details after the break.

Continue reading Pioneer announces Aha Radio partnership, plans for app domination

Pioneer announces Aha Radio partnership, plans for app domination originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re lucky to be bathed in warm, refreshing 4G waves while reporting live from Vegas, Sprint and Clearwire taking care of that. Verizon‘s catching up in a big way with its LTE rollout and now OnStar is onboard — conceptually, anyway. The company has outfitted a Buick LaCrosse with a 4G LTE modem for the purpose of experimenting with what can be done in a car with that kind of bandwidth. It wouldn’t have been our choice of cars for such application, Buick not exactly screaming “hot new thing” at this point, but of course it’s not really about the car, it’s about the bandwidth.

What are they going to do with it? High-def streaming both ways, for one thing, including the ability to watch home security cameras from within the car or, alternatively, to look at cameras within the car when it’s parked in the night, in an alley, somewhere you’re having second thoughts about. OnStar wants real-time streaming of traffic cameras and even Skype video chat, which sounds like overkill to us, but don’t let us rain on your crazy mobile video chat parade.

At this point we’re not sure how much of this stuff will find its way into a proper car of the future (Buick or other), but you can get a bit of a taste in the video teaser below.

Continue reading OnStar partners with Verizon to bring LTE 4G to your rear view (video)

OnStar partners with Verizon to bring LTE 4G to your rear view (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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