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Complete PC instead of a Car Stereo
An anonymous reader submitted linked to a PC that fits in your
car stereo slot. It's a bit spendy at $1k, but its got CD/DVD, PCMCIA, USB,
Keyboard, Mic, Headphones, VGA, more. And besides being
powered by your car, it also has built in GPS. Lots of interesting
hacking ideas here for people who prefer to spend more time in their
cars then me ;)
They should have used a slot-loaded optical drive instead of the tray. It would be less of a jump for people to grep if it was more like a regular car cd-player.
Speaking as a car-less geek, I wish that a similar product would come out for motorcycles with a heads up display.
Will it work in a heatwave or at -20?
That's right you can't start a computer company from someone's home or garage. That's never happened in this industry before. {cough, cough, Apple cough}
Sean.OutaHere()
removeable faceplates stop ZERO car thefts. that removeable faceplate doesnt slow them down or even deter them because replacement faceplates are very very easy to come by. the only safe solution id to undock the whole stereo... or better yet, add supplimental insurance and hope it keeps getting stolen.
I leave my car unlocked all the time and never remove the faceplate to my autopc. but then I dont park where my car can get ripped off, or broken into. nor do I live in a crappy neighborhood. It's choices...and I found the easiest is to keep the car unlocked so I dont have to pay for windows or doors and have my insurance company buy me a new stereo every X months.
removable face is NOT anti-theft. the only car stereo I have ever seen that is anti theft is Blaupunkt. if you remove the stereo fromthe car next power up it display's STOLEN STEREO, enter 6 digit pin. and you have 3 tries to enter the pin, after that the stereo is trash. and yet it still didnt stop them from getting stolen... Thieves are the stupidest people on the planet... otherwise they would actually have jobs.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Anyone else notice the operating temperature of this thing is 0C-50C. I hope that no one buys this thing somewhere it freezes. You would think in a car stereo replacement they would design the thing to handle freeze...
Ian
This made me think of truck drivers, who can have a legit excuse for an automotive PC. I have an uncle who does this for a living, and he can send e-mail on the road. A full PC would be a logical extension from this system. He could listen to MP3s, listen to web sites via TextToVoice applications, transcribe emails, etc while driving. A whole voice control system might not be feasible.. I don't really know how well this technology is. When parked for the night, he could even play games and do anything a computer user at home could do.
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Here is a link to a maker of GUIs (!) for trucks: http://www.diversifiedsoftwareindustries.com/ivis
I have more faith in these companies merging PCs and vehicles than a pc maker just making a computer to fit the stereo form factor.
John Susek
Driving a car is a full-time job. Period. Just because we *can* shoehorn this stuff into a dashboard doesn't mean we should, or that it should be made available to the public.
To restate the well-worn refrain: Do we really need more distracted drivers on the road? I don't think a HUD would help things much. You're attention's still diverted. And read another post further up: when you're in a plane, it's unlikely you'll rear-end somebody if you're distracted for a few seconds.