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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 ;)
Unfortunately, if it becomes widespread, more jobs may require computer use and more jobs may force commuter time to be worktime.
I for one will miss my opportunity to sing at the top of my lungs while I sit there trying to drive on the freeway while fielding phone calls and writing voice-controlled spreadsheets.
Others, though, may like the notion of getting paid for their commuter time.
Will you be able to use these in New York State, which outlawed hand held cell use while driving? Not until voice control technology gets richer and broader.
Goat sex free since 2001
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.
Although the Empeg (now known as Rio Car) isn't Intel-based, it runs on a decently powered StrongARM CPU, and includes a nice screen as well. Runs Linux, and I believe is somewhat hackable.
Since they've stopped production, they're selling off the last ones really cheap - $399 for 60GB version. If you want a nice, hackable in-car computer to hack around with you might want to snap one of these up before they're all gone.
You could try to do it yourself if you dare follow this link or in spanish It's simple a conversion from car 12v to the voltage needed by the mainboard. (no monitor yet).
Now the bozo in front of me is going to be tweaking perl scripts instead of getting his lazy ass through the next yellow light.
to the term "crashing your computer..."
"But officer, I was only trying to reboot linux..."
-RickTheWizKid
There's people out there who have to "fish" this site and come up with garbage when you write "then" instead of "than". IIRC, you were supposed to learn the difference in 2nd or 3rd grade in the US.
woof.
Spelling doesn't matter? So where do I get a compiler that can handle IF...THAN statements and won't bitch that some variable hasn't been declared simply because I misspelled it on second use? Sheesh!
I have a computer in my car.
No display, but it's got plenty of music. I got a cheap 300w Power Inverter for something like $50 from Wal Mart. Plugs into the cigarette lighter.
From there, I have a P166 in a tiny little case under the passenger seat plugged into the inverter. The computer has a network card and a Sound Blaster Awe64. Line Out from the sound card runs to a Ground Loop Isolator (to eliminate the interference buzz from the inverter, $14 at Radio Shack), and from there, connects to my car's factory radio via one of those CD-Player Cassette adapters.
The computer has no display, and is controlled via PS/2 keypad. Around 370 mp3-format songs are loaded on the Western Digital hard drive, which has proven remarkably hardy in all kinds of driving conditions. It also has a built-in NIC, so I can upload new songs.
Cost? About $200. (Computer was around $70, wires - $20, inverter - $50, keypad - $10, GLI - $15, Sound Blaster - $10, Cassette Adapter - $3.) Much cheaper than the above novelty, and much more flexible and expandable.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
It seems to me like Clarion's "Auto PC" was almost the perfect device of this type. I guess the price was too high for people though, so it got discontinued.
It gave you a pretty normal car stereo/CD player with MP3 capabilities, built-in GPS, and anything else you wanted to develop for its Windows CE environment.
I see them on eBay all the time - and wish I thought to buy one before I blew $350 or so on my new double-DIN head unit for my car. Oh well....
Speaking as a car-less geek, I wish that a similar product would come out for motorcycles with a heads up display.
...and save your stereo slot.
My stereo slot is very very important to me since I like really really loud music. But I also wanted a computer in my car so that I can have mp3's piped through my stereo. I have the World's Smallest PC with it's audio output going into my car stereo. As a screen I am using a 5" LCD screen very sloppily mounted in the passenger side sun visor. With a happy hacker keyboard and a wireless trackball... I don't need to leave my car.
Auto dashboards shouldn't have something of that complexity. Too distracting. Pilots call this "head-down time", time spent looking at the controls instead of the window, and a big problem in modern cockpit design is reducing head-down time. But aircraft have autopilots, big planes have two people, and in cruise flight in uncongested airspace, near-term trouble from the outside is unlikely. None of this applies to automobiles.
Lots of interesting hacking ideas here for people who prefer to spend more time in their cars then me ;)
Uhh.... I spend a LOT more time in my car than I spend in you....
This post is brought to you by the letters T and A, and the number 69
This does seem pretty neat, if used for things like Police cars, ambulances, etc. For regular people though, I just see it as yet another way to cause an accident. Cell phones are bad enough...
These things are great with WLAN, to use the car e. g. as a "mobile storage" for MP3 or such things. Fill up your car's harddisk with music which you have ripped at home, drive to work, download them onto your workstation (or get them on-the-fly) and listen to them. Of course a Freenet-like P2P filesharing network on the motorway would be great, too, to enlargen your music filebase while driving across the country. As a more useful purpose, information about traffic and weather conditions could be gathered by the cars themselves and shared among each other.
1. A machine that interfaces with the on board computer so you can see what codes, translated into meaningful messages, are being sent to the car's computer.
2. With the above, remind you when to perform routine maintenance like oil change, tire rotation, coolant flush, transmission flush, usw. This would also give you a good idea if your mechanic is honest or not. (Don't give him root.)
3. Firewire
4. Voice control
5. HUD
6. There might be some benefit to incorporating the security alarm.
From what I know, all of these things are possible. But someone, maybe one of our own, need's to build it first.
I can't think of anything else right now.
Someone hates these cans.
They mention using navigation software and GPS. This pretty much leaves Linux out unless there is a good navigation package for Linux of which I am unaware (and I've looked long and hard, beleive me).
The closest I've been able to come is using older versions of Delorme's MapNGo under Wine, but that is still rather twitchy.
I've pestered Delorme to make a port, but they don't seem interested.
www.eFax.com are spammers
My Asus motherboard manual reads like this too. Does that mean that the motherboard in the system I'm trping this on is a hoax too?
If you check out the "contact us" link, you'll see that the company has ties to Taiwan (supprise, supprise, same place Asus is based out of). I think that would explain the broken english. Would it have been more professional if he had a native english speaking person do the web site for him (or at least proof read it) yes. However if this is a small one person (or even if it's a handful of people) company, I can understand why it's quite rough.
Okay, let's say it is a hoax? What makes you think so other than the poor quality of the site?
Is the technology unfeasable? Is it that hard for you to wrap your mind around the possibility that someone managed to fit a 266MHz screamer in a Din slot? I know... I know... that kind of seems like an unbelievable amount of power, huh?
Seriously though, if you think this is a hoax, please point to something more solid than just poor web design and english.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Just thinking about this... all you really need in order to get a half-decent HUD would be a monitor/light source you can stick on your dash, and a driver that can enable you to correct for the deformation of the image that occurs because of the shape of the windshield.
Since LCD panels are now affordable, the first requirement is met. Now all we need is someone to
write the video driver....
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
That's what we need... a Game Boy Advance ported to a steering wheel... display in center, buttons on wheel. Or, projected hologram-type screen which appears to float about 10 feet in front of the car.
Now that would be cool.....
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
This is good. Previously, the best commercial computer-in-car setup was the Q-PC.
Otherwise, many people have just hacked an old PC to work in their trunk or under the passenger's seat, see MP3Car's registry.
Hopefully my car will be on there soon. I'm going to try straping a wireless keyboard around my neck, and type with my right hand with a half Qwerty setup, with sound output only, for safety's sake. There's already software written for this setup-- visually impared people have to work with this type of setup every day.
It's called a traffic jam.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
I see this more of a fleet vechical system than something that you'd want in your car. Memory and CPU speeds aren't really up to snuf to do the things I'd wanna do, like a HUD on the screen with night vision and directions / mapping, and a entertainment system for everyone else (something that allows both DVD and audio playback at the same time).
Also, a lot of legacy system support is provided, which just isn't needed.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
As the victim of a recent stereo theft, I'm doing some hardcore shopping with the insurance company's money. I had a Kenwood z919 (MP3), but the problem was no removeable faceplate. I read the link (couldn't get the PDFs), and it looks like it has pretty much the same problem.
Considering that I'm shopping with someone else's money, I'd like to get something with the all-important geek factor. I just don't want to have it ripped out of my car again.
Stuck in a (data) traffic jam, of course.
Of course, some l33t kiddie in the mini van next to you just r00ted your car and now you have to suffer with Berry Manalo's greatest hits at full volume.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
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()
You said, "...they're selling off the last ones really cheap - $399 for 60GB version."
They said, "Rio Car prices have been further reduced for final clearance. The 10GB model now costs just 140 UK pounds, with the top end 60GB model at 350 UK pounds. Add VAT to these prices if you order within the EC."
At current exchange rates, £350 = $506.91.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
In the context being discussed, "which" and "that" are syonyms--they are both clauses which indicate that we are specifying or describing in more detail a noun. "Which" is a little less common and a little more formal.
In paragraphs which a lot of these kinds of subordinate clauses, it is a good idea to switch between "that" and "which", so that the paragraph does not use the same word too frequently. In addition, it is better to use the word "which" in a sentance which already uses "that" as a descriptive pronoun (e.g. this book and that book)
Finally, 'which' is never placed after a verb, e.g. one can say "I think that Slashdot has too many trolls", but one can not say "I think which Slashdot...".
I fantasize about, one of these days, moving to a foreign country and becoming an English teacher for the foreigners there.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
-f
www.blackant.net
Specs (truncated)
128MB SDRAM; Upgradable to 256MB
~One 144pin DIMM slot for PC100/PC133 SDRAM
~10GB UDMA hard drive
~24X Max. CD-ROM drive ( swap for dvd / cd-rw )
~56k modem & 10/100 ethernet
~Intel 82810E built-in full motion video accelerator w/ 4MB shared video memory
~Supports 1280 x 1024 pixels resolution at 24bit color
~S-Video / RCA composite Out ports
~Speakers and Audio: Built-in 16-bit stereo (Sound Blaster / Adlib compatible)
~Built-in speaker
~microphone in / line out port
~IrDA
~Peripheral Connections: Two USB, one 9-pin serial port, one 25 pin parallel port (EPP / ECP) PS/2 mouse & keyboard ports
~Dimensions: 157mm x 146mm x 45mm (6.18" x 5.75" x 1.77") & approx. 950g (2 lbs)
* One Year Manufacturer Warranty
* No Operating System Included
No it's just that the NIH wave is now reaching slashdot. If *I* didn't think of it, it must be a hoax. Either that or some really good dope. Anyone reading /. for a while has seen the Espresso PC, which is actually much smaller than a DIN slot.
cat
http://developer.sharpsec.com/
Put a cradle and power supply in the aux slot of your car and then put your music(mp3's) on a CF card. There you have it. You could use the rs232 port for gps features too. If you want more disk space then use the IBM microdrive (1GB).
The iPaq would work too but the Zaurus has both CF and SD/MMC slots along with the IR and RS232 ports and it ships with Linux already installed.
Thanks for bring this topic up because you made me realize I already had the solution to getting MP3's into my Toyota Prius. This will be very cool and when I get the VGA CF card I can drive the touch screen built into the Prius too.
LoB.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
"Makes Car Smarter", yes, SmartVehiclePC.com has worked out an intelligent vehicle PC system for solving worldwide solution of how to make automobile more vivid.
all your worldwide solution are solve by us!
This Like That - fun with words!
Unfortunately, if it becomes widespread, more jobs may require computer use and more jobs may force commuter time to be worktime.
Yeah, that's exactly what I want. It's not enough already that people try to talk on the phone or read ( READ! for ****'s sake!) while in bumper-to-bumper traffic. No, I want them to be playing UR2 over 802.11b with the guy next to them.
Eh, what the hell.... The increase in commuter accidents and deaths will help perk up the economy by increased cash flow into the automotive repair, health care and funeral services industries....
moto411.com
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
I have built two computers, one for myself and the other one for a friend.
Regular Case with inverter/300watt
Garmin Trakpac 35
An Analog LCD with Case. http://www.flat-panel.com
Wireless Keyboad with the mouse built-in.
DVD with Sound Blaster 16. Manual switch form
the car deck to the sound blaster. No ground loops.
Creative Labs DVD hardware decoder for the DVD movies.
Perfect Setup........
Years ago, I thought how great it would be to combine GPS with an organiser, so that you could be reminded of something you wanted to do at a particular location(s). For example, "get toner cartridge" linked to computer shops in your organiser To-Do list, would cause an alarm when you are close to a computer store according to the GPS+map.
How about online petrol prices? When you drive up to a cheap petrol station, you could enter the petrol prices for that station, which would then be entered into an online price database. Meaning that when vehicles are approaching a cheap petrol station, the driver could be alerted to the price and location if the car is low (defined by user) on fuel.
How about this computer hooked up to not only the GPS but also your GSM mobile phone with caller ID? Someone calls you, and depending on what disturb/do-not-disturb setting you have for them, they may or may not be able to disturb the mp3/ogg you have playing. If disturb is OK, your music should pause, and the car PC announce who is calling, allowing voice prompting for "pick up" or "ignore", leading to either a phone call or hang-up with the music resuming.
Since our car PC has GPS and GSM, what say we turn this bad boy into a car alarm also, complete with a few CCD cameras? If the car alarm is triggered, the PC could take a shot of the offender, dither it to 1-bit fax resolution, then fax it and the car location to the local police station! To boot, display the offenders full colour image on the internal display with a voice warning of what is occuring, regarding thier soon to be imprisioned (sore) arse. Hopefully this will cause the offender to flee on foot. Of course, this car has multiple points of immobilization right?
Now back to all those CCD cameras... pop your car in reverse, and the display switches to the rear CCD (mounted on the top rear spoiler, pointed downwards) to assist reverse parking. Indicate right below a certain speed (say 5 kph) and the front right CCD is displayed (mounted near front right bumper, pointing to the right) giving greater visibility to the right, past parked cars etc without having to put your nose out too far, when turning at an intersection. Indicate right at a speed higher than 5kph and the top right mounted CCD is displayed (pointing backwards), for lane changes etc. Vice-versa these for left, etc.
With a larger display, or two displays, both indicate cameras could be shown for more flexibility, etc etc.
With voice prompting, usage of sampled phonetic voice "synthesis" could be employed, for natural sounding prompting. Warning of fuel, temp, etc, illegal speed in zones that according to the GPS+map indicate legal speed, school zones, etc, etc.
Speaking of speech synthesis, I want that british womans voice from Forsaken, "So-lar-is!". She sounds like a babe. And when the alarm is armed, it should be complete with her voice (with echo added), counting down from 10 to "Warning: system alarm activation complete, all systems halted, core de-activated." "Core" of course being the engine, at which time a "turbine powering down" sound effect could be nice. ; ) And of course, turning the key in the ignition to "ignition" could activate the "turbine powering up" sound, REALLY LOUD, with "Core status: OPERATIONAL!"
Man, I want one! All I need now is a car!
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I suppose playing Carmageddon on this thing while driving whould be a Bad Thing?
Dyolf Knip
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.
/ index.shtml
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