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VW Goes USB
MadCow42 writes "According to this story on CNN, Volkswagen is going to offer in-dash USB connections on several models as of this December and others next year. This function is to let you connect your MP3 Player or USB drive to play your tunes on the car stereo! The bad news? I just got my Touran... sans USB."
That's nothing compared to Mazda and their use of USB.
All I can think about is security. With viruses and malware being spread through other mobile devices, what's going to happen if your car gets infected?
It's good to see VW using the standard instead of going with the trend and putting ipod adaptors in, like BMW did.
There are other products out there than Apple's, and although the iPod may be the best (personally, i think yes), it does not mean it should be the only one to get car adaptors.
Business Voyeur
Can anybody explain to me why they'd offer USB for this? Personally, I'd prefer it if they'd just give me a line-in jack. It'd work with everything, rather than requiring the car to have drivers for the player. The article's pretty sparse on details, too. Does this require the iPod to be formatted for Windows (in the case of the iPod)? Does it support anything that mounts as a generic USB Mass Storage Device? Is this some idiotic version of Microsoft's CarPC software, and therefore vulnerable to everything that CE is vulnerable to?
My Systems
"Found new hardwa-" CRASH
There are a few Japanese/Chinese (one of the two) car stereo companies that have been doing this for a while. There's one I was checking out on eBay called "SoundStorm" that allowed for USB and Secure Digital slots. I'm not sure if you could drop an iPod shuffle in there or anything, but my guess is you can.
I think JVC might even make a model with USB and SD. I know they at least make one with SD.
Regardless, VW isn't really being innovative, they're just picking up on some cheap stereo technology and (hopefully) improving it (my guess is these $90 stereos with SD and USB aren't too great sound-wise).
``The bad news? I just got my Touran... sans USB.''
That, and I bet it doesn't support Ogg Vorbis. I understand this is because of lack of consumer demand and visibility, but it still hurts me that support for an open, royaltee-free and superior format is so utterly lacking.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I can plug in a force-feedback steering wheel!
Only the most foolish designers in the world would manage to some how connect the in-car stereo system to say, the braking system. The most any malware could do would be to play some really annoying sounds at you - or perhaps amusingly, sirens (esp if vehicle has surround!) - and even then, you'd be able to turn down the volume until you got to the garage - unless of course, they were so *intelligent* they gave the car an *intelligent* volume system that balances with the noise of the road. So I think we're safe for now, although I never underestimate the geniuses working in the motor-vehicle industry.
I ride a bike.
You can buy in-car stereo's that have USB connectors, then you could put them into any car. My car stereo has a line in, so I can plug any audio device into it.
The following are examples of what you can get in the UK, (USB in-car stereo wise):
Goodmans GCE7205USB2 CD/Radio - £89.99
Acoustic Solution CD/MP3 with USB Tuner - £99.99
They're both from Argos, you could probably get them cheaper from an internet only store. There were some more expensive though better brand name stereos at halfords, but I can't find any details on their website.
but did you save a bunch of money on your car insurance?
Will the player enforce DRM on anything you stick in? Once the RIAA knows about this and has it's way you'll be just as subject to the DRM issues in your car as on your PC!
"I'm sorry Hal, I can't let you play that, it is pirated"
http://www.germancarblog.com/2005/09/vw-get-connec ted.html
I saw this at the IAA car show yesterday, and it looks cool.
I saw the Ipod adapter as well, and it simulates a CD-canger, so only the first 5 playlists are accessible as disks 1-5, the 6th disks are lists 1-5 together.
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
For those who can't be bothered to RTFA, the reason this is different from a simple line-in on the existing stereo: It seems that they're putting a USB host port on the in-dash audio system which allows it to mount your portable digital audio player as USB Storage. This allows the system to navigate and play your MP3/AAC/etc files using the in-dash display, rather than requiring you to fumble with the portable's UI. That also implies that it will play it using the in-dash device's decoder. Of course, it depends on what kind of portable you've got on whether this is an improvement or not. Personally, I like just having a line-in.
How long before VW releases an iBook designed by their engineers to look like the car into which we plug it? Like "Eddie Bauer edition" SUVs. There are already some notebooks designed by car designers, so this should happen immediately.
But things get really interesting when the desktop and dashboard of these devices start to converge. That "VWBook" will surely have some applets installed for a UI of the car. A later model VW will probably have dashboard displays of "computer" info, like MP3 consoles, messaging status, maps and other "travel documents". And "car hacks" to reprogram the engine computer for performance, economy, or just a throatier roar will probably worm their way through the community's hard drives.
That USB connection will start to converge the two devices. Our desktops already need to work more like dashboards, helping us keep moving rather than representing an anchor we carry with us. And various navigation/entertainment features for the passenger riding shotgun (or the backseat driver, or the insane multitasking driver) will require the flexibility and complexity of a desktop environment.
In the future, Americans will never leave our cars. We'll drive them up into our offices, whether mobile, temporary or just at the mall. We'll keep the same immersive "computing" environment whether at the wheel or at the word processor. The USB connection is the spark jumping the gap. Let the good times roll.
--
make install -not war
The best idea is that you use the stereo to control the music, not the portable player itself. I've been waiting for this for a LONG time. For several years, car stereos have decoded MP3s off of recordable CDs, but nothing would accept the convenience of the USB drive.
Personally, I don't own an iPod. I have a cheap Panasonic cd player that'll do MP3s, and has an am/fm radio for those times I'm not at home, work, or in my car. I'd almost never need a portable player. I bring music with me on my USB drive and play it at work. For $60 I can bring 1 GB of music, and play it on any computer, keep it in my pocket, and not worry about breaking it or someone stealing it.
I like this idea a lot. And USB will be ubiquitous and popular for at least as long as the car would be expected to last.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
When I first read the headline, I thought that VW had become the first carmaker to provide an easilly accessable interface into the engine's computer. Then I read that it was so you could "plug in your MP3 player." Idiots.
When will people realize that cars, like computers, work better when open. Expose these meaningless details of how the computer controls the car, and you'll see a revitilization in small business auto repair, no longer requiring car owners to flee to crooked dealerships to get their car fixed.
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
I want a car where all primary functions are on their own completely independant systems.
For example, why on earth do power steering and brakes fail if the engine does? Within the last decade, they've made amazing advances in the field of hydrolics, and now they can build a pump that operates solely on electricity. That's right, folks, no more will you have to buy gasoline for your water pump at your well!
No, seriously. Cars have almost no failsafes. One or two in the brake system, but that's about it.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
...despite all of the techno-whizzy gadgets, they're still powered by refined petroleum products.
No. They're powered by whatever fuel you put in them. If you *choose* to use refined petroleum products, you can, but you don't have to.
I drive my VW on 100% biodiesel -- refined from vegetable oil -- and it runs great. Cleaner and smoother and generally better for the engine than that petroleum crap most people use.
Sure, I *could* run it on refined fossil fuels, if I wanted to, but why would I?
It's especially strange to say this about VW, who is the only carmaker to still sell diesel passenger cars in the US! Any other carmaker *requires* you to use those dirty fossil fuels (even hybrids like the Prius).
It's still cheaper. And I don't see the sense in walking everywhere with music blaring out the ambience of reality. I mean, seriously... what if an elephant sneaks up behind me?
australian project gutenberg is better than the original.
Or somewhereabouts there.
http://www.dashpc.com
It's been seen on here before, but since it's relevant, I'll post it again.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
I've been using an Alpine in-dash stereo with the KCA-420i iPod adapter for about a year now. VW's choice certainly has some upsides (supports a wider range of devices, even a USB HDD, I assume), but there are going to be some downsides here.
1) The mention that this deck looks for six folders indicates that it will be more complicated than the Alpine system (which supports any and all folder on an iPod). This will complicate synching for users who aren't used to devices with manual file copying.
2) The KCA-420i system works like the iPod dock. All audio decoding is handled in the iPod, which means the Alpine system will play anything your iPod can play. The VW system uses specially named folders and interfaces through USB, which indicates that decoding is handled in the deck. WMA/AAC/LAC/WAV/etc. files probably won't be playable. That's a bad situation. Additionally, iTunes Music Store/Napster/Rhapsody files will probably not be playable. Yes, DRM sucks, but people do use these services and that's going to be a major irritating factor for them.
3) Can USB deliver enough voltage to charge these players while they're playing? I know the iPod can't be charged over USB while playing, and I suspect that's the same situation for most of these devices. One of the nicest parts of Alpine's system is that, because the iPod was designed around firewire originally, it can effectively keep the iPod playing indefinitely.
4) Cost. The VW device costs $250. It interfaces to (I assume) either the factory stereo or the "premium" audio system. I paid $190 for my Alpine deck and $100 for the iPod adapter. That deck is a lot nicer than any base-model VW stereo is going to be, and the system works a lot better. Assuming we start talking about paying extra for the upgrade system, the Alpine's advantage only increases.
I understand that the iPod isn't the only player out there, but it is far and away the best-selling music player, period. The Alpine system could definitely use some improvement, but it's still the best setup available. This is a step in the right direction for VW, but it's definitely flawed compared to what already exists on the market.