Car Hacks

If you’re a reader of this site, you know about the Microsoft TBox. The short-attention-span-Hollywood-pitch is, windows can run your car, it will be like the Matrix meets I-Robot meets The Odd Couple. Ok, no that didn’t work. Ok, its 2001 A Space Odyssey meets Maximum Overdrive meets Gigli. Yeah, that’s it. See? Good.

Fiat has already signed on and will be including the Microsoft OS in their dashboards. I wonder if the Italian version of Windows has a Ciao button.

Apparently, MS is releasing a new version of the OS, or at least a very upgraded version. From everything I;ve heard, the old one was pretty good. With as many people making smart remarks about reliability (compounded by their first partnership with Fiat) I’m sure they’re throwing a lot of QA at the project and it’ll be pretty great.

The features they’re touting are better NAV with 3D mapping, simple media integration and simple phone integration. I’m sure that’s a small sample of their offerings and they’ll be adding more very soon.

My question is, will you be able to upgrade existing systems once you buy a car? Am I stuck with the 2007 operating system when it’s 2010 and new cooler stuff is out? The cat is out of the bag, you can’t offer things that you cannot upgrade anymore or people think its disposable. If any MS folks are reading this, I’d love to share some answers with our readers.

Now that OBD (not to be confused with ODB) has been opened up by way of USB and Bluetooth adapters, we’re now able to get much better insight into what is actually going on under the hood. The limitation has been in the software that displays that info. Vital Engineering has solved not only the software issue, they solved it for a number of platforms including Smart Phones. It doesn’t stop there, even cooler, their software will post live performance data to “the web”.

Carhacks would love to demo the hw & software to give you all a better look at all it can do… We’ll see how that goes

Microsoft will get their foot in the American automotive market with a mobile office option for F-250 Super Duty trucks. It appears that the general contractor is the first segment targeted for their mobile toys. Sorry, not toys, job stuff.

The option will be about $3K which may end up being a little steep for the market they’re targeting. I would have thought they would target the mobile executive who has more money that he knows what to do with but hey, what do I know.

Engadget posted some photos of the computer that’s built Ford tough. Looks like a cop computer. Not that it’s a bad thing but it does sort of have “steal me” written all over it. I hope they locked that sucker in there good.

Sumicom is the newest dealer on the corner, slangin the car-PC rock. Nothing terribly mind-blowing about the specs and it uses the same case Xenarc has been using for more than a year now. Consider this just an FYI.

CappuccinoPC is now offering what I can only call OHMYGODTHATSDOPE. Motorized touch screens are so Pimp My Ride yet so simply useful. They don’t stop at a simple touch screen, they give you an Emeril BAM! with a 1600X1200 screen resolution and support for multiple inputs. Sadly its $449… Wait a second, that’s pretty damn cheap… OK, well, this might be a first but I cant find anything but nice things to say about it. You wanna fight about it?

Thanks Tim

We here at Carhacks love the convergence of cars and computers. It’s sort of what we, you know, DO. Although this isn’t strictly a car computer, it’s a close cousin, the co-branded Seagate NASCAR PC.

I’ve heard of Ferrari branded Acer PCs, which left me wondering what the point was but a NASCAR PC? I guess the logic is that NASCAR fans are a rabid lot and tend to spend their paychecks and social security benefits on every variation of #3’s officially licensed beer koozy so by extension, they would go out and buy a NASCAR computer. What leaves me a little puzzled is that up until now I didn’t think NASCAR fans could read let alone use a computer. Life never ceases to amaze me.

I wrote an article a little while ago for CNET on computers in cars. Not exactly a stretch for me. In the last few hours it was published for all to see. If you’re thinking about what it takes to get one in your vehicle, it’s a great primer. If not, read it and post lots of nice comments.

Clarion seems to be taking the hint that consumers are wanting more than CD audio from a “multimedia head unit”. Good to see that their first outing is trying new things. Well, not MiniDisk, but it does seem to play a bunch of formats of media which is nice. Does its $2400 price tag matc features point for point on a similar prices MacMini / CarPC install? No. But hey, it’s progress, no?

[VIA ENGADGET]

Sure, I’m a little behind these days. Hey, I have a job now and with that I cant stare into the Interweb 24 hours a day. Still, a little late but very cool. Honda (in Japan of course) is adding Google Earth to their in-car UI. Good people of Honda, you are about to rock and I do salute you. So now send it over here!