sorbs said:
Hi Zen,
I have it done on my truck since I put LCDs in the headrests. I use an iPod video for the kids...why the world has not gone this way? No DVDs sliding around getting scratched, no CDs cluttering anything up and hours upon hours of Bug's Life, Incredibles, Batman, etc...and quiet rug rats. Ahhhh, bliss on so many levels. Did I also mention my favorite tunes too? :banana:
Yeah, I think I'm getting close to moving to the next upgrade of car electronics - carputers. By replacing the nav screen with a computer touch screen we can do all kinds of cool stuff like:
**Playback DVD movies from media or your car's hard drive. Listen to MP3s or CD audio from your car's hard drive with visualizations. Transfer music wirelessly to your car from your house.
**Use GPS navigation to receive directions, display your location, remotely track your vehicle, point of interest tracking (speed trap, red-light cameras) and show your speed. Eliminate the limited nav functions and have the ability to beam addresses into your nav system, use a touch screen to set up or alter the nav programming, and do that on the fly without having to stop the car.
**Integrate your cell phone with your car using Bluetooth technology through the CPU. This allows you to send text messages, display battery status, access your phone book, display signal quality, dial numbers directly from phone book, display a picture of person who is calling, and mute your stereo when someone calls your phone. For those of us with the dummied-down Uconnect (and similar systems) which barely front-end the phone we have in our pocket, the carputer takes full advantage of the combination of a full blown programmable CPU with the phone. Wouldn't it be nice to have a system that doesn't need you to do voice entry of items into a duplicate phone book (in the car's system) - it actually reads the phone book off your cell phone and uses it or can use it's own internal outlook contact list - which could be wirelessly synchronized with your office or home computer's files.
**Connect your carputer to your vehicle computer to view diagnostics, mobile internet (instant messaging, email, and WWW), backup/remote cameras, game consoles (Xbox, etc.). Control your programmable engine processor (superchip programmer) from a touch screen.
The 300c is a great example of an "almost" with technology (other cars like BMW's or the Accura TL aren't much better) in that they "almost got it right". How many times have you thought "if only they would have integrated...".
All this stuff is being done with carputers.
A good web site that has this kind of info, products to support it, installs that members have done and an active forum is
http://www.mp3car.com/features.html
