carputers.org

Click here to read a story about how to use high gas prices to your advantage. Just get a cheap efficient car, calculate your savings and watch it pay for itself.

The higher gas prices go, the quicker the vehicle pays off.

Revolution Systems LLC (www.CarPCMonitors.com) offers a wide range of VGA Touch-Screen LCD Monitors for just about every Carputer project. Also, they offer their own line of BONZ car video monitors and LCD screens, such as headrest (VGA) monitors, flip-down VGA monitors, flip-out motorized DVD players, as well as new 4" LCD DVD players (in-dash).

Take a look for yourself: www.CarPCMonitors.com

Well, Google is never one to lie back and take it from the Redmond crew, so they've struck a deal with Stanford to license the sensing technology behind 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge winner Stanley to improve their maps. Stanley, as you probably remember, was a robotic Volkswagen Touareg put together by the Stanford Racing Team.

More details here.

Touch Screens are available - 7" 10.4" 12"

Do you need to replace a touch screen on you present monitor? Or, are you simply adding one? you can find 'em by going here!

http://stores.ebay.com/Touch-Screens-and-More

What happens when the open source philosophy spreads from software and into other areas of life?

Well, it's already doing so in areas such as architecture, journalism and some forms of manufacturing - as we've reported before (this comment from Vic Keegan, for example).

Read more over at the Core77 blog.

When Apple's low-cost Mac Mini computer debuted, it wasn't long before industrious hackers took advantage of its small form factor to create some incredible in-car installs. There have always been some major limitations, however, to installing a Mac Mini in your dash, the most significant being how to interact with it. Driving around with a keyboard and mouse in your lap isn't very ergonomic. Enter the new AppleTV, a device that despite having only been on the market for a week or so has become the most hacked Apple device ever. It has not, however, been installed in a car yet. Here's why it should be.

Read more over at autoblog.

2003 Dodge Ram 1500 - Yea it's got a Hemi!

Stanford University has created an autonomous driving robot to compete in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge Race. The race will be held on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million. The route will be no more than 175 miles over desert terrain featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The Stanford Racing Team's vehicle is a Volkswagen R5 turbo diesel Touareg that was donated by Volkswagen of America. The Stanford Team has been working with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory on the project.

Source: slashdot.org

CNN/Money/Tech reports that 2004 and early 2005 Toyota Prius models have software bugs that cause them to stall while traveling at highway speeds. While no accidents were reported to have been caused by the software glitch, could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?

Auto execs at a Barcelona conference say they’re planning to address feature creep that could make cars as complex to operate as a Boeing 777 jet — needlessly. Recent advancements in adaptive systems that enable applications such as lane departure warnings, eyelid monitors and night vision, they say, may not alone make a compelling case for adding all that extra gadgetry to the average car. Plus, as Edmunds points out, an increasing percentage of recalls are due to faults in electronics and software — meaning automakers must look at the benefits and maturity of such systems before they leap to make them part of cars’ feature set, or risk alienating buyers.

Read similar content here; original content submitted by Jalopnik.

A friend of a friend who works for a design company attended the Australian EDN awards last night and was impressed with one of the winners, in the wireless category, which was won by Grey Innovation for their Infusion device . It's a Linux based portable internet radio that streams Internet Radio over WiFi. Is this the future of Radio? Given the big push by XM and Sirus , the potential of Podcasting and now the "inFusion", in which direction is mass-audio-broadcast heading? And why isn't anyone really pushing Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB), like they have in the UK ?

So what do you think? Will carputer based repeaters, WiMax and internet radio overtake XM?

The folks at Real Virtual Car have taken an old car, hooked up a projector to the windscreen, USB on the steering and pedals, connected it all up to a PC and ended up with what may be the single greatest homemade games controller ever. It even offers a force-feedback steering wheel!

The Mac mini is an ideal low-cost, high-performance PowerPC development platform for numerous applications. Learn how to install and configure Linux on the mini. Future articles will add the software required to make it into a stand-alone multimedia appliance.

Hybrid cars seem like the answer to rising gas prices, increased pollution and growing dependence on foreign oil, yet EPA tests have failed to produce reliable mileage estimations for consumers. Dependable fuel economy figures are now available at GreenHybrid.com, where hybrid owners have logged over 5,000,000 miles of driving information in real-world conditions. Unlike government tests and individual accounts, the database analyzes thousands of actual experiences to provide true mileage statistics.

The hot-selling Toyota Prius averages 48 miles per gallon among over 150 cars from across the country, with most drivers achieving between 45 and 51. The V-6 Honda Accord Hybrid delivers 30 miles per gallon while Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV averages 28. All hybrid owners are encouraged to post their data for these and other cars on the Internet's largest hybrid mileage database.