carputers.org

Milan-based Parodia Electronica has created a satellite-guided self-steering system for cars that, in tests, is accurate to within 50 centimeters — not perfect, but way better than the manual, “dude, take the wheel” system currently in use. Parodia’s system uses differential GPS (dGPS) location data to generate servo commands from a car’s navigation system that activate an electro-hydraulic steering mechanism.

Read more over at Jalopnik or read the original article here.

The Pacific International Auto Show got underway early today. We'll post more of your entries about the show as we read through them.

It looks like iDash never got off the ground, but never fear! i3 is here:

You assign applications to buttons and so opening up stuff becomes a single click operation (touch if you,ve got a touch screen). That’s basically it! Simple and useful. It’s now 90% customisable so you can add your own skin designs and add your own button placement.

i3 is, at its heart, a configurable application launcher that’s designed for people using touch screen monitors attached to their mini in their vehicle. You can change almost every single visual element on the launcher’s screen via a configuration panel.

i3 costs $25, but is free to try out — albeit with big red letters on the screen. i3 Team Website.

Court Says Information Can Be Used Against Drivers

In what appears to be the first decision of its kind in the country, a Florida appeals court has made data from a car's "black box" permissible for use in a criminal prosecution case.

It's estimated 30 million cars are equipped with the technology — also known as "event data records" — that can help determine the events of an accident.

The devices work with sensors connected to the vehicle's air bag system and can record speed, seat belt use, and braking.

Florida prosecutor Michael Horowitz used black box data in a 2003 trial to show that Edwin Matos, 48, was driving over 100 mph when he slammed into another vehicle, killing two teenage girls.

"We were able to tell the speed five seconds before the impact," Horowitz said.

Things are taking a bit longer than expected. A lot of woodcutting, fiber making, vinyl stretching and glueing are going on. It's better to give things time than to regret making things in a rush. This means no car today. Passed by the shop and things are looking promising. All cables passed, amplifier working so there is sound in the car. Whats taking more time is the centre console where the iBook will be housed. Tomorrow for sure. I'm way to anxious to get in the car!! :-)

One thing let me down though... the eskape labs software. Not sure I'm going to be keeping that. The software is constantly "unexpectedly quiting", or at least it was in the 15 minutes I spent playing around with the thing. It quit about 4 times didn't recognize the hardware a few times and forced me to restart to recognize the hardware 2 times.

Beijing, China - Mar 31, 2005 (PRN): Matsushita Electric Industrial (TSE: 6752) announced that its in-house company Panasonic Automotive Systems (PAS) will establish Panasonic Automotive Systems (China) (PASCH) as an in-house company of Panasonic China, and Panasonic Automotive Systems Sales (China) (PASSCH) as an in-house company of Panasonic Industry China on April 1.

Both in-house companies will be headquartered in Shanghai.

PASCH will supervise the operations of Panasonic Automotive Systems Development (Tianjin), a car electronics development company, Panasonic Automotive Systems Dalian, a manufacturing arm, and sales company PASSCH, in order to promote Matsushita's car electronics business in China in an integrated fashion.

Automobile sales reached 5.07 million units in 2004,

Pig Hogger writes "Many people claim that the validity of the GNU Public License has not been tested in court in the US. Well, it just had been, in Michigan, in a case that validated open-source car diagnostic software against the pretension of automakers who want to keep it secret. But don't take my word for it; read the story on GROKLAW." It's actually the Society of Automotive Engineers involved here; DrewTech (the developers in this case) nicely donated half of their settlement money to the SAE.

Click here to read the original story.

NEW YORK--These days, that new-car smell more than likely has a hint of silicon.

Mechanical engineering hasn't been pushed off pole position in the car industry--yet. But one glance at the 50 concept and production models on display here at the New York International Auto Show should be enough to convince even the most devout grease monkey that computers are increasingly in the driver's seat, when it comes to cutting-edge automobile design. The show, previewed to journalists earlier this week, opened its doors to the public on Friday for 10 days of auto utopia.

The name could use a little tweaking, but no doubt we wouldn't roll deep with a VeaLink CarPuter package, whose in-car small-form-factor media center PC solutions rock SnapStream's Beyond Media media center software (think think XP Media Center Edition, TV Essentials, or MythTV). They're even kind enough to hook it all up on touch screen flat panels, and offer an integrated EV-DO connection - actually getting all that media on the computer is a completely different ball of wax, though.

Click here to read more.

Ever been stuck at a traffic light behind someone with one of those in-car DVD players and you start watching the movie that’s on, and then before you know it you’re following them around just to see what happens next? No? Us, either. But apparently some people have sort of the opposite problem: they’re sick and tired of being exposed (so to speak) to other people watching porno in the, um, semi-privacy of their automobiles, so are trying to get laws passed making mobile porn-watching illegal and strengthen enforcement of laws against the public performance of pornography.

Up from a scant seven last year, the Telematics Research Group claims in 2005 another ten auto manufacturers will begin offering Bluetooth integration in their automobiles, either made standard or optional. That’s all well and good, but is it so hard to give the people what they really want (besides iPod interfaces, that is). Like, say, 1/8th-inch jack inputs to their stereos, or integrated power inverters? Guess we’ll keep having to wait for the trickle-down effect on those, but at least we’ll have our Bluetooth, right?

Click here to read more.

Britco & Bridco have developed the Mobile phone Automobile Security System (MASS), a device that allows car owners to monitor and control their cars via SMS. Say, for instance, someone has broken your passenger side window in the interest of getting at that nice new Pioneer AVIC-N1 you just had installed. You’ll get an SMS informing you that some dude has broken your passender side window; you then can sound an alarm, turn on a speaker to ask the burlgar to kindly step away from your vehicle, or you can simply listen in on what the friendly robber has to say. If he decides he wants your car in its entirety, you can also shut off the engine via SMS (we don’t even want to know the syntax for that one). While this sounds like an intriguing idea, we’re pretty sure this is going to be huge with all the wrong people.

Intel executives at CeBIT have been showing off some snazzy kit for cars — onboard PCs. The as yet unnamed computer, which is made by EEPD and uses an Intel Pentium M chip, can give drivers access to the Internet via 3G, Wi-Fi or 3GSM.

According to a Net Imperative report, travellers in London’s black cabs will be able to watch TV, following the launch of Cabvision - a new in-cab TV system using digital audio broadcasting technology to deliver media content and GPRS from mobile operator O2.