This time we're going to talk about one of the
hottest aspects of the automotive scene, that's automotive electronics
or mobile electronics. And here to discuss this issue with us is Matt
Swanston from the Consumer Electronics Association. Hi, Matt.
Matt: Hi.
Goss: All right, we've got quite an array here, so let's start right
here.
Matt: Here we have a portable hard drive that stores 10,000 MP3 music
files, so you can put that on your computer. You load that thing up with
all of your music, and then you put that in under your seat or in the
trunk, and you've got access to them all from your stereo head unit like
it was a 1,000-disc changer.
Goss: Wow, amazing. All right, what do we have here?
Matt: Here we have a mirror that when the monitor is off, it's just a
normal auto dimming mirror, but this one has the added feature of having
a color monitor embedded in it where you can see the view from any
number of cameras around the car, under the rear bumper or the front
bumper, or in this case there's also a camera over here that clips to
the headliner of the car so you can see a child in a safety seat, for
example, without having to turn around and see what they're doing.
Goss: What about at night, though?
Matt: At night there's a little switch on it that changes it to an
infrared camera, so there are little illuminators around the outside and
you can still see the child in total darkness.
Goss: It's amazing stuff, isn't it? All right, going down the stack.
Matt: This is a piece that has an added security feature. It hides
itself and looks like a nondescript, just blank panel, but then when it
comes out it has an interface for your cell phone. It can control your
DVD player or CD player, and it plays MP3s on a CD so you can fit about
10 discs worth of music on one CD Rom. And it hides itself. This is a
popular way of securing the equipment is for it to sort of disappear
when you turn the car off. Here's another piece that ejects its screen
and then has the navigation system. That's a DVD-based moving map color
navigation system with a voice interaction, and it can also be used to
play DVD videos, but only in the rear when the car is moving. You have
to put the emergency brake down to get, pull it up to get any video in
the front.
Goss: And that's an important safety feature that people need to look
for. All right, down at the bottom.
Matt: At the bottom there is a 6-DVD changer, so you can put it, fill
it with a combination of music CDs and movie DVDs, and then just close
it up and put it in the trunk, give the kids the remote, and they have
their own monitors in the back and their own wireless headsets. They can
change the movie and change the music and keep themselves very happy and
quiet for a long trip.
Goss: Okay, now also there's this big push about cell phones and using
them, so here you have something that I think is very clever.
Matt: Yeah, this is a neat piece that you plug into your cell phone.
It uses just a regular headset jack, but it clips to the back of your
headrest, and it has a little speaker on one side and then a flexible
microphone on a boom on the other side. And it lets you use your cell
phone even while it's on your belt, as a hands-free kit without wearing
headphones or having it wired into the car stereo.
Goss: And that's important, because some states don't permit
headphones.
Matt: Right.
Goss: Matt, thank you very much.
Matt: Thank you.
If you have a question or comment, write to me. The address is
MotorWeek, Owings Mills, MD, 21117.
