tech

In all the brouhaha of Sony's announcements on Blu-ray burners and Internet-connected TV, it's easy to miss the real news from the technology giant at CES: the unveiling of four new single-DIN stereo head units. Following the trend to USB inputs we've seen elsewhere, three of Sony's new stereos come with USB 2.0 ports built into the faceplates. Although, unlike new stereos we have seen this week from Pioneer, the Sony players will only play back files from a thumbdrive or from a digital walkman (not from iPods, Zunes, or other digital music players, according … Read more

The honeymoon of portable and in-dash navigation devices continues here at CES 2007. On Sunday, we brought you news of Eclipse's AVN2210p, and today we had a close-up of Alpine's IVA-W205, which combines with the Blackbird PMD B200 portable GPS unit in a unique way. Instead of requiring drivers to attach the portable unit to the front of the installed cradle, (as per the Eclipse unit), the IVA-W205 actually swallows the portable navigation unit, with the latter slotting in cartridge-like behind the installed unit's fold-up screen. Also new on the PMD B200 is its built-in, Bluetooth, hands-free, … Read more

Alpine is using CES 2007 to launch the next generation Blackbird portable navigation device. The Blackbird PMD B200 improves on the first-generation device with live-traffic capabilities via a built-in Navteq tuner that picks up RDS data of live traffic flow and incidents. This information is then projected onto the device's preload maps to alert drivers to hotspots in real time. Owners of the PMD B200 get a free 90-day trial of the traffic service, after which it costs $60 for a year's subscription. Other navigation enhancements to the second generation Blackbird include an increased number of points of … Read more

In-dash navigation and entertainment systems are great if you're the driver, but not so much fun for the front passenger. Not only do those riding shotgun have their navigational responsibilities usurped by an electronic processor, they're also forced to wait until the car is stopped to watch movies or even program in a destination.

There is a good reason behind this, of course--drivers can't have the distraction of a movie playing while racing along in the fast lane of the freeway, and punching in a destination on the touch screen is a dangerous diversion from the road. … Read more

During his Macworld keynote speech, Steve Jobs played a congratulatory voice message from friend Al Gore on the droolworthy new iPhone, then used that device to locate the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Outside the convention center's doors, however, Greenpeace activists handed out flyers painting Apple as less than hip to ecological problems, urging the company to remove toxicants from its products and set up free hardware recycling. Several blocks away, members of the environmental group also projected pictures of Asian electronics waste scrap yards onto a wall of the downtown … Read more

Pioneer is following Ford and Microsoft in its adoption of USB ports for the playback of digital audio in the car. Here at CES, Pioneer is debuting the snappily named DEH-P6900UB and DEH-P690UB, two new stereo head units that come with built-in USB jacks for hooking up portable media players or thumbdrives.

When connected via USB, media players, such as iPods and Zunes, can be controlled entirely via the head unit, giving drivers high-speed control over their digital media, including content subject to iTunes (Fairplay) and Windows Media digital rights management. As well as a built-in USB port, both head … Read more

Here's another take on Windows Mobile. The Azentek Atlas is a double-DIN system that fits into your car's dashboard and gives you all of the functionality of a Windows PC from the driver's seat. While the model on display here at CES 2007 is running XP, we're told that Atlas will ship in March with Windows Vista. The Atlas, which makes use of iMobile software, packs an Intel Core Duo processor and comes with 512MB of RAM memory and a Seagate automotive-grade 40GB hard drive. It also comes with built-in GPS with turn-by-turn navigation and maps … Read more

Hey, hippies! I know you probably carry your laptop around in an organic-cotton sack and would never think of switching over to a briefcase (that evil, chilly symbol of greedy corporate America and all its Hummer-driving Enron-clone zombies). But maybe this will change your mind. Treehugger recently featured the Eclipse Solar Gear Hybrid Notebook Case, which will charge your computer with solar energy thanks to an inverter and battery pack inside. In addition, it can charge your GPS navigator, MP3 player, satellite radio system, or BlackBerry. But you don't have a BlackBerry, of course. Those are instruments of Big … Read more

One of the major themes of this year's CES is mobile TV: yesterday, Verizon confirmed it will be bringing live full-length television programming to selected handsets, and then Samsung revealed it had developed a technology to enable local TV stations to broadcast digital programs to cars and mobile devices. For those road warriors who can't wait for either of the these solutions for their fix of Regis and Kelly, the answer might just be KVH's TracVision A7.

Developed in collaboration with DIRECTV, the A7 enables drivers to pick up 185 channels, including local network stations. To do … Read more