Delphi's forward thinking in car stereo head units has lead to the development of a unit with a hard drive and Wi-Fi access. The idea of having a 40GB hard drive full of MP3s accessible from the head unit is kind of a no-brainer, but how do you make the hard drive accessible so that you can load the MP3s on in the first place? Not many people want to drag a laptop out to the car and plug it in just to transfer music. Delphi engineers added Wi-Fi to the head unit so that the car can be sitting in the garage but still be accessible from a home wireless network, making music syncing a lot more practical. Wi-Fi-enabled cars also create other possibilities, such as vehicle diagnostics that can be loaded to the home network and forwarded to a mechanic.

But you won't be able to buy a hard drive and a Wi-Fi-enabled car stereo today. Because a large portion of Delphi's business is OEM, its CES display shows off technology more than individual products you can buy at a store. It'll take a car manufacturer to install this type of car stereo for it ever to see the light of day.

Article discussion: Further car stereo computer convergence