tech

The fact that Dual can call its new XMC100 in-car stereo a "multimedia receiver" without including a CD slot is a sign of the digital-audio times. The XMC100 features three options for playing digital media, without a disc in sight: a 3.5-inch jack, an SD Card slot, and a USB port.

The XMC100 also can be used as a satellite radio receiver for Sirius Satellite Radio. Drivers can see what's playing on the unit's black-and-white dot-matrix display. The XMC100 features an internal 240-watt (60x4) MOSFET amplifier, as well as source audio memory and five selectable … Read more

Eclipse kicked off its CES 2007 press conference with the unveiling of the AVN2210p, an in-dash navigation and multimedia system that doubles as a handheld portable navigation device. The system comes in two parts, with a standalone portable navigation device, similar to the TomTom One, slotting into a double-DIN-sized audio unit installed in a car's dash.

The AVN 2210p's SD card-based navigation system features real-time traffic information as part of TomTom's optional service package, and can be updated by downloading maps from the Internet. The navigation system provides 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions, which play either … Read more

Having collected the laurels for Car Tech's Best of CES last year with its Avic-Z1 in-dash navigation and multimedia system, Pioneer is using this year's show to launch the Avic-Z2. The Z2 builds on the basic design of the Z1 and offers a range of upgraded features: a learning capability, which remembers roads frequently traveled by the driver and incorporates these preferences into suggested routes when applicable; a smart routing algorithm that takes into account factors such as posted speed limits and the number of turns to reach the destination, to give a more accurate estimate of journey … Read more

As we first reported in December, Ford and Microsoft have been busy working in collaboration on in-car communications and entertainment, to be unveiled this week at CES. Well, here we are today at CES, and we can spill the beans on details of the system to be marketed under the name "Sync."

Initially to be made available in twelve 2008 models across the Ford family and across the entire 2009 lineup from FoMoCo, the service will be a fully-integrated, flash memory-based system that enables drivers to call hands-free and to control a range of digital audio via voice … Read more

I heard the pitch for BizMileTracker at the New Tech Meetup last night. This service collects your car trip data so you can later deduct the expenses from your taxes. It sure beats keeping an odometer log in the car. Just identify your starting and ending points, and the application calculates your mileage.

You can set up repeating trips, which is handy. You can also see how much of a deduction you can claim for each trip, depending on which purpose you assign (business expenses are more deductible than medical trips, for example). The service is especially useful if you … Read more

Social networking via cell phones seems to be making a strong push lately. In the last few weeks alone we've covered Joopz, Groovr, PL8Scn, MySpace Mobile, and Gimme20, all services that let you use SMS text messages to communicate with others. Zemble, which launched its public beta version last month, is a free, group-based communication service that lets members send messages en masse to other members.

Similar to Joopz and 3Jam, Zemble lets you create your own group of phone or e-mail contacts and save it as a preset of sorts. Zemble calls these group presets "Zembles." … Read more

It's amazing the little tidbits you can pick up when you're in close proximity to Microsoft headquarters. While I was staying in Redmond, Washington briefly during the last week of December, a little birdie began to tell me about a Windows SideShow device that is supposedly in development. If you don't know much about SideShow (I didn't, until a couple of weeks ago), there's an MSDN page that offers some excellent illustrations. Anyway, the device in question supposedly is a pocketable gadget, to be manufactured by Dell (with Windows branding, I assume). It will have … Read more

Comic books are hard to take seriously sometimes. They're even harder for the casual reader to pick up, which is where Comic Vine comes in handy. Like Wikipedia, Comic Vine is a user-created encyclopedia that can make you an instant expert, but just about comic books. The big difference between Comic Vine and a site like Wikipedia is the community and user submission, which is where Comic Vine steps it up in a big--make that super--way.

User profiles on Comic Vine let you become a superhero or villain. Instead of listing the usual social networking details, such as what … Read more

At the San Francisco New Tech Meetup Wednesday, Podaddies CEO Nate Pagel presented his new company, which puts ads into user-generated videos so that people can make a few bucks from their wacky cats' antics.

The service inserts a call to its ad engine at the end of a video, and displays a streaming QuickTime ad from its library. No matter where the file goes, the ad call goes with it. But not the ad itself; this way, the company gets to serve the ad on demand and can track ad plays and bill the advertiser for them (and cut … Read more