dashboard

Renault's Koosh-ball dashboard

Sure, so your car can communicate with your iPod, your cell phone, your USB thumbdrive, even your hand-held engine-monitoring device. But where to put all these gadgets to prevent them from flying around the cabin as you attack corners or launch forward from the stop lights?

Fortunately, French automaker Renault has come up with a solution in the form of the Grass Mat in-car gadget holder. Unveiled at this week's Geneva auto show, the Grass Mat is essentially a Koosh-ified dashboard that can hold all of those in-car gadgets while still leaving them accessible. It will also give front … Read more

All-in-one dashboard PC

And here we thought the sun-visor theater was a bad idea. As if we don't have enough traffic problems already, SNT Korea has developed a dashboard PC that runs Windows XP to divert our attention from the road too. The touch-screen unit can be used for everything from GPS navigation to live TV, which Newlaunches says can be recorded on a built-in hard drive that can be transferred to a disc later. Claiming "broadband-like" speeds, the in-dash computer will also work with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to set up a mobile office. We pray that drivers … Read more

Take online widgets offline with Amnesty Generator [Video]

This post has been updated from the original. Added: Hands-on video with Amnesty Generator.

For those early adopters out there with Windows Vista, you might be struggling to get some widgets from the Web onto your flashy, new sidebar. To help you out is Amnesty Generator, a small and free app that converts nearly every type of online widget into the 'gadget format' that's compatible with Vista's new desktop toolbar. Using the program requires no coding experience; it's as simple as pasting in the embedding code, and the program does the rest.

Amnesty generator works with Google homepage widgets, … Read more

All MP3 players all the time, in your car

Tons of products are coming out to help you enjoy your iPod while driving, but many of them seem a bit complicated for our Luddite sensibilities. For us, something like the modestly named iMe might be more appropriate.

The dash-mounted dock hardly qualifies as seamless integration, but at least it's versatile. The iME--which also is an acronym for its maker, Integrated Mobile Electronics--is designed to work with all the most popular MP3 players, including the iPod, Zune, and Creative Zen. Its dock, which also charges the player, connects directly to your car's entertainment system and supposedly allows you … Read more