sema

Brian Cooley looks at new car technology from Visteon that lets you charge an iPod wirelessly. The eCoupled charging pad can be mounted anywhere in a car, and provides power to an iPod through a special dongle.

The 2007 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show is the place where serious car geeks go to get their fix. Automakers, tuners, accessories companies, aftermarket parts retailers, and electronics manufacturers gather there to show off their latest gear.

The cars they use to do it are often extremely cool modifications (aka mods) built to inspire. Even the interiors, such as with this Volvo C30 modified by Heico Sportiv, are wild. The show is closed to the public, but we've captured some of the new reveals and far-out mods in our latest SEMA photo gallery.

To check out our first … Read more

Scion is primarily known for two things: its young, trendy customer base and the customizability of its cars. Now the automaker is taking those two ideas forward in a novel way by partnering with Ridemakerz, a specialty retailer that allows its customers to build personalized scale models of production cars. Scion made the announcement of the partnership at the SEMA show here in Las Vegas, where Ridemakerz had set up version of one of its interactive stores. We wasted no time in rolling up our sleeves and getting to work building our own Scion xB model. Check out our gallery … Read more

While our main interest at this year's SEMA show was the wealth of new in-car gadgetry on display, we couldn't help but show some interest in the hundreds of modified trucks, classics and hot rods jammed into every available inch of Las Vegas Convention Center. We managed to tear ourselves away from the mobile electronics hall to get snaps of some of the more entertaining mods, particularly those at either end of the height scale. Check out our photo gallery to see a roundup of our favorites.

Following Nokia's high-profile acquisition of Navteq last month, it's not surprising that the world's largest phone maker is using SEMA 2007 for the debut of its N500 portable navigation device. The N500 boasts a 4.3-inch color touch-screen display and a built-in speaker for giving turn-by-turn voice guidance; the system also features text-to-speech technology for reading out the names of individual streets. An integrated FM transmitter allows drivers to stream spoken directions via their car speakers. Being a Nokia device, the N500 naturally comes with cell phone compatibility and can be used as a hands-free Bluetooth calling … Read more

Readers of CNET Car Tech will be familiar with advanced safety systems such as collision-avoidance sensors, lane-departure warning devices, and adaptive cruise control. Trouble is, if you don't own a recently produced luxury car, you are unlikely to see the benefit of this technology. Mobileye is about to change that by making its AWS-4000 available in the aftermarket. Mobileye has some experience in this department as it is the active-safety supplier of choice for Volvo, BMW, and GM. The AWS-4000 (the acronym stands for Advance Warning System) is made up of three components: a monocular camera, which is mounted … Read more

One of the newcomers to this year's SEMA show is Raytel, a subsidiary of German company Funkwerk, which is using the event to launch five new products: The Ego Drive, Ego Talk, Ego Flash Ego Look, and Ego Cup.

Ego Drive, the flagship product in the lineup, is a combined portable and dockable GPS navigation and multimedia device with a wireless rotary remote control. The device features a 4.3-inch color touch screen with 3D map view, and it comes with text-to-speech functionality to read out road names during turn-by-turn route guidance. For multimedia, the Ego Drive supports MP3 … Read more

It's billed as "the world's fastest urban car." And while we're not entirely sure how the Tango T600 two-seater on display here at SEMA gains that distinction, the narrow electric-powered kit car does have some notable performance figures. According to Commuter Cars Corporation, its Washington-based manufacturer, the 39-inch-wide Tango can apparently get itself from 0 to 60mph in around four seconds and has a reported top speed of 130mph.

And don't worry about the Tango T600 tipping over when thrown into corners--the 2,000-pound lead acid battery pack gives it the equivalent of a … Read more

Built-in storage is all the rage among carmakers and stereo manufacturers these days, and Kenwood is no exception. The vendor is using SEMA 2007 to show off its KDC-X991, which, in addition to its support for a range of digital-age audio formats (MP3, WMA, USB), comes with 512MB of internal flash memory--roughly enough for 30 albums' worth of music.

Drivers can rip CDs to the memory as they listen or import digital audio files via the stereo's USB port. A color fluorescent display and a novel jog dial controller let users navigate folders and files using an intuitive rotary … Read more