Autoblog

BMW's MY 2009 cars will get a new iDrive system with a 40GB hard drive. According to Bimmerfile, the drive allotment will have 12GB dedicated to navigational maps (and 8GB for entertainment and 10GB for your address book, because you've got more friends than music, apparently). With nav maps placed on the hard drive, BMW will no longer be providing a case full of map DVDs. The maps will have the entire US on them, or Europe if you pick up your car at BMW Welt. When things have moved on and it's time to get your maps updated, you'll take your car and your checkbook to a BMW dealer, and they'll install U.S. v2.0.

[Source: BMW Blog]

There's already been a silent technology explosion in automobiles over the last ten years. Command and control has become largely a computerized affair. With high and low speed data buses throughout the automobile, your car is basically a network. It used to be that you'd press the power window switch and current would flow to a motor, or it would trigger a relay. It was simple to execute in the design and manufacturing stages, and troubleshooting was a matter of time spent with a test light and a meter. Modern cars use protocols like CAN, or Controller Area Network, to facilitate the liberal smattering of increased functionality we all desire in our vehicles. Press that same window switch now, and a message is sent to the central processor that you desire a change in the window status. The central processor then alerts the window motor to energize in the proper direction, and then it's off to the races for the glass. Sounds overly complex at first blush, doesn't it?

The old way had some drawbacks that the new systems hopefully alleviate. Firstly, there were lots of potential failure points with analog control systems. Also, components had to be wired to each other for functionality, and that required lots of wire. Wire is expensive (checked the price of copper lately?), and it adds weight and takes up space. Networking protocols allow automakers to integrate functions as never before – check out the way the MazdaSpeed 3 dials down its power output depending on steering angle – while using less wire and having a system that's more reliable. These changes have gone on virtually unknown to most motorists, but the cool stuff is just around the bend.

[Source: Automotive Design Line]

Maserati and Ferrari design partner Pininfarina took a break from penning supercars to work on something a little more affordable. The Italian design house teamed up with SimpleTech to produce portable hard drives that have all the curves, gloss and style of the world's hottest sports cars. The devices range in capacity from 40 GB to 100 GB and feature 5400 rpm drives. Prices range from $110 to $180 and come in car-friendly colors; red, gray, silver, white and black.

Meanwhile, Ferrari released another branded laptop under the Acer name with dual-core processors that goes along nicely with this carbon fiber mouse pad.