32 Articles
Only the beginning: hard drives in cars

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

The mobile audio equivalent of a Howitzer: Subwoofer Truck

The naming is appropriate for a low-frequency addicted BAMF - Sub Mofo. If you're looking to jiggle the teacups in Aunt Millie's breakfast nook over in the next county, this is the vehicle for you! It appears to be some sort of promotional vehicle for mobile audio manufacturer Power Acoustik. In fact, Mofo is a particular model line of extremely beefy

Good riddance: The demise of the in-dash CD player is nigh

A few short years ago, getting a CD player or better yet, a multidisc changer in your car was an upgrade. Now, the little silver disc has taken up residence with cassettes as cast-off technology. Even with the cheap digital to analog converters that are in car stereos, CDs have a sound advantage over lossy data codecs like MPEG, but only us geeks seem to care that hi-hats sound like someone whisking an egg. Besides, portability and flexibility easily trumps esoteric sound quality. Truth be told,

VW + LG = MP3

The German automaker has teamed up with LG to produce a special MP3 player designed and branded as the Beetle of personal music devices. Rather than simply slapping a Vee-Dub logo on any old contraption, LG designed a fresh product for Volkswagen. Although the shape is the same rounded-corner block as any other on the market, it has a user interface said to be inspired by the New Beetle and is offered in Volkswagen colors including Salsa Red, Shadow Blue and Sunflower Yellow. Of course, it al

Slacker brings internet radio into your car

It's like Pandora for your car! Slacker, a new web-based radio website has just launched this week. The channel selection is very similar to what's available on XM or Sirius, and we liken it to Pandora because the number of songs you can skip is limited, bu

New small Rover packs big audio punch: Dolby Pro Logic II 7.1 debuts on LR2

Land Rover, Land Rover, send surround sound over! Land Rover's all-new Freelander, to be dubbed LR2 Stateside, will be the first-ever vehicle to use Dolby® Pro Logic II® 7.1 surround sound. Sure, almost all vehicles have a rudimentary version of surround sound with speakers taking residence in dashboards, rear decks and door panels, but this is the real deal. With 14 speakers including a center channel, rear surrounds and a subwoofer, it promises home theater-like audio presentations.

Forget the car - crooks want what's inside

As the interiors of our cars start to resemble the sales floor at Circuit City, and as auto manufacturers get increasingly better at discouraging at least casual thieves (the pros will just roll your ride onto a flatbed), what's inside your vehicle may now be more attractive than the vehicle itself.

Ferrari's $20,000 Art.Engine tower speaker

The most credible threat to Apple's dominance in the consumer electronics marketplace may turn out to be Ferrari, which has added a $20,000 tower speaker called the Art.Engine to its lineup of branded electronics that also includes laptops, MP3 players and John Neff

Green car all over: Bamboo speakers by Panasonic

Via Treehugger, we’ve learned you can make your car even more environmentally sound (*ahem*) by installing Panasonic’s newly-developed speakers, made partially out of bamboo fibers. Panasonic developed the speakers in conjunction with Doshisha University. Bamboo is one of the world’s quickest-growing plants, and apparently has an excellent sound range. Panasonic isn’t saying where these speakers may show up when they are released next year, but all signs point to a r

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