2-Din Computer

A friend of mine is a partner in a company that will be manufacturing 2-Din computers for cars. They will have a 7-8" touch-screen monitor, SFF computer, and will control sound (XM radio built in, MP3 support, CD, etc), video (DVD, monitors, cameras, etc.), GPS, and much more! The entire thing runs on Windows XP Embedded, and is written in C# / .NET. They've already got the manufacturing facility in place, and have been testing the software for 4 months now.

They are gonna be written up in the New York Times, and there's good speculation about the company.

Now here's the really cool part. He may get me a first run beta version for free !!!! This is exactly what I've been looking for for my VX! This would be SO COOL if I could have the first all-around car computer, with full software integration, in the world.

Anyhow, I'm excited! :D

Sounds kewl... what is the company name? Do they have a site? I'd be interested in this kind of stuff for quite some time. Carputers are definitely the kewlest thing! I have been compiling my system for quite some time and will have everything your friends does and probably more... granted mine will be completely custom and pieced together. There is definitely a market though for something like this and I know quite a few people who would just buy a system like that to save the trouble. If you haven't been to the site already, go check out mp3car.com... lots of kewl systems in different cars out there. Again, if you have some company info that you would like to get out, post it. Thanks!

Coach... I mean Randy (I often forget who I really am) ;)
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Randy,

I forgot to ask him the name of the company. Next time I talk to him I'll make sure to find out. I'll also repost once the product goes to market.

Steve

Neat if they can run this! This companys Scantool & SpeedTracer would be more desirable to some instead of GPS.
http://www.autoenginuity.com/

I must add that the "much more" part extends WAY beyond what I mentioned here. The capabilities of the carputer are far beyond anything you could want. He was telling me things it does and I couldn't even understand what he was getting at.

But how will you put a 2 din in a single din that our VX has ?

I've been looking at this: http://www.oqo.com/

although it's not available yet, it's supposed to ship for less than $2000.

Give us some more info on you friends company when you can......


Joe

Ok, just got some info.

The company is Hybrid Mobile Technologies

The website is http://www.hybrid-mobile.com/

Looks like it's under construction.

The "photo gallery" and "products" sections have some info though.

check out mp3car.com sometime. people have been installing pc's into their automobiles for years. there's tons of retail options already which offer all the usual goodies (ODBII for vehicles diagnostics, speed, rpm, gps, mp3, dvd, bluetooth dialing to phone, D/A input/output, etc). one of these systems was already on that pimp my ride deal on mtv.

there's even several software packages you can download around online specifically made for an overlay OS for automobile use, and integration with all those features (including relay control).. and they're free.

That xenarc they're selling if they're using the stock 200nit version its way to dark for daylight use in your car. I had the old one installed in my last VX and ended up buying a newer one with the daylight option (additional 150 nits). I have yet to re-install the module in my dash.

and the cappacino they got on there (the small footprint pc), last I checked didn't have a video chipset capable of displaying a resolution of 800x480 (which the xenarc's lcd module runs natively at).

Don't get me wrong, I love having a pc in the car. Its far superior to all other audio/video retail options out there at the moment for vehicles. But the price difference between the retail auto pc's out there at the moment vs. what you can assemble yourself there's just no thought involved. you usually can build it yourself for half the cost.