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Posts tagged with "car"

iPad Run Over By Chrysler PT Cruiser, Still Works

See the iPad above? That’s what happens when a Chrysler PT Cruiser, this lovely car, runs over it with its front and rear wheels. The “problem”, or perhaps the most surprising thing in this accident, is that the iPad still works. The glass is shattered, but the Home button / multitouch / accelerometer are all working.

As reported by our friends at TUAW, the iPad was inside a standard Apple Case when the PT Cruiser ran over it and as you can see in the video after the break the device is completely functional. Sure, it might not be a wise move to keep using that iPad with all that broken glass on screen, but this says a lot about the build quality and durability of Apple’s products over time and against the most serious accidents.

At least that poor iPad didn’t get shot like this MacBook. Read more

Denso Dash Has an iPhone Steering Wheel

Everyone owns a smartphone so why not integrate it into your future car? Many automobile companies are already integrating them because it could be the next big thing. Skip the built-in GPS screen, plug in your iOS device and do more! Denso is showing a futuristic dashboard, with an iPhone embedded in the center of the steering wheel. Sounds distracting and dangerous but it controls the infotainment system and a small, circular LCD above with some widgets you can flick & bounce with a touch from the iPhone. It also communicates with traffic lights to inform you what speed to drive in order to meet them when they’re all green. Weird I know, but the idea is to save fuel (and money) by not stopping and starting all the time.

Video after the break. Read more

iPhone To Play Nice With Ford Cars in 2011

If you have an iPhone and have a 2011 Ford Fiesta – or you’re considering a Ford car for your 2011 car fix – you’ll soon be able to control a couple of apps using your voice. As noted by Engadget, Ford has announced that it will extend of its Sync AppLink Platform to Apple’s smartphone sometime in 2011, allowing iPhone users to control music playing from Pandora vocally. Pandora Radio for iOS and Android is indeed one of the first apps to support Ford’s voice recognition technology in cars.

BlackBerry and Android phones are compatible with Ford’s Sync now, iPhone users will have to wait a little longer. I’ve always been interested in this kind of technologies that let users do stuff in the car without having to look at an additional display, but I do wonder how Ford’s solution will handle high music volume and voice control. I mean, I don’t want to scream to change songs.

Press release embedded below. Read more

Cobra iRadar for iPhone Will Let You Avoid Speed Traps

Driving too fast for the law? You shouldn’t, seriously. But if you just like to test your car’s performances every once in a while and you want to get caught by a speed trap, we may have an app for that. The Cobra iRadar, an iPhone app you have to pair via Bluetooth with a tiny black handset, will identify commonly known speed traps, cameras and intersections for you.

The app [iTunes link] comes with a good number of control settings and, truth be told, it also looks beautiful – although we wouldn’t recommend to look at the sexy pixels while driving.

Retail price is $170, but we heard it’s available at $100 if you know where to look. Check out all the details on Cobra’s website. [via]

Slow Down: An App That Will Make You Slow Down Your Car, With Music

This is an app I’m completely supporting, as it’s been developed and promoted by the Belgian organization OVK, Parents of Children Killed in Road Accidents. Slow Down, available for free in the App Store, will make you slow down your car by slowing down the music you’re listening to while driving.

Thanks to a combination of GPS to retrieve a road’s driving speed limit and access to the iPod library on your iPhone, Slow Down will remind you when you need to slow by slowing down a song or completely stop its playback. Simple and genius at the same time, as as I said – a concept I’m seriously rooting for.

Go download the app here. Then use it.[Engadget via OVK] Read more

PhotoFast’s AP1000 Will Bring AirPlay To Your Car

With AirPlay finally available to iOS users (although not exactly in the way many of us wanted), I knew it wouldn’t take long before some third party accessory maker would come up with a solution to enable AirPlay’s streaming system in every car. The PhotoFast AP1000 (still looking for a distributor outside of Japan) is aimed at allowing you to easily enable WiFi in your car and connect your current audio system to any iOS device via AirPlay.

The device is a little black box that supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi and has to be wired to your car’s audio in order to show up in the list of AirPlay-enabled devices on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The setup seems to be fairly simple for any user, you just have to make sure you have enough space in your car to fit the AP1000.

You can see more details in the preview video below. [via TUAW] Read more