Consumer Electronics Show

It's better known for its cabaret singers, casinos and its history of organised crime, but the city of Las Vegas in the US state of Nevada is also the home of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

20,000 products were shown to over 140,000 delegates at the show, which concluded on January 9 -- among them a slew of Android-powered Tablet devices, dorky 3D TV glasses and indeed Lady Gaga designed camera sunglasses... and a cluster of automotive tech items.

Ford chose the CES to lift the lid on its foray into electrified travel. As reported by the Carsales Network previously the Ford Focus Electric is touted as a fuel-free zero-emission vehicle with a minimised 3-4 hour recharge time and a top speed of 136 km/h. The car features an illuminated LED ring around the charge point giving off info such as progressive charge levels or fault indication.

Ford has integrated the MyFord Touch and MyFord Mobile monitor and control system here as well. MyFord Touch uses an 8-inch touch screen to relay all the important "green' information such as energy retrieved via regenerative braking as well as advise on the most eco-friendly route to a desired destination.

MyFord Mobile, the smartphone app, will allow gadget show-offs the ability to monitor their recharging car, set charging times (to maximise the use of off-peak power), remotely check the current range of the vehicle, pour through status data or simply find their car in a parking lot. For the ultimate James Bond wannabe, the Focus could be remotely started, and therefore cooled using the shopping centre's mains electricity in preparation for a quick getaway from retail hubs.

The Parrot Asteroid is an Android powered in-car entertainment device that combines old-school AM/FM radio with more modern alternatives. Music from multiple sources, such as SD/HD-HC card, direct line-in, MP3 player (though only iPhone/iPad are specified), Bluetooth or USB. All the music controls can be activated by voice commands; you only need to say the name of the artist or song to get the tune pumping. Likewise the voice control carries over to the hands-free phone call tethering via Bluetooth.

The Asteroid' s navigation side of things is robust without being flashy, it is too bad the voice commands do not carry over to this feature, but the 3.2-inch TFT screen will feature installed apps for fuel and parking locations amongst others, and being Android based, more apps are sure to follow.

PC Graphics card manufacturer NVIDIA has a new dual-core processor-powered graphics chip named the Tegra 2. Amongst other applications CES was a chance for NVIDIA to show off the chip's capabilities as the core grunt behind in-car systems in BMW vehicles as well as the Tesla Model S.

For BMW the Tegra 2 will run the information and navigation units in the 7-Series, 5-Series, 3-Series, Mini Cooper and X-Series. BMW is promising high-resolution displays (1280 X 600), visually-rich user interfaces and a fast response time.

The Tesla will sport an amazing 17-inch touchscreen, which may indeed chew up all the EV's power. The display will include navigation, weather and live traffic report information.

Garmin announced it will be joining other satnav hardware manufacturers in producing navigation applications for smartphones. In particular StreetPilot, for the iPhone, features the familiar Garmin Nuvi interface, text-to-speech street names, lane guidance and ability to play your own songs and take phone calls whilst the app works in the background. The only drawback is that StreetPilot is currently only available from the US AppStore for US$39.99
 
Pioneer Electronics realise just how distracting all this in-car gadgetry has become, and have focussed on the text-to-speech capabilities of this new mobile technology. The company released two new in-dash systems, both of which feature those all important driving experiences; Facebook and Twitter.

The in-dash navigation systems read driver's text from messages, traffic updates and other text based information. The AVIC-Z130BT packs 4GB of flash memory (which, on the surface does not seem to be enough, though there is an SD card slot as well), DVD playback with Dual Zone capability to split rear-seat viewing and voice recognition.

There is also a smaller 6.1-inch version, the AVIC-X930BT. Pricing for the AVIC-7130BT -- available in April -- is listed as US$1499, whilst the AVIC-X930BT will be released in March at US$999.

Given both units use the Pandora music discovery service and Clear Channels Total Traffic Network 5, the availability, price and general useability in Australia are questionable.

In fact the same can be said about most of the unveilings at CES, but we can live in hope.

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