Now this is the kind of thing they banned briefly in Victoria not so long ago, so before I start I’ll give the normal credos:  it’s a bad idea to use your cell phone and drive at the same time, I’m not responsible for whatever you do in your car, yadda yadda, in perpetuity throughout the universe.

There.  Now that the lawyers have been sufficiently shot the bird, time to carry on.  Today we’re talking about the TomTom iPhone car kit, that basically allows you to use your iPhone as a kind of GPS by mounting it to your dash.  Now, it doesn’t JUST do that, because then everybody’d be enraged–it also functions as a twelve volt charger and a speakerphone.

None of this is a bad thing, necessarily, but for crying out loud.  A hundred and twenty bucks for what amounts to a car phone cradle?  That’s a bit excessive even with the added bells and whistles.  I don’t look for this one to do any too well.

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Here’s an interesting bit of news for you– if you have a TV in your car ( and apparently that’s a more popular option nowadays than you think) pretty soon you’ll be able to receive the Qualcomm MediaFLO wireless broadcast network.

Seems that these guys took over some of the old analog TV channels– you know, the ones we were required by law to lose when we had to buy those new converter boxes?–and are now using them to transmit their own signals to our in-car equipment.

This won’t be free, of course–you’ll have to pay a subscription fee of about fifteen bucks a month, but you’ll get about a dozen channels.

There isn’t a whole lot of word yet on just what they’ll be broadcasting–the most likely things being music and children’s programming to keep the kids entertained while in the back seat– and I have to admit I’m rather conflicted about the whole thing.  This definitely does sound cool, but I find myself vaguely annoyed that I was required by federal law to hand over my free TV signal so that I could be charged for it in my car.

But still, even I have to admit, this IS pretty cool.

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Ford, together with Microsoft, first announced their Sync system a few years ago and the system made its debut on the 2008 Ford Focus. Ever since its debut Sync has been offered in just about every Ford, Mercury and Lincoln model.

Well, Ford and Sync have come a long way as the automaker has recently stated that they have shipped their 1 millionth vehicle that was equipped with Sync. In fact, the millionth vehicle was given to Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, as a gift.

Futhermore, Ford also says that they have updated Sync’s software so that it can now check the weather, breaking news events, traffic reports and turn-by-turn navigation. Ford currently only offers the Sync system in English, Spanish and French but hope to expand it to German, Mandarin, Arabic, Italian, Dutch and Russian in an attempt to expand their market share.

It’s nice to see at least one US automaker is doing good in these tough economic times.

Read (KickingTires)

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When it comes to driving, I definitely agree with the fact that you need to pay attention to the road. Music will keep you awake for sure, but movies won’t. However, if you’re interested for a portable car media player with FM transmitter function, then the Plug-in Car MP4 Player from Chinavasion is what you need to buy.

The device costs just $29.98 and it comes with a 1.5 inch screen, 4GB of memory and an SD card slot for additional upgrades. Plug it in and start transmitting music on an unused FM station. The player will recognize MP3 and WMA files for audio and AMV files for video.

via Chinavision

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