A man who purchased Chrysler’s uConnect in-car wi-fi recently gave his impressions… and he wasn’t exactly impressed. His three main issues were: it’s slow, there are no instructions for encryption, and you’re limited to 1 GB for downloads.

The Autonet site lists speeds as 600Kbps-800Kbps, and the reader didn’t give any idea of the speeds, but he said the router had a hard time keeping an EVDO connection and would go to 1x. Autonet says the “connection is secured with WEP encryption, MAC address restriction or WAN port restricton,” but according to the reader, it isn’t shipped with any encryption in place and the manual doesn’t tell you how to do it or even that you need to do it.

As for the 1 GB cap, that’s for the $29 plan. There’s a $50 plan that gets you 5 GB, which would be the way to go if you really are going to have the kids on YouTube in the back seat. Of all he writes about, it seems the biggest gripe is the speed — nothing like trying to watch a 30-second clip that takes eight minutes to download. That’s not a minor drawback, but for the convenience of using any wi-fi equipped device, and not having to listen to that American Girl DVD again, it could be worth it.

[Source:Autoblog]

This is the kind of computerized world we can get behind — not the kind that drives for you whether you like it or not, but the one that allows you to do your human thing even better. Futuremark has created a concept instrument and dash cluster for Audi that is rendered entirely in 3D graphics. In the Nissan GT-R, you can change the center console screen to show or highlight the gauges you want. With Futuremark’s dashboard, you can create any kind of dashboard layout, color scheme, gauge look… you name it… that you want.

Using its Open GL ES engine (that’s Open Graphics Library for Embedded Systems) for the API (that’s Application Program Interface), Futuremark wants to show what’s coming — or at least, what’s possible — for in-car information and entertainment systems. We’re not really worried about the acronyms; as far as we’re concerned, we’re talking about the tweakability of video games brought to life in hot cars. Amen to that. The system will be on display at the NVISION in San Jose. Follow the jump for the full press release, and a word for Audi: yes.

PRESS RELEASE

San Jose, California – Aug. 25th, 2008 – Futuremark, creators of the industry standard benchmarking software for graphics performance for OpenGL ES and DirectX APIs, has created a demonstration for Audi’s In-Car Graphics System future concept to be shown for the first time at NVISION in San Jose. It delivers a fully rendered car dashboard and all instruments shown in a 3D view, including 3D navigation using stunning and realistic effects and viewsas well as a 3D car infotainment system with vehicle info and cool 3D environmental controls rendered in real-time for on-road Automotive usage.

“We are delighted to work with Audi due to their professional expertise in the car industry,” said Petri Talala, Vice President and General Manager of the Handheld and Embedded Group at Futuremark Oy., “Audi is a leader in this field with sophisticated, real-time rendered and high quality content available for future infotainment systems, and being able to have our graphics engine experts and artists contribute to this effort is very special for Futuremark.”

In-Car graphics systems are evolving rapidly with an increasing amount of digital instrumentation used inside of automotive designs. Khronos APIs such as OpenGL and OpenGL ES will be widely adopted for rendering backend of digital instrumentation. With this new automotive demo, Futuremark is showing the flexibility of both its OpenGL ES engines and its art pipelines that were used to deliver this project on an entirely new platform to Audi’s delight. The Engines and Pipeline Tools used to create the demo are all available for licensing directly from Futuremark. Also offered are custom demo services for Automotive companies who want to show off tomorrows User Interface and Digital 3D designs for Automobiles today. Futuremark’s has an upcoming automotive benchmark that is in development which will utilize real-world use cases such as car dashboard, info-system, and navigation workloads based on OpenGL ES 1.x and ES 2.0.

For more information on having Futuremark create your Automotive vision or for more information concerning Futuremark’s Mobile and Embedded products, in Europe and Asia, contact Petri Talala. In North America contact Oliver Baltuch at the contact information below.

About Futuremark Corporation Futuremark Corporation serves the mobile industry with professional application performance analysis tools and workloads. Our world renowned product portfolio includes 3DMark®Mobile for OpenGL ES 1.x and OpenGL ES 2.0, VGMark™ for OpenVG 1.x, and SPMark™ for Symbian, Windows Mobile, Linux and mobile Java. In addition, we license digital content creation tool chain middleware to 3D application developers, chip vendors and handset manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.futuremark.com

© 2008 Futuremark® Corporation. 3DMark®, PCMark®, SPMark™, VGMark™ and YouGamers™ trademarks and logos, Futuremark® character names and distinctive likenesses, are the exclusive property of Futuremark Corporation.

[Source:Autoblog]

We truly do appreciate the custom-car scene, in all of its various guises. There is, however, a problem with the custom Prius you see above . Generally speaking, the goal of modifying a car is to either A) make it go faster or B) make it look better.

When Classe Gustafson, Elvis Häggbom and Kenny Kyrk from Sweden had finished spending $184,000 customizing a Toyota Prius, they had accomplished neither. This Prius-trocity, which was modified for a television show, is anything but subtle. It lost two doors during its transformation from mild-mannered hybrid eco-mobile to whacked out sport compact that just happens to get good fuel economy, though it did get scissor-style portals that are nearly impossible to open in the process. And it also gained a huge honkin’ stereo and the body-kit from a Volvo SUV. The over-the-top paint-job is the final touch. The Hybrid Synergy Drive powertrain, however, went untouched save for the obligatory fart-can exhaust. Nice.

[Source:Autoblog]

Cars need gasoline, and their drivers need coffee. While we wouldn’t recommend combining the two into one beverage, why not infuse our coffee makers with more high-octane attitude? That’s where the deviceSTYLE Brunopasso PD-1 espresso machine comes in. The styling, penned by Japanese designer Tadahito Ishibashi, draws its inspiration from classic sportscars. For instance, the indicators are laid out like the gauges on a car’s dashboard, and it even has an authentic beechwood press lever like an old-school gear shifter. (Oh yeah, and we’re sure it makes a delicious cup of joe.) The Brunopasso is available in red, brown or silver, but at $850, this kind of caffeinated style doesn’t come cheap.

[Source:Autoblog]

CES doesn’t officially open until Monday morning, but we were able to get a really quick, escorted tour of the Las Vegas Convention Center’s north hall where all of the automotive booths are concentrated.

Many of the photos are badly focused, almost all are badly lit, but you can get an early glimpse of what CES has to offer automotive enthusiasts before anyone else does.

GPS navigation is big again this year, as is MP3 connectivity. The bigger thing, though is rolling both of them together with voice control and Bluetooth. And for those who haven’t already bedecked every inch of their cars with LCD screens (inside and out), we saw plenty in our quick walk through.

We saw a Tesla being charged in anticipation of the big show, a bright orange SUV with ridiculously large wheels being navigated through the displays and a Cadillac limo possibly being assembled from scratch on the show floor. We caught BMW prepping its huge F1 display including a life-size clear plastic Formula One car.

We’re interested to see how all of the booths look completed when the doors officially open in a few hours and hope to bring you numerous photos of the Cars of CES 2008.

Por[AutoBlog]