Side-impact crashes are the most deadly type of car accident for children because of the danger of head trauma, according to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
That's why Dorel Juvenile Group, the company behind such well-known brands as Safety 1st and Cosco, along with Kettering University developed what it calls Air Protect technology specifically to cushion the blow for babies and toddlers, and it's included on a new car seat introduced yesterday.
New Jersey was one of the first states to outlaw handheld mobile phone use while driving, and now a state legislator wants to ban using a navigation system while a vehicle is in motion. According to the Daily Record, Democratic Assemblyman Harvey Smith of Jersey City has introduced a bill that would make it a violation for a driver to enter a destination into a navigation system while a car is in motion, other than via voice activation. The fine would be $100 for each infraction.
Of course, it's never a good idea to punch a destination into a nav system while driving, and many stock systems make you pull over to engage this function, while most portable systems issue some type of warning on a welcome screen. But using a handheld cell phone behind the wheel, especially for text messaging, isn't either. And it's taken passing laws in several states to deter some people.
Which is why Smith, who is also undersheriff in Hudson County, wants to do the same thing with GPS nav systems in the Garden State. And it leads one to wonder where it's going to stop.
Live TV in the car has proven as elusive as easy downloading of feature-length films from the Internet. As with movie downloads, satellite TV for the car has been available for several years, but the technology is also cumbersome, expensive and not quite ready for the mainstream. AT&T's CruiseCast mobile satellite TV, which launched June 1 just in time for the summer driving season, is seeking to solve these three thorny issues -- and two out of three ain't bad.
Working with RaySat, CruiseCast has managed to shrink the size of a satellite antenna so that you don't have to own an SUV or minivan to have the surface area required to mount one. And it's gotten the price down some: $1,299 for the equipment and $28 a month for the service, which offers 42 channels of live satellite TV, including Discovery, ESPN Mobile, Disney and Fox News.
But it may prove difficult for CruiseCast to achieve widespread acceptance at a time when most families are scaling back financially -- and less expensive options may be just up the road.
Bluetooth is like any other technology: It's very cool when it works and very frustrating when it doesn't. And the wireless hands-free phone technology can be very frustrating in the way compatibility and functionality vary from vehicle to vehicle.
While we here at Edmunds are in the unique position of driving a different vehicle sometimes on a daily basis, Bluetooth compatibility issues also affect people who drive the same car every day for years -- and even those in the Bluetooth business -- as revealed in a recent Edmunds feature story titled Bluetooth Blues.
The executive director of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, the trade association that promotes and oversees the technology, has compatibility issues in his own vehicle, for example. But we also discovered that the Bluetooth SIG is working with automakers to smooth out some of these snags and we point out steps you can take to make sure that your new car and your phone get along.
Rear-seat entertainment and video-graphics applications in the car could go hi-res once HD hits the road. And we're starting to see elements of automotive HD come together.
You know that portable navigation system you recently bought? The one that tells you where you are, where you want to go and finds every Starbucks along the way? Except for the hundreds that are now closed? Chances are the Points of Interest (POI) database in your portable nav system is months old, which is why new connected portable nav systems make even the latest non-connected systems seem as outdated as those clunky old car phones.
Sure, if you're only want to get from Point A to Point B then almost any old nav system will do. But if you want dynamic, up-to-date POI info -- using Google search, for example -- then you'll want to check out our test of four new connected portable navigation systems from Alpine, Insignia/Best Buy, TeleNav and TomTom.
And they do much more than just help you find a caffeine fix.
OnStar announced last week that it will use the 3D aerial imagery provided by Microsoft Virtual Earth to better guide first responders to the scene of accidents in rural and hard-to-reach areas.
Automakers have been aggressively muscling in on the aftermarket's dominance in car electronics for about 10 years now. A watershed moment for me was when Lexus linked up with the high-end home-audio brand Mark Levinson in 2000: It was the first time I thought that the sound quality of an OEM system could be seriously compared to what was available from the aftermarket. But you could still get something better from the aftermarket for the same amount of money.
What a difference a decade makes. Not only have auto-audio brand hookups proliferated, but car companies have taken the lead on several tech fronts, such as with the seamless iPod and Bluetooth integration offered by Ford's Sync system -- for which the aftermarket still hasn't come up with a better or less expensive alternative. Talk about a reversal of roles.
And although the aftermarket will always be the place to go if you want the utmost quality, maximum flexibility and the latest features, we wondered whether automakers or the aftermarket now offer the best value for the average consumer. So we considered four categories in which the two camps compete -- audio, rear-seat entertainment, navigation and Bluetooth -- to determine whether you get more for your money from automakers or the aftermarket.
While not an apples-to-apples comparison, our analysis gives a good indication of what it will cost on average to go each route. And the results we found in a recent feature story are surprising.
It's not just automakers pulling the plug in these dark economic times. Upstart portable nav supplier Navigon announced yesterday that it is exiting the U.S. market.
According to GPS Business News, Navigon quickly climbed to the number four position in the U.S. market in the first quarter of 2008 -- after launching only months before in September 2007.
But with prices for the least expensive portable navigation systems hovering near the $100 mark, cash-starved consumers aren't eager to spend extra on upscale systems like those from Navigon, which offered larger screens and enhanced features such as lane guidance and lifetime traffic info.
If you own a Navigon unit, the German company claims that it will continue to provide support to U.S. customers, such as supplying map updates. And Navigon plans to stay put in the States in order to increase its business in the growing mobile-phone nav market. The company recently inked a deal in its homeland with T-Mobile to provide a nav app on the carrier's smartphones, and it hopes to extend that alliance here.
Infiniti already offers an alphabet soup of innovative accident-prevention technologies: Lane Departure Warning (LDW), Lane Departure Prevention (LDP) and Distance Control Assist (DCA). The luxury car company recently gave Edmunds the opportunity to try out the next two layers of its "Safety Shield" concept -- Side Collision Prevention (SCP) and Back-up Collision Prevention (BCP) -- at the Nissan Technical Center North America in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Better known as NTCNA, of course.
Infiniti unveiled the two new technologies on its Essence concept at this year's Geneva Auto Show, but we got a chance to experience them firsthand in what the company calls its All-Around Collision-Free Prototype, a specially equipped FX50. While not yet scheduled to appear on production vehicles, SCP and BCP will eventually fill in a couple of gaps in Infiniti's Safety Shield and further help drivers avoid hitting other vehicles --- and pedestrians.
Automakers, suppliers, industry analysts and government officials from around the world converged on Detroit's Cobo Hall last week for the First International Summit on the State of the Connected Vehicle. The "ubiquitous connectivity" for cars envisioned by those in attendance is ambitious, complex, expensive and a bit creepy. But it's coming and will change the way we drive.
In a recent feature story, we detailed the latest advances in safety tech -- when they would be available and on which vehicles. But you don't always have to buy a new car to get the cutting-edge safety features found on the latest models, since some of the same suppliers also offer similar technology through the mobile-electronics aftermarket.
Southern California's iconic car audio chain Al & Ed's, for example, announced yesterday that it will offer Mobileye's AWS-4000 and AWS-2000 accident-avoidance systems. Mobileye supplies similar systems to automakers such as BMW, General Motors and Volvo, and the company's technology is behind Volvo's City Safety system in the new XC60.
Like City Safety, the Mobileye AWS-4000 and AWS-2000 are camera-based systems that detect and measure the distance between its host vehicle and vehicles in front as well as lane markers. If the system calculates that you're too close to either, it will issue a warning.
The AWS-4000 (which Al & Ed's sells for $1,299 and is pictured above) comes with a camera and integrated processor, a pair of speakers that provide audible/directional warnings and a display-control unit for visual/directional warnings. The AWS-2000 ($999) includes the camera/processor and a single speaker with a volume control.
As with the night-vision system from FLIR, a company that also supplies technology to both automakers and the aftermarket, the Mobileye systems aren't cheap. But they may be less expensive than an auto accident.
We live in an age in which car gadgets allow us to do more than ever behind the wheel: make hands-free phone calls, receive and send text messages, search for the best gas prices and restaurants, listen to our entire music library and more. But of all the cool car technology available, the most significant advances are the ones that could save your life. Or at least a trip to the hospital or the body shop.
In a recent Edmunds feature, we highlight the latest safety technology from BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo that you'll see in showrooms soon. From cameras and sensors that help a driver see what's around a vehicle to Volvo's City Safety (shown above) that provides automatic braking in stop-and-go traffic, these innovative features represent the cutting-edge of available auto safety technology.
And could someday become as common as seatbelts and airbags.
A writer at the tech blog Gear Live received a survey that indicates that OnStar could add Twitter feeds as a feature of the company's telematics service. The survey included the following:
"While in your vehicle, you can use OnStar to submit and retrieve tweets (messages) via your Twitter account. Using OnStar's Voice-Activated Hands-Free Calling system, and having your voice converted into text, you can provide updates which would appear in the "What are you doing?" section of your Twitter homepage. It is also possible to listen to a tweet that was sent to you by someone else after it has been converted into voice. You can send and receive tweets without having to type or read anything."
Does this mean that Twitter will soon come to the dashboard of GM cars? And is that a good thing? As Gear Live points out, maybe it would be if you're trying to find a pizza joint.
Or if you want to follow Edmunds EIC Karl Brauer's Tweets on Cars while behind the wheel.
Most navigation system suppliers provide map updates for a fee, of course. Now portable nav powerhouse TomTom is offering a Map Update Service for the U.S. market so that owners of the company's devices can affordably access one year of quarterly map updates for as low as $39.80 per year or $9.95 per map release, depending on the TomTom model and the age of the map the device is currently using.
The map updates can be downloaded via TomTom's HOME desktop software, and subscribers are automatically alerted when updates are available. TomTom claims that the service will make new maps available every quarter for the length of a subscription, and that each update will incorporate all changes validated by Tele Atlas, TomTom's mapping-software arm.
Map Update Service adds to TomTom's strong suite of software refreshes, including Map Share Technology that lets users make updates to the maps on their own device as well as obtain corrections made by other users, and the company's 30 Day Latest Map Guarantee that gives users free access to a new map if it becomes available within 30 days of first use of the device.
The USB interface has been quickly adopted by automakers as a way to connect devices such as iPods via systems like Ford's Sync or for directly accessing digital music and even pictures, as with Chrysler's uconnect tunes. Now a high-speed version is on the horizon that will transfer data at much faster rates.
But it also brings to fore the familiar auto-industry conundrum of keeping pace with the fast-moving consumer-electronics industry. And, of course, the costs involved with doing so.
The USB Implementers Forum has introduced SuperSpeed USB, which transfers data at 5 gigabits per second, as opposed to 480 megabits/second for High Speed USBs now widely in use -- or about 10 times faster. The new USB 3.0 standard should be available by the first quarter of 2010.
This comes as automakers have widely implemented USB 2.0 interfaces into cars, which market research firm iSuppli predicts will be available in a third of all 2009 U.S. vehicles, up 16 percent from 2008. According to SAE International Automotive Engineering Online, with the introduction of SuperSpeed USB, automakers will have to decide whether to begin designing the new standard into vehicles now, which is more costly, or stick with version 2.0 and add USB 3.0 as consumers start to create demand for it.
And risk being caught behind the technology curve.
Chrysler has become a symbol of a lot of what's wrong with the domestic auto industry, and the company is the odds-on favorite as the first of the Detroit Three to go belly-up. Chrysler's minivans have never gotten much love either and are often thought of as the butt of a joke.
But the company -- and its minivans -- are on the cutting edge tech-wise. The '09 Dodge Grand Caravan, for example, features some of the latest and greatest in-car technology available, including satellite TV and Rear Cross Path detection. The Caravan's rear-seat entertainment and uconnect Bluetooth hands-free phone systems are among the best in the business, and the vehicle can be equipped with Swivel 'n Go seating with a retractable table that folds out of the floor.
Side-impact crashes are the most deadly type of car accident for children because of the danger of head trauma, according to a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). 
