The Mp3Car Blog

We are supporting Special Edition, Inc on a car computer engineering project. The goal is to get a car computer in a 1955 Porcshe 550 Spyder replica that they build out a “piece of bare ground” Here is a quick shot of the what the dashboard will look like without the monitor.

Over the next couple of weeks expect several blog posts explaining the details of the car computer's integrated features.

I am going to kick this off with some interesting information we obtained about hacking the Andrea's super beam microphone. To maintain aesthetics we wanted to expose only the microphone portion of the superbeam and just place the mic pickups right in the dash. This would effectively leave just two black “dots” on each side of the speedometer.

Here is the information we obtained from Andrea’s acoustical engineers:
3.5" spacing = approximately 30 degree beam or cone shaped pickup.
6" spacing = approximately 20 degree beam or cone shaped pickup.
8" = approximately 10 degree beam or cone shaped pickup.

Here are some photos of the unit when we hacked it open. Microphone extension wires can just be soldered in place to the appropriate length based on your installation.

We were also cautioned by Andrea to make sure to expose in the passenger cabin the rear slots of the microphone as well as the front slots of the microphone. Unfortunately this will make the mic stick out about a ¼ inch, but at least we can hide all the other electronics.

This microphone hack has coupled with a new external USB echo canceling sound card that is amazing for Bluetooth calls which will be the subject of a future blog entry. Talk about this here on our forums blog talk section. Check out the breif work log here.

Today there will be a few updates made to the Forums to improve usability. Hopefully it will help solve the scattered errors that people were having in replying to threads and other parts.  Please pardon the downtime, as I am working on it as quickly as possible.

-Nick

Weather is forecasted to be 85 degrees and sunny for tomorrow's Washington, DC MP3car BBQ.   Post in the forums and tell us you are comming by 10am, MP3car will bring some food for you.  Also let us know what your shirt size is and we will try to bring enought mp3car shirts for everyone (free). 

For full event details, see W3bMa5t3r's post (Forum Link)

Scott and I (Rob) are both comming.   We will be bringing the recently blogged about Guru Car computer and some other interesting things.

Introducing a new all-in-one Car PC solution!

For the last 6 months MP3car has been testing the Guru PC. The Guru is a new double din sized car computer that packs a serious punch. My review of the Garmin Mobile PC software was actually implemented using this hardware. This product is a significant step forward from previous “all-in-one” car computer offerings. We have decided to sell this in the store within the next 2 weeks. As with any new product, there are a lot of exciting things about this unit plus a few drawbacks.

The Good:

• Easy to install
• Fast. Really Fast. Garmin, StreetDeck, and Centrafuse fly. We might test Road Runner this weekend.
• Stable; It has only crashed twice in 6 months of testing
• Very nice sunlight readable screen. This isn’t quite transflective grade but it is better than most
• Tons of features packed in one box - Dual core CPU, Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, PCMCIA, Amp, array mic, 120gb HD, 2gb Ram, shallow profile, low power, AM/FM hardware integrated, volume knob, programmable buttons, ambient light sensor, optical drive and more.
• The PCMCIA slot is a nice expansion option for high speed internet, more sound cards, CAN bus, MOST bus, or ther add on hardware. 

The Bad:

• There is currently no software support for any front ends; however, several front-end developers are aware of the hardware.
• No software support means clunky control of the AM/FM Radio, some of the preset buttons have no function.
• There has been no firm commitment from any front-end developers to support this hardware. We are told software support is just a matter of writing radio and button control plug-ins.
• Power management for the device is also software controlled. We hope to have an application done to handle all this by the time it gets released in a few weeks.
• The Price – The price hasn’t been set yet, but it will be less than $3,500

The Install:

• Here is a quick work log of my install.
• Hover your mouse over for an image description
• A full version will be posted shortly in the Blog Talk Forum(Link).
• If you can’t wait until this goes on sale, get a sneak peak this Saturday. 2pm. Lat/Lon: 38.963228,-77.154204

 

One of our military customers who regularly installs MP3car's 7” transflective LCD product in Sikorsky helicopters was kind enough to share some photos side by side with aircraft instruments.  From what we are told this is as close as you can get to military grade sunlight readability without spending military amounts of cash. Very cool!  Thanks for sharing the photos.  Talk about this on the forums here. 

Check out the new AutumnWave HDTV tuner .

 

This USB TV tuner is different from all the others you may have seen or used before. The OnAir GT is a USB powered device that can receive and display television content. It is capable of receiving Over the Air signals (digital and analog), and of course feel free to plug it into your existing cable line at home. What sets this tuner apart from all the rest is a fifth generation LG Electronics tuner/demodulator which eliminates interference caused by multi-pathing; in turn it finds the strongest signal and latches on to it for the clearest possible picture.

The included software allows you to watch, capture, or pause live content. With the large interactive menu you can change just about any settings to fit your needs: Aspect ratio, viewing options like Desktop TV, zoom and many more. The EPG, or electronic programing guide, gives you a TV guide listing to set your recording schedule ahead of time or just see whats on. There is even software to burn a DVD of your favorite recordings.

 

Digital advantages:

- Clearest Picture - Take advantage of your widescreen monitor

- More Bandwidth - Allows for different languages, more captions, and tv guide

- Multi-Plexing - Get multiple channels through a single broadcast

 

After using this product for several weeks, I can honestly say that I am very impressed with it. The reception is spectacular, the picture looks just as good on my Lilli 619 as it does on my 42" Plasma. For in car use, the included antenna is probably not your best option if you plan on watching tv while driving. You might want to upgrade or engineer your own solution. The installation is quick and easy. I really like being able to switch the unit from my car to my laptop and then take it in at night and plug it into my desktop to watch High-Def on the big screen. I highly recommend this product for anyone searching for a computer TV solution.

 

In the box:

GT tuner

Carry case

Remote control

A/V input plugs

Software

Telescoping Antenna

 

More Information

 

My name is Nick or Reno91011 on the forums. I'm a summer intern with Mp3Car. Before hearing about Mp3Car through my brother, I had no idea of what was possible with an in-car computer, but after reading through a large amount of the forums during my research, I found out how creative one can be with a simple starting point. I was hired primarily for my software knowledge and to be a dedicated person to develop and analyze the online content of Mp3Car. I spend most of my days working in front of 3 monitors with headphones on and editing HTML, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, and vBulletin code. Much of the smaller and larger changes in online content in the past few months have been my work, such as this blog.

After starting working for Mp3Car, I have since begun work on my own car computer and am hoping to get it installed by the end of the summer. It will pretty much be an AOpen miniDuo 945-X, 512mb of ram, 80gb hard drive, a 7" non-touchscreen monitor, and a customized XP installation. I know that nearly everyone on the forums will ask "Why go with a non-touchscreen?" I have two reasons for this 1) I am cheap and the more money I invest now in a car with nearly 150,000 miles, the worse I will feel when it dies and 2) I like an extra challenge. ->->

[...]

Hello. I am Heather, or armine on the forums.  I started working at Mp3Car last fall, putting a hold on my work in international development. I used to spend my time backpacking through Latin America to find new cultures and learn Spanish, or working with Ukrainian non-profits in the Peace Corps.  Now, I spend my days in cyberspace on the Mp3Car Store to support customers and on the Mp3Car Forums and my iGoogle page (Engadget, Techdirt, How Stuff Works, Future Tense) to find out who is innovating in car computing, what products are new, and how we can get involved.

Why I wanted to work at Mp3Car is really best described in this Charles Leadbeater TED Talk about the inventors of the mountain bike. They were young bikers, frustrated with the  bike selection available, who hacked together parts of the standard types of bikes on the market and created a new product that would not have been created in any other way.  My personal goal at Mp3Car is to try in whatever way I can, to support innovators on the forums that create stuff people really want and need, perhaps products which no corporation would have thought of, or be able to create. 

My role, in general, at Mp3Car is to make sure that we are focused on the right goals, as a team.  However, there is too much to do, so I have a whole bunch of daily tasks and my picture shows it.  The large screen shows the orders of the day which I am processing. You cannot see the other tabs in Mozilla - but they are the forums.  I have the calculator out because we are adding a new product and I am trying to see if the vendor price is fair – I do all the financial management.  I’ve got business cards falling over – why can’t people just use vcards?  There are some product returns on my desk, already processed, that need to go into stock. And, I have the Ethiopian coffee that we buy from a nice family-run coffee shop in DC (all fair trade), called Sidamo, to get me through the day, and the iPhone which I use at night to add new places of interest to the Nearby App- a great concept, but a little flaky and not getting too much support in Baltimore.

I may be in contact with you if you have a customer service issue as I manage most of these, if you are a new customer and I want to call to say hello, if you are a vendor and need to get paid, if you are a vendor and we would like to sell your product, if you just signed up for the forums but mistyped your email address,or if you just have an idea and I wanted to thank you for it. Or I may have seen something you said on the forums and sent you a PM.

Feel free to let me know if you have a great product to sell, a good idea for us, or think something at Mp3Car could be improved. You can always post an idea for the store in the Customer Service Forum or the forums for new product suggestions , and for ideas and changes to the forums there is the subforum, called Suggestions/Comments or you can email store@mp3car.com.

I started my career at Mp3car in the spring of 2005 right after I finished my Masters degree in Computer Science. One of my best friends, Mike, was working with Rob at the time and he mentioned that Rob’s startup company needed some help packing boxes. I figured why not make some extra money while I am looking for a Software development job. It wasn't something I was thrilled about, packing boxes, but it was a job and it paid the bills.

 

My first day on the job, and my first responsibility, was to organize the new inventory that was piled up in the middle of the smallest room in the basement (about 12x12). The room reminded me of the pantry room we had in our house, you know, the place where you would keep groceries, dishes, etc...so I started calling it the Pantryroom. We've since moved out of there a long time ago, but my work machine is still called the Pantrybox.

 

Anyway, so this room had a whole bunch of Lilliput boxes piled up in the middle of it along with some Xenarc products, M1-ATXs, OPUS products, CarNetix regulators, startup-shutdown controllers, and shelves fresh off of Home Depot. So I assembled the shelves, put them up along the walls and organized the products the best I could since I had no idea what most of them did.

 

...

[...]

 

Hello, my name is Scott. I am an intern at Mp3Car. Prior to my employment here I spent a lot of time on the forums doing research and dreaming up the perfect driving machine. Unfortunately, I lack the funds to move my dreams to reality in a timely fashion. But, thanks to Mp3car I have made a lot of progress in the past few months.

Here at Mp3Car I spend most of my time preparing and shipping orders. I get to see everything that goes in and out. The coolest part of my job is that I can see what people order and imagine how they are going to make it work in their car. If you had a problem with your shipment, I’m sorry; it is more than likely my fault. Aside from all that, I take time to read the latest forum posts and test products new and old.

In the future, I hope to give you all more insight on news and products related to the hobby. Keep up the good work guys! You all continue to impress me more and more each day.

 

"The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown" - Albert Einstein