Automotive electronics steer toward high-capacity storage

摘要

Disparities in the requirements and devel-opment cycles of consumer and automotive electronics have made designing automotive-compatible storage devices challenging, but that's not stopping vendors from integrating high-capacity storage in mobile multimedia systems. For example, this month, the Clarion (Gardena, CA) "Joyride" system, featuring DVD, CD, MP3, and navigation capabilities, debuts with a Type II CompactFlash card slot that also accommodates the IBM Microdrive. Also new on the market is the "Phat-Noise" (Los Angeles,. CA) Car Audio System, an MP3 player that works like a CD changer and stores thousands of music files on a removable Toshiba 2.5-inch hard disk drive. And, Delphi Automotive Systems (Troy, MI) is evaluating the possibility of embedding a 2.5-inch hard disk drive into its Communiport-branded rear-seat entertainment system as early as the 2004 model year. Unlike the currently available global positioning system and diagnostics-based services from OnStar and other companies, which use off-board servers in call centers for data storage, these emerging mobile multimedia systems will allows users to access compressed digital audio, game software, and video directly from their cars.