By David Ponce
It’s only a matter of time until major car manufacturers wholeheartedly embrace the, for lack of a better term, digital revolution taking place. The “revolution” I’m talking about is the one where you eschew all your traditional media (think CDs, Minidiscs (who the heck owns those anyway?), even radios) in favor of something that can theoretically be acquired free of charge and crammed into a hard drive. That’s why it’s exciting to see Chrysler talking about embedding a 20GB hard disc into future versions of mid-market cars like the Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Nitro and Jeep Wrangler.
Of course, the disc wont sit there, willy-nilly.
– When you do insert a CD, you’ll be able to instantly rip it to the HD, and you’ll have a Gracenote lookup engine to provide artist, track, and title information; this is the first use of Gracenote in a new-car audio system in North America.
– You’ll also get embedded Sirius satellite radio.
– A USB jack to transfer previously stored music (think flash drives).
– A line-in jack to playback from current players.
– Two audio outputs: one goes to the car’s speakers, the second to the rear-seat headphones if buyers opt for the console-mounted rear-seat LCD display.
– Bluetooth hands-free calling.
– A 6.5-inch LCD panel.
It also has a touchscreen, voice control and navigation module, with the ability to save naviagtion data. No price is set yet, but expect to pay an additional $2,000 for this system.
[Chrysler MyGig VIA Technoride]
wow