Economic Times writes:
Car makers are aggressively promoting cars as entertainment centres. “That trend is definitely growing,” JD Power’s Larry Wu said, adding that the lag time for adopting new technology in cars is much shorter than it used to be, though still a far cry from the speed of the consumer electronics business. “Satellite radio has really taken off the last 18 months, and will probably see an even bigger jump in ’06,” he said. Luxury brands tend to have more entertainment technology because their customers expect them, Mr Wu said. But navigation systems will be standard in most cars within a few years. Back seat video is also becoming more common.
Nissan’s Urge sports car, introduced at the North American International Auto Show here this week, is a prototype where the steering wheel and pedals become game controllers when the car is still. The mirror conceals a small flip-down screen. The dashboard conceals a Microsoft game console.
Entertainment systems will soon add information content... A car, for example, will communicate road conditions to a network to warn other drivers. Navigation systems, whose development has been led by European and Japanese car makers, will also be-come more common. Navigation, as well as multichannel sound systems, like those used by home theater enthusiasts, are already driving buying decisions