tech

One of the next steps to evolve BMW's iDrive into Connected Drive is increasing the communication the car has with peripherals. In this case, work is nearly complete on you being able to control your iPod Touch (and, we're guessing, your iPhone) and all of its applications using the same Apple interface on the car's console screen.

Technology is your friend, but no one said it's always going to be not creepy nice to look at. The fellow there next to the Ford Fiesta is named "Santos." He's a U.S. Department of Defense creation working part-time at Ford as a "computerized avatar." His job? To perform "actions in the virtual world that can allow Ford to improve quality, safety and ergonomics in factories before an assembly line is built."

When Audi says it is going to have apps available for download to its cars by the end of the decade, it doesn't mean an app like Bejeweled 2 - it means an app like heated seats. Taking the term "app" back to its more expansive origin in "software application," Audi plans to make cars upgradable after the purchase by allowing owners to download software that would activate hardware already installed in the car.

Google and the Chinese government are having a little row right now, but that hasn't stopped China's love for Google goods. The production lines for the Roewe 350 have started rolling out sedans, and the little four-door, designed as a sign of SAIC's automotive futur,e is certainly headed for hundreds of thousands of Chinese homes. In the process, it will employ Google's Android operating system, up until now only seen primarily on mobile phones and a handful of cheap PCs.

GPS-based road train - Click above for gallery

It goes by the name "Sartre," but it has nothing to do with existentialism and just a little bit to do with exits. The Safe Road Trains for the Environment program is a three-year European study centering on the creation of 'platoons' of drivers behind a lead vehicle on the highway. It involves wiring cars to speak to each other, and to a lead vehicle - the platoon commander - behind which up to eight cars could follow in automated bliss.

The Mazda Sky D diesel and Sky G gasoline engines are meant to bring "everlasting blue sky" to oversee "sustainable Zoom-Zoom." Both utilize low-friction engine blocks, direct injection and piezo-electric injectors. The Sky G is fitted with a "highly functional variable valve timing mechanism," and the Sky D gets a 2-stage turbocharger besides.

Together with technologies such as the Sky Drive 6-speed transmission, i-stop, regenerative braking and lighter vehicles, these lumps will form the core of Mazda's goal of a 30% increase in fuel economy in the coming years. You can read more about them after the jump, and check them out in the gallery of high-res photos below.

Microsoft Surface is, at its most basic, a table-sized touchscreen computer. You can play with them at rather select locations, but we haven't yet begun to see what the thing can do because there aren't enough people investing in applications for it. But for a glimpse of a potential automotive use, Neue Digitale / Razorfish (ND/R) created a configurator that turns accessorizing into building a car in your bare hands.

Audi's Multi-Media Interface, which is arguably the best of the various all-in-one graphical user interface systems favored, has just got better.

According to Audi, resolution on the system's 6.5-inch screen is getting bumped up to 800 x 480, route calculation will happen faster with a 600 MHz processor, and you can scroll along the route - not just vertically and horizontally - and get speed limit data on highways.

Additionally, the system will also finally charge external MP3 players that are plugged in to the system, song titles will be displayed,

There's no doubt that car dashboards will soon be swept up in the technology revolution -- but rear-view mirrors? Korean company NeoView Kolon developed a kind of transparent transistor for an OLED display, and now they have found a way to integrate that technology into a rear-view mirror. As seen above, the mirror would display what looks like speed as well as two other numerical indicators, what gear you're in, and a host of ancillary information.

If it is really meant for rear-view mirrors we have to wonder what the scientists at NeoView are doing when they drive. It seems unlikely that one could quickly note the information and tell what's going on behind the car. But if nothing else, we certainly applaud the technology.