VW Goes USB

MadCow42 writes "According to this story on CNN, Volkswagen is going to offer in-dash USB connections on several models as of this December and others next year. This function is to let you connect your MP3 Player or USB drive to play your tunes on the car stereo! The bad news? I just got my Touran... sans USB."

Security?

[Kimos]

All I can think about is security. With viruses and malware being spread through other mobile devices [slashdot.org], what's going to happen if your car gets infected?

More Bad News: No Vorbis

[RAMMS+EIN]

``The bad news? I just got my Touran... sans USB.''

That, and I bet it doesn't support Ogg Vorbis. I understand this is because of lack of consumer demand and visibility, but it still hurts me that support for an open, royaltee-free and superior format is so utterly lacking.

Re:Why USB?

[bhtooefr]

The way they describe it, it [b]HAS[/b] to be USB Mass Storage.

It looks like there's an iPod dock as well, though, so it might have a way to read a Mac-formatted iPod.

Something tells me it's a VERY simple system reading from a USB mass storage controller, and feeding MP3s (and AACs - it'd have to, seeing as there's an iPod dock) into a codec chip.

Re:Why USB?

[devaldez]

Could it be that they want to have digital transfer until the DA converter gets it? In other words, they are providing a higher-quality passthrough than simply sticking the analog output through a bunch of routing.

I'd definitely find digital transfer more compelling than analog...but that's just me.

What it appears to be...

[emeb2]

For those who can't be bothered to RTFA, the reason this is different from a simple line-in on the existing stereo: It seems that they're putting a USB host port on the in-dash audio system which allows it to mount your portable digital audio player as USB Storage. This allows the system to navigate and play your MP3/AAC/etc files using the in-dash display, rather than requiring you to fumble with the portable's UI. That also implies that it will play it using the in-dash device's decoder. Of course, it depends on what kind of portable you've got on whether this is an improvement or not. Personally, I like just having a line-in.

Mobile Computing

[Doc Ruby]

How long before VW releases an iBook designed by their engineers to look like the car into which we plug it? Like "Eddie Bauer edition" SUVs. There are already some notebooks designed by car designers, so this should happen immediately.

But things get really interesting when the desktop and dashboard of these devices start to converge. That "VWBook" will surely have some applets installed for a UI of the car. A later model VW will probably have dashboard displays of "computer" info, like MP3 consoles, messaging status, maps and other "travel documents". And "car hacks" to reprogram the engine computer for performance, economy, or just a throatier roar will probably worm their way through the community's hard drives.

That USB connection will start to converge the two devices. Our desktops already need to work more like dashboards, helping us keep moving rather than representing an anchor we carry with us. And various navigation/entertainment features for the passenger riding shotgun (or the backseat driver, or the insane multitasking driver) will require the flexibility and complexity of a desktop environment.

In the future, Americans will never leave our cars. We'll drive them up into our offices, whether mobile, temporary or just at the mall. We'll keep the same immersive "computing" environment whether at the wheel or at the word processor. The USB connection is the spark jumping the gap. Let the good times roll.

It's because of the USB drive, yes

[Gadgetfreak]

The best idea is that you use the stereo to control the music, not the portable player itself. I've been waiting for this for a LONG time. For several years, car stereos have decoded MP3s off of recordable CDs, but nothing would accept the convenience of the USB drive.

Personally, I don't own an iPod. I have a cheap Panasonic cd player that'll do MP3s, and has an am/fm radio for those times I'm not at home, work, or in my car. I'd almost never need a portable player. I bring music with me on my USB drive and play it at work. For $60 I can bring 1 GB of music, and play it on any computer, keep it in my pocket, and not worry about breaking it or someone stealing it.

I like this idea a lot. And USB will be ubiquitous and popular for at least as long as the car would be expected to last.

Re:The REAL Bad News is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Be sure to check out A Day Without Oil [adaywithoutoil.com] to find out more.

Re:Good

[fliplap]

The iPod adapter was a complete after thought at BMW. BMW put in an AUX input, you can plug in anything to it if you really want.

The only thing that is different is that there is a module you can buy that allows you control the iPod through the stock headunit and steering wheel controls.

Really this can be done with any MP3 player that has a remote if you are willing to put in the time to figure out the signaling for your personal player. BMW's iBus (yes it's really called iBus, no it has nothing todo with Apple's iNaming scheme) is well documented and its easy to write software to read/write to it. I didn't have an MP3 player and I wanted more features than just MP3 ability, for example Wifi scanning controlled through the stock stereo buttons... so I built my own.

Re:Be realistic

[technothrasher]

Only the most foolish designers in the world would manage to some how connect the in-car stereo system to say, the braking system.

Don't be so sure. A lot of modern OEM radios are tied into the car's central CAN bus, so they can do things like talk to the CD changer, get input from the steering wheel buttons, or put info onto the LCD in the instrument cluster. If the radio device has enough programability to put fake packets onto the bus (not completely unbelievable, given the complex navigation radios these days), it could probably do all kinds of scary things.

Open Source Vehicles

[davek]

When I first read the headline, I thought that VW had become the first carmaker to provide an easilly accessable interface into the engine's computer. Then I read that it was so you could "plug in your MP3 player." Idiots.

When will people realize that cars, like computers, work better when open. Expose these meaningless details of how the computer controls the car, and you'll see a revitilization in small business auto repair, no longer requiring car owners to flee to crooked dealerships to get their car fixed.

-dave

Re:a car that brakes when...

[DavidTC]

That's nothing.

I want a car where all primary functions are on their own completely independant systems.

For example, why on earth do power steering and brakes fail if the engine does? Within the last decade, they've made amazing advances in the field of hydrolics, and now they can build a pump that operates solely on electricity. That's right, folks, no more will you have to buy gasoline for your water pump at your well!

No, seriously. Cars have almost no failsafes. One or two in the brake system, but that's about it.

I've had usb in my car since 2001

[bergeron76]

Or somewhereabouts there.

http://www.dashpc.com [dashpc.com]

It's been seen on here before, but since it's relevant, I'll post it again.

Possible Downsides

[UserChrisCanter4]

I've been using an Alpine in-dash stereo with the KCA-420i iPod adapter [alpine-usa.com] for about a year now. VW's choice certainly has some upsides (supports a wider range of devices, even a USB HDD, I assume), but there are going to be some downsides here.

1) The mention that this deck looks for six folders indicates that it will be more complicated than the Alpine system (which supports any and all folder on an iPod). This will complicate synching for users who aren't used to devices with manual file copying.

2) The KCA-420i system works like the iPod dock. All audio decoding is handled in the iPod, which means the Alpine system will play anything your iPod can play. The VW system uses specially named folders and interfaces through USB, which indicates that decoding is handled in the deck. WMA/AAC/LAC/WAV/etc. files probably won't be playable. That's a bad situation. Additionally, iTunes Music Store/Napster/Rhapsody files will probably not be playable. Yes, DRM sucks, but people do use these services and that's going to be a major irritating factor for them.

3) Can USB deliver enough voltage to charge these players while they're playing? I know the iPod can't be charged over USB while playing, and I suspect that's the same situation for most of these devices. One of the nicest parts of Alpine's system is that, because the iPod was designed around firewire originally, it can effectively keep the iPod playing indefinitely.

4) Cost. The VW device costs $250. It interfaces to (I assume) either the factory stereo or the "premium" audio system. I paid $190 for my Alpine deck and $100 for the iPod adapter. That deck is a lot nicer than any base-model VW stereo is going to be, and the system works a lot better. Assuming we start talking about paying extra for the upgrade system, the Alpine's advantage only increases.

I understand that the iPod isn't the only player out there, but it is far and away the best-selling music player, period. The Alpine system could definitely use some improvement, but it's still the best setup available. This is a step in the right direction for VW, but it's definitely flawed compared to what already exists on the market.

Re:Open Source Vehicles

[RexRhino]

There are legal restrictions on this.

For example, the electronics in your car are set to make sure your car maintains a certain amount of fuel efficency or emissions.

If you were allowed to tweak the values in those electronics, you might choose better performance over fuel efficency and low emissions.

So long as things like fuel efficency, emissions, etc. are regulated by the government, there is no way a car company is ever going to willingly let you mess with your engine settings. They could get into a lot of trouble if a download from the internet could allow people to radicly alter those things from what is listen on the sticker when you purchase the car.

Government control and individual choice are not compatible.

Re:Good

[usrusr]

i strongly assume that before usb goes away you can get yourself an usb storage thing (solid state or not, even today you could connect a 3.5 inch external hd if you manage to get around power instabilities while starting the engine) of sufficient size for mp3 applications.

i don't even think you will see any y2015 future gadget that will give an advantage over an aux connection compared to what you can get now over usb, and then you could get even better stuff in the late days of usb2.

ps: you can still buy those 1.4 mb magnetic disk type media, mainstream entertainment electronics stores are still selling drives for that... sure, usb2 won't be the hottest thing 10 years from now, but i would not assume that it will stop "working". usb v1 is over a decade old now and you can still connect any current usb (1 or 2) device and get usb v1 performance. if v2 was not downwards compatible then the market for v1 devices would still be bigger than it is now, and it still exists.

Re:Be realistic

[timeOday]

Correction, a lot of new cars have *multiple* CAN busses. The engine management bus is SEPARATE from the interior controls bus, for obvious reasons. Come on, people, auto engineers aren't that stupid.

Re:More Bad News: No Vorbis

[drxray]

Check this out [cachelogic.com].

Ogg is 12% of all P2Ped music. That's quite a lot.

Re:Be realistic

[thogard]

The 94 Saab 900 had three (ABS, engine and other) but the radio got a speed signal which originated with the speed sensors which I assumed would be hooked to the ABS bus. The misc bus also knew about stuff like brake lights being out so it has to know when the brakes are pressed.