Foursprung: History and future of car gadgets

Phil at TimesOnline thought about car gadgets in the past, today and tomorrow:

It began with the in-car radio and humble cup holder but today’s driving gadgets, many of which start off as fanciful luxuries, soon became the norm, from hands-free mobile phones to satnav, although the jury is out on whether the in-car toilet will take off...

A tour of any car accessory shop will convince you that man’s inventiveness is at its peak on the road. There are gadgets to cater for your every requirement, plus quite a few for the needs you never dreamed you had.

As a result some are of an almost staggering uselessness, the kind of items you dread finding in your Christmas stocking. But the car market has a habit of turning things derided at launch into in-car essentials. The Galvin Corporation developed the car radio in 1929 to almost universal guffaws. By the 1950s it was a staple of Hollywood films, and to buy a car not equipped with one now is unthinkable. Even in the 1980s air conditioning was the butt of jokes in the UK, but today almost every new car comes with it.

There are several technologies that have quickly become fundamental parts of modern motoring. While they might not be strictly essential to the driver, they make negotiating the busy and dangerous terrain of the open road easier, more relaxing and safer.

Satellite navigation is one of the car gadget success stories of recent years. Originally embraced by the business community, a combination of eminent practicality, increasingly brilliant packaging and its arrival at an attractive price point means that anybody who drives their car on more than a few familiar journeys can find a use for the technology.

In very few years we will wonder just how we did without it, and the road atlas industry will be a footnote in history. The rise of Satnav is one of the reasons why display screens are now a common sight in cars. Screens are also useful for all sorts of entertainment, such as television, video, DVD and games consoles, and these are finding their way into cars. To parents the appeal of these toys is obvious, as they can bring peace to the warzone of the back seat.

In-car entertainment moved beyond the AM/FM radio over a decade ago, but the new technologies were developed as individual systems that simply did not talk to each other. The cars of the technologically enthusiastic, as a result, came to resemble mobile electronics stores.

Unification has finally brought multi-media to the ordinary public, thanks to units such as Alpine’s Mobile Media Stations. These get Satnav, DVD players, audio sources and games consoles to talk to each other, and create in-car systems that can be controlled from a central touch screen. Demand for these will expand, especially as they are now as easy to use as a microwave. Even the most committed technophobe has no excuse to avoid mobile multi media.

Touching is strongly discouraged where telephones are concerned. Figures suggest that over 70 per cent of mobile phone calls are made from cars, while actually using a mobile in the usual way while driving is now illegal in 35 countries. Riding to the rescue of the road going chattering classes is Bluetooth, a language that machines can use to work together.

Foursprung

Source: TimesOnline

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