NEWS: Audi/Bang & Olufsen take internet radio on the road

An internet radio station in your car, able to tailor its programming
to your own musical tastes - that's just one of the features built
into the Audi Cross Cabriolet Quattro concept car. It's being shown by
the company at the Los Angeles Motor Show, which opens to the public
tomorrow.

The Bang & Olufsen system streams radio via the car's mobile internet
link, and as a result of the car's occupants accepting or rejecting
the music on offer, builds a tailor-made playlist able to adapt itself
to your tastes.

And there's more to the sound system, and the car's internet
facilities, than that. To get over the old problem of wind noise in
even the best-designed convertibles, the Cross Cabriolet Quattro uses
microphones in each of its headrests to feed an intercom connected
through the sound system, so occupants' voices are amplified to enable
conversation to be continued.


And the internet link? That also feeds the navigation system, which
uses mapping from Google Earth, and thus has photorealistic 3D maps of
your location and destination. No keying-in of addresses - you just
find the desired location visually, click it and away you go.

Oh, and for the petrolheads, or rather dieselheads, among you, the
engine is a new version of the company's 3.0-litre TDI unit. Able to
deliver 237bhp, 369lb/ft of torque, 0-62mph in 7.2sec and a top speed
of 149mph, it'll also give about 46mpg while maintaining sufficiently
low emissions to meet even Californian regulations.

http://whathifi.com/mp3/archive/2007...-the-road.aspx

Ha! Ha! HD Radio, Eduardo! It's inevitable - move over HD Radio for
Pandora, Slacker, and Last.fm!