Blog: 
Aug
Jul
Something Old, Something New
Jun
A company called Holux is offering a Bluetooth/GPS device designed for the modern automobile.
Although it looks like a rejected spacecraft design from Battlestar Gallactica, it functions
effectively as one of the many commericially available devices for determining your exact
position on the earth via satellite, and rebroadcasting that information a short distance for use
with another electronic navigation systems. Take a look:
The Holux GR-239. Or, what teenage punks from the Cylon race use for their joyrides.
Sticking out of the back like an oversized exhaust pipe is your standard cigarette lighter
adapter, so the GR-239 can plugged directly into your car. I think this a hilarious and
tragic juxtaposition of new and old technologies. The device contains incredibly advanced
radio technology which is not only capable of triangulating global position via satellite
downlink but rebroadcasting it into a highly-encoded spread-spectrum waveform. What do you
do with this thing? Cram it into a power delivery technology that hasn't changed since 1927,
and was never intended to do anything but ignite cigars! Why can't the car manufacturers
coordinate enough to design a decent connector instead of continuing to encourage us to co-opt
a dashboard feature designed for a behavior that
is practically obsolete?
Technology is just too much, sometimes.
Links:
- Wikipedia on Car Cigarette Lighters
- Service Management article
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