Mercedes has announced it has
integrated the iPhone into its range of cars and SUVs. Which is interesting as the Blackbery still outsells the iPhone though Apple is going after the Blackberry market by lowering the price of the starting iPhone to $200.
I am really disappointed with the integration of modern tech tools into my car. While my car has a heads up display, a navigation screen and a DVD that flips up and out when I press a button; it does not integrate with the iPod, let alone the iPhone. Since I have bought the iPhone it has replaced my nanoPod, though I still have a large iPod which holds my entire music collection and is hooked into a Bose player in the house.
I pretty much consider the need to hook a car up to an iPod, Zune, Blackberry, whatever as essential these days. People use and rely on these devices constantly; whether it is power, music, txt or voice communication. The old car stereo is an anachronism, unfortunately, the car industry runs at a snails pace due to the long lead times on platforms.
I don't know why car manufacturers try to integrate so much into their cars. It effectively dates them as the tech changes so rapidly that an 80s car looks archaic internally. Portable technology has taken off in recent years as batteries have improved and storage for both RAM and mini-harddrives have shrunk in costs.
The navigation DVD screen my car has, while large, it inferior to the small portable ones you can get from Best Buy for a couple of hundred dollars. It may be that car manufacturers need to look at how the IBM clones came about and give third party manufacturers and integrators something like the PCI slot, or the USB conenctor to hook a car's devices into rather than the super-integrated, and out-dated, offerings of current manufacturers.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
