“I’ll trust you about what can be done with an IPOD, but do they come with a 19 inch screen (measured diagonally)? Even with my glasses on, I’d never be able to use that postage stamp sized screen.”

Nope, but you probably knew that. My aging eyes are getting bad too. However if you can read standard magazine/newspaper print, then you can probably read the menus on an iPod. If not, then you may be out of luck. Fortunately, the iPod’s core music functions don’t require much reading once you know the menus.

I’ll trust you about what can be done with an IPOD, but do they come with a 19 inch screen (measured diagonally)? Even with my glasses on, I’d never be able to use that postage stamp sized screen.
“FIRST let’s just get the Volt’s wheels on the road!!!”
Be well,
Tag

“iPod connectivity? 10-88.”

That’s fine, but considering that Apple has sold about 140 million iPods in the last four years, there are a lot of folks who disagree with you. The ability to select from millions of songs, podcasts (think free on-demand talk radio), and audio books and have them all with you in your car is a great way to pass-the-time or learn something while driving.

Of course, I’m ignoring the newer iPod features (not recommended while driving) such as making calculations, watching TV shows and movies, playing video games, surfing the web, checking email, viewing digital photos, GPS navigation, etc. Today an iPod can do most of what a laptop normally does.

Yeah, kind of like LOL, LOL.

Very cool cat, BTW.

LOL, sounds like a good plan (especially given the tortoise-like pace of my typing).
Be well,
Tag

The bottom line.

To which I would just add, once again – tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Or how would one describe in words the sound of the sand running out in the hourglass? A bit of a primitive thought in the land of the iPod, I guess, LOL.

Years ago I used to work on large construction projects. We had two way radios in all of our vehicles. We used the police style “10 codes”, probably to make ourselves feel important. “10-4″, “10-7″, “10-20″, etc. You all remember “Adam 12″, right?

Anyway, one day a guy answered a question with “10-88″ I had never heard of it, so next time I saw him I asked him what it meant. He said, “It’s the official ‘10 code’ for ‘You have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a s**t’”. True to the intent of the “10 codes”, I will adopt it here to save typing in future comments.

iPod connectivity? 10-88.

“Here is an EXCELLENT video about Digital Rights Management– or what ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind calls C.R.A.P. (Content Restriction Annulment Protection) — has enabled companies like Apple to lock music downloaded through their service into their own devices.”

I would say the word “crap” also describes the content of the youtube video you provided, since most of that video was biased or factually wrong.

Apple/Jobs selected the 99 cent price point since it was simple. What does a song cost? Always 99 cents. Simple. And they did this around year 2000 when they had no pull with the music industry or anyone else. Around that time, everyone had written Apple off as dead, so they had absolutely no way to manipulate the music industry. Apple succeeded where others failed because they were the first company to provide all three key pieces:

1) You need a fun easy way to PLAY the music. (iPod)
2) You need a convenient way to OBTAIN the music. (iTunes Application)
3) Artists need a convenient way to PUBLISH the music. (iTunes Music Store)

These three pieces are like the legs of tripod. Remove one, and it falls over. Once Apple provided all three legs, the iPod market exploded.

To get the music industry to buy into this dream, Apple was forced (by the music industry) to implement DRM. Since then, Apple has removed DRM to the extent the music industry will allow it. Apple hates DRM. If Apple could choose, there would be no DRM. Please read this open letter from Jobs/Apple for more info.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

GM certainly will keep dealerships in the loop. Software updates probably will only be installed by dealers or down loaded by OnStar and installed by GM personnel remotely. Maybe while your car is charging. Another thing we will have to wait to see later.

The DVD system was a very weak 40 bit (but effectively only 16 bits because it was flawed) encryption key, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Scramble_System

If you don’t trust digital signatures then I hope you don’t have automatic updates turned on for anything (including the operating system) and only get updates and/or patches on CD’s directly from the software maker.

If anything, updates to your vehicles firmware would be much more secure than on your home (or laptop) computer because you need physical access to the vehicle (as well as the ignition key fob which is a security system itself).

Now I don’t imagine GM will provide such functionality anyway… they want to keep the dealerships in the loop to keep them happy (remember they make more money on service and parts than on sales of new vehicles), so it’s a moot point.