I spent the day at CES yesterday, and made a point to check out the Ford, Mercedes, Audi and Beltronics/Escort Radar exhibits. It was a shame Lexus and BMW were not present.

1) Mercedes mBrace2 which is the new COMAND interface is very disappointing
* - Functionality is like BMW Apps and BMW Online combined into a BMW Online like offer. *However the interface graphics are not as slick, largely due to the small screen. *There is nothing new. *I prefer the BMW setup. *Also they will have a monthly fee or annual fee for the service like BMW online because their entire service is dependent on the car's Internet connection (not your smartphone). At least with BMW many of the apps are offered with your smartphone connection.
Lexus is doing this the right way with a smartphone connectivity solution.
* - Navigation has nothing new just slightly better maps/graphics
* - Display is same size as before - small narrow screen format. *They had the next gen SL on display sporting the new mbrace2 system and the screen was same as on the E Class.*
- They do demo a concept gesture based control interface - it was purely conceptual and hooked to a projector not a HUD - but clearly this is the way to go in the future.
* - Bottom line - this still seems outdated compared with BMW, and very outdated compared with Audi and Lexus 4GS.

2) Audi had some interesting stuff
- Their nav system interface is largely the same, but enhanced with Nvidia GPU and LTE 4G connectivity. I was reminded how good their google integration is - especially the street view feature. Street view navigation works like a dream with LTE and Nvidia. Really awesome. And this is available later this year.
- They had a nice urban car concept which I will add pictures of later. *Very small go-kart like vehicle which looked like a lot of fun.
- they had a full windshield HUD concept which used three large full color HUDs laid side by side on the dashboard. It was awesome because it allowed you to have a lot of location awareness stuff (a bit like yelp eye). *Further the Navigation could show where you really want to go. *I could imagine this being not too far from market - the concept seemed feasible as opposed to conceptual like the Mercedes one.

3) Ford's tech is disappointing but the Fusion is awesome.
- The new Fusion is the most beautiful sedan launched in the mainstream segment ever. *I will post pics later.
- Checked out the latest SYNC Apps. *They have a lot of music apps, plus twitter, but they don't have much useful stuff (e.g. No Yelp or Facebook). *It was disappointing. *Plus you have to switch apps using the iPhone. *Android had better control through head unit.
- Voice recognition remains best in class.

4) Beltronics/Escort
- The Escort Live feature will be available for the custom installed detectors from Q2.
- Escort Live is superb because it allows detectors to report signals and Patrol car presence to other detectors giving you more advanced warning. *An innovative use of Cloud which I found quite impressive. *It integrates with both iOS and Android.
- I will add this upgrade to my Bel STIR+. It is a no brainer.

BTW Other cool stuff I saw
-8000p TV from Sharp. basically. A retina display TV. Very impressive.
- 55" OLED from LG
- 3D Printer for only $1200 - may buy that. A guy used it to make an iPhone case in just 5 minutes.
- Holgraphic image projection. A Chinese company had a product which could project yourself as a life size hologram in blue. It was like Princess Leia's hologram in StarWars. Amazing.

 

Damn, the year I decide not to go, they have cool stuff. Last year was a bit of a let down. Not much cool stuff IMO.

 

cool stuff.

 

Where's the pictures!

 

Thanks for the updates!

 

Thanks for the update.

this sounds way cool-more info if you have any