Aussie Motoring

For some time now it’s been fairly obvious that Ford would be looking to sell it’s 1/3rd share in Mazda. While that may have been a very tough decision for Ford to make because a lot of Ford’s research and development work is actually done by Mazda it was a decision that looked inevitable thanks to Ford’s difficult financial situation.

Late last week several respected news sources in Japan announced that the sale as definitely going to happen and now the hunt is on to find a buyer. While many think that a local Japanese company will pick up Ford’s share there are rumours that the Indian car maker Tata Motors is also interested in buying into Mazda.

Only time will tell but don’t be fooled into thinking that an Indian car maker who seems intent on producing the cheapest car in the world isn’t interested in a share of a Japanese car manufacturer. Tata has already bought Jaguar and Landrover from Ford.

Are you one of those really advanced techno-geek revheads that would love to be able to intergrate your iPod into the dash of your car? Well you’re not alone, it seems that there are many people around the world who would love to be able to do that and dispense with the current non-tech plug-in-cigarette lighter solution.

Ford, GM and Mazda are all working with Apple on ways to intergrate the iPod into their vehicles’ audio systems. Initially Ford is looking at simply plugging the iPod into the face plate of the radio but further down the track there will be an interface in the glove box that will allow the iPod to be operated from the audio controls on the dash.

GM will be starting with a similar system to Ford and once again it will require the iPod to be placed in the glove box.

Mazda is not saying much at all except to say that it will offering an iPod interface on all its vehicles worldwide.At the moment Ford and GM are only looking at offering the interface on US vehicles from the 2007 model onwards.

Somehow shoving the iPod in the glove box seems like a rather clumsy way of doing things to me - surely there’s a more elegant and geeky alternative they could have used.

Who am I kidding, I don’t even own an iPod or any other sort of MP3 player and even the TivX controls leave me confused

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