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Parrot Asteroid to drive music, Android from your dash this October (video)
We've seen flavors of Android on our tablets, smartphones -- even a microwave oven -- but Parrot's Asteroid receiver is finally ready to park in your car's dash, bringing a tricked out version of Google's mobile OS to yet another innovative platform. In addition to an FM radio and a line-in connection (duh), the Asteroid also includes USB connectivity, an SD card slot, music on demand, and voice activated music search. There's also hands-free calling over Bluetooth, contact voice recognition, and automatic phonebook sync -- all controlled using a built-in jog wheel or your voice, and displayed on a 3.2-inch LCD. The device connects to the web using your smartphone's WiFi hotspot feature, or by attaching a USB 3G dongle. Asteroid's built-in Maps app and external GPS antenna will be ready to help you navigate the highway for $349 beginning in October, but jump past the break for a peek at the receiver's red-light-cam-spotting iCoyote app in the meantime.
Parrot Asteroid car receiver packs Android and apps into your dash
Parrot's back from its AR.Drone insanity and wrestling with its core competency -- although it has a new open source twist. Parrot has put Android onto a car receiver, but it's a heavily modified version that runs small apps on a 3.2-inch screen, with a jog dial, a back button, and a menu button for control. Parrot's experiment is dubbed Asteroid, and it has a lot of example apps already, included a GPS-based maps view, but the real goal is to get an SDK out there and allow developers to build apps for the platform. Luckily, while the unit is short on controls, it's not short on inputs, including USB ports for iPhone docking, USB storage, a 3G modem, and a GPS dongle, along with an SD card slot and a mic (for talking to a paired Bluetooth phone). For the music bit you can actually search through both your iPhone and your USB / SD libraries using your voice. Right now there's no word on price, but Parrot plans to launch in major European markets in Q1, with a US version following in Q2. %Gallery-112574% %Gallery-112577%
