The iMotion CarPlay Direct Connect is Monster’s way to make the category more interesting. The device charges your iPod, iPhone or iPad through the lighter in your car, as usual, but also has an audio jack to connect the device to your car’s audio system. Monster takes it a step further and let’s you control your iPod with the wave of your hand. Simply by waving in front of the iMotion CarPlay, you can tell the iPod to pause, play, rewind, and fast forward.

It’s a pretty neat feature, that can possibly lead to less distracted drivers, which is always a good thing. For $129.95, it is a bit pricey, however.

read [Monster Pressroom]

• Since it’s late 2007 introduction, SYNC is now installed in 3 million cars.
• 80% of SYNC users recommend SYNC to a friend
• 70% of SYNC users use the system while driving, relying on voice commands

“Ford SYNC is clearly making a difference in our customer experience,” said Ken Czubay, Ford vice president of U.S. Marketing, Sales and Service. “Not only is it proving to differentiate our products from the competition, SYNC is becoming a key point of satisfaction.”

Expect to see more Ford SYNC news this week as CES unfolds.

Company site: [Ford]

According to a new report from J.D. Powers, owners of vehicles with factory-installed navigation devices are using portable navigation devices (PND) and smartphones as their primary navigation choice. The study by J.D. Powers set out to rank customer satisfaction of these units and found a large number of owners opting to use something else to get the job done. The Clarion system supplied in Ford Fusions ranked #1 in customer satisfaction.

Ease of use, lower costs and more up-to-date mapping were reasons factory installed options are failing owners. For some, navigating on factory units is cumbersome and a completely different experience than perhaps the PND they’ve become used to. Lower costs for alternative navigation is also a factor J.D. Powers pointed to.

“Portable navigation devices and smartphone navigation both offer a less expensive and more convenient alternative to a factory-installed navigation system,” said Mike Marshall, director of automotive emerging technologies at J.D. Power and Associates. “As these options become more prevalent, it’s important that suppliers take into account some of the features that make these systems preferable—such as ease of use and less expensive and more frequent updates for maps and points of interest—and incorporate them into factory-installed navigation systems to better satisfy customer needs. In addition to addressing these key issues, prices of factory-installed navigation systems need to stay competitive with these other navigation devices growing in popularity.”

Indeed, even free services, such as the experience found in some Android devices, are very simple and feature simple voice input to get destination information. Smartphone GPS navigation has come a long way and continues to get easier to use with each iteration.

Read: [Virtual Press Office]

Smart announced the launch of their iPhone app and Drive Kit that brings the functionality of the iPhone to the Smart driving experience. The Drive Kit is a charging cradle for the car while the app is designed to make navigating the iPhone's basic functions while driving an easier task. The result is a rather large UI and simplified choices.

The kit plus the app has already won the coveted “Best Portable Telematics Solution” in the 2010 Telematics Update Award. The kit is available at Smart dealers where, according to Benzinsider.com, purchasers will get a $10 iTunes gift card to cover the cost of the $9.99 app in the App Store. Clever enough.

Currently, the app handles phone calls, music controls, odd maps, navigation, and assistance for help with roadside assistance. Impressive features include a remember where I parked, a Shazam-like "what song is playing" identifier and access to loads of web-radio stations. An upgrade to navigation to include traffic updates is in the works.

The comments in the App Store are decidedly unfavorable. The reviews center on many of the features are already available on the iPhone without spending $10. I'd counter that by saying, the cradle is a must buy for Smart Fortwo owners, the app is free (with the $10 gift card) and provides a more driver-friendly UI so users can keep more attention on the road, less on the gadget.

Product page: [Smart
]

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While the Droid X news is still hot, Motorola figured they would announce their accessories for the Droid X ahead of launch in case customers want to know what will be out there for the Droid X. On the Motorola Shop site, there are two accessories that will be available presumably when the phone launches on July 15. The accessories include the Car Mount for Droid X and the Multimedia Station for Droid X; prices for both accessories are not yet known.

The Car Mount automatically launches the dashboard app on the Droid X when connected, plays music through the car stereo, can access Internet Radio (such as Pandora), and Google Maps Navigation – all while keeping the phone charged. The Multimedia Station is a simple dock for your Droid X and allows you to display videos and photos on an HDTV assuming you have the necessary HDMI wire that isn’t included. In addition, it lets you play music and even display photos as a digital photo frame. The phone will charge while in the dock.

None of these accessories are must have by any means, but they will certainly make your Droid X experience a little bit better.

Check it out [Motorola Car Mount] and [Motorola Multimedia Station]

The second new device is the T1 headset. The newest headset in the Blue Ant family offers Wind Armor Technology that promises clear calls in up to 22MPH winds, text to speech capability and up to 6hrs of talk time.

Stay tuned for a full review coming soon!

Read [Blue Ant]

The unit is designed to attach to the car visor by use of magnets; therefore, it is probably easy to use between cars. To make calls easier to hear, the Bluetooth unit features noise suppression and echo cancellation technology. With 7 hours of battery life on a single charge, the unit should hopefully last through long car rides and long phone calls. As of now, the Voice Control Bluetooth Car Speakerphone is available online through Moshi’s website and retails for $79.99.

Product [Moshi]

Is Apple getting into the streaming music game? According to rumors regarding next week’s Apple event, yes. According to the rumors, Apple has spoken to the top four music labels about music streaming as a way to add value to the sales iTunes currently garners.

The rumors play off Apple’s purchase of Lala, a streaming music service. The idea is Lala would be the backbone of the iTunes streaming plan where users could stream their music (with an option to store music on iTunes servers) and listen to preset stations for free. This move has many of us asking, how would this affect Pandora?

Pandora, perhaps the most popular music streaming service, just recorded their first profitable quarter. It has been a long road for the 10-year-old company to profitability, but if CES showed us anything, it is that Pandora is now ensconced in the tech world. From new Ford cards, to Pioneer radios to Panasonic TVs, among lots others. Pandora is the cool app to have for your ecosystem.

How could Apple make iTunes streaming beat out Pandora, one of it’s most popular Apps? It is extremely likely that Apple will add iTunes streaming to it’s core applications that can be run in the background. One of the issues with Pandora on the iPhone is the inability to multitask while streaming music through the app. Apple could keep Pandora at bay by granting multitasking to its program.

Is it too late for iTunes or does Apple’s walled garden, that is the iPhone OS, present a captured market that need only one benefit (perhaps the ability to run in the background) to convert users? Or is Pandora’s head start combined with tech’s embrace of the app enough to compete? Time will tell.

Read [Fonehome] and [CNET]

CES 2010 is an enigma. For the Gadgetell crew, there wasn’t a clear winning product. One thing we can agree was three companies owned this show, all without actually having a booth. Those three companies are Netflix, Facebook and Pandora.

These three are bread, peanut butter and jelly to electronics today. They represent the go-to apps everyone apparently want to have on freaking everything. From Panasonic TVs to LG DVD players to Sony Dash clock radio thing, to Pioneer aftermarket car stereos to Ford cars. You cannot get away from them.

In fact, if you don’t have accounts with any of the three, get them now. Pandora is a fantastic online music service, Netflix is a great movie service (everywhere thanks to its free streaming service for members) and Facebook, the social network everyone seems to be on these days.

Of the three, Pandora is perhaps primed for explosive growth. Those of us with Pandora smartphone apps, know that having this in the car is tops. Ford will bring Pandora to so many new users with no smartphone required. I asked Ford if they had a revenuing sharing deal with Pandora and didn’t get much of answer after a pretty good chuckle. Pandora has become the goto music app.

Netflix has done an equally excellent job in getting their content to users via a myriad of apps. They have become the leader in online streaming despite efforts from Blockbuster, Amazon and others to supplant them. You can’t swing a dead cat at CES without hitting something that can get Netflix streaming movies. We tried.

And mighty Facebook. Named top dog at the Cruchies yet again, Facebook continues to work hard to allow users to update status from virtually anywhere. Is it a fad like our love affair with MySpace or will it morph with the times? We don’t know but Facebook is everywhere and primed to get more and more users thanks to its ubiquty.

So with that, more than any product, we see these three as the real winners this year at CES.

Thanks to Energizer for providing the battery power to run all our gadgets at the show. Without their support, we wouldn’t have been able to bring you the content we did. A big thanks! Check out energitogo for all the stuff we used to keep us powered up.

Ford, who recently announced dealer installed WiFi in Sync-enabled vehicles, has now announced that some vehicles will have HD radio and iTunes tagging in 2010.

Ford is the first automaker to announce this technology which will turn normal radio into nearly CD-quality sound with an added bonus of being able to tag songs for later purchase on iTunes. And it is a very simple process as well. Users simply need to hit the “TAG” button on the radio display when they hear a song they want to purchase. The vehicle is able to store up to 100 “tags” so unless you decide you like every single song you hear as you drive from California to New York, you should be fine.

Once you hit that tag button, the data is transferred to a connected iPod. Then, once you sync your iPod to your iTunes, you’ll be able to view all the songs you tagged and decide if you like them enough to purchase them or not.

So now, if your like me and always tell yourself “Ok, I want this song!” as your driving down the road but forget by the time you got home, you are in luck. Ford is promising amazing quality music and the ability to purchase it later. Pretty cool in my opinion. Big question though, if your in a car that is a roaming hotspot, why would you need to tag your songs if you can just pull up your laptop and purchase them before you go into the hardware store?

Read [Mashable]