Gadgetopia

When Jaguar releases next year’s XK, its dashboard will be graced with a Flash interface. Alpine has put together an in-dash unit that uses plain old Flash for the button display. (Link.) Different display modes will allow control over audio, navigation, climate control, cell phone and other vehicle settings

This is our most advanced human machine interface to date. It opens up significant opportunities for car designers to employ a flexible, creative user interface that’s still intuitive. We expect to see more applications. Customers want something simple, quick and a pleasure to use; this technology is the way forward.

I would agree. While the display isn’t much different than what you see offered by other car makers, the Flash interface seems to be much more polished & clean than what I’ve seen of late.

And with its Flash underpinnings, I would guess that the unit is basically a mobile PC. If that’s true, and there is some means of interfacing with the PC, the interface will be infinitely more hackable. I predict that you’ll see more manufacturers following Alpine’s lead, and hackers will in short order figure out how to mod their displays… Unless the manufacturers include instructions on how to do it. Think of the residual sales potential for something like that, selling different themes for users to customize their rides!