Gadgetory

hello I'm Tom Merritt editor from cnet.com and welcome to Road Warrior where we take a look at the hottest gadgets for life on the go coming up with all the hoopla around CES it's easy to forget about the Detroit Auto Show but that also happened and this episode is all about cars and the stuff that goes in them let's start with something you can use in or out of the car the XM sky Phi 3 radio rich demuro shows it off there's a few ways you can get your XM programming on this you can have this mounted in your car so you can get it in your car do the whole setup where you have an antenna you can also get it at home using a dock like this one so you can actually pop it in your dock and listen at home with the antenna and the power cord then you could pop it out of the dock like I have it and listen on the go it also stores 10 hours of XM programming and I help you through the areas with no reception next up the pioneer avic z2 Kevin Massey explains the new easier to follow map screen one of the major upgrades for the avic z2 is that the folks at pioneer have combined forces with tele atlas which is a mapping database company Sally atlas has is using a system called point address which is an extensive database of 45 million individual addresses located by GPS coordinates oh I also noticed on the maps there's little icons of like I see McDonald's icon they have like chili so when you're driving you can see all those places that's right and one of the one of the best things about this is that this split screen map view you've got the over overhead birds eye view here but you also have this 3d impression of literally driving down the street and you can see the points of interest flowing by on either side of the road here the avic g2 also plays music and video as well and the nav system is hard drive based not DVD now let's get to some cars the smart fortwo is finally coming to the US but is this miniscule $15,000 car really safe little tiny cars have often had that stigma attached to them in the US market when you're driving around amongst Tahoes and expeditions you can see why so they're going to message something called the treaty on safety cell which is the framework inside the car they'll portray this thing as a little vault on wheels and it's loaded with airbag so that is standard in that low price deliveries on the smart fortwo are expected in early two thousand eight small not your thing no worries let's try the big old Ford interceptor concept car then big some might even call it chunky under the hood you'll find something very chunky a 400-horsepower 5-liter v8 hooked up to a 6-speed manual I love the idea of a six-speed gearbox manually shifted in a big four door that did you hear the rumors a while back about a Mustang sedam this is it obviously it's not a Mustang by any look but it is loosely based on Mustang mechanicals Brian ads there's no truth to the rumor of a Mustang station wagon or SUV or flying Mustang it's just not true that's it for this edition of road warrior I'm Tom Merritt check back next time for more gadgets that keep you armed and dangerously productive