External Affinity to Sources Makes Big in Car Audio Field

摘要

Every year, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) attracts much interest as a venue for introducing in-vehicle equipment, such as car audio and car navigation products. In that way, this year's show was no different than earlier shows. However, this year's CES took place amid an economic crisis affecting automotive-related industries in the United States more severely than industries involved in home-use products.rnEven so, because automobiles remain necessities of life for so many people in the United States, expectations for car entertainment products remain high, and at this year's show, car audio and car navigation products with various features got people's attention.rnIn the category of car audio products, the key theme was affinity with external sound sources, which has been promoted over the past several years. Thus, products that caught notice were those that accommodated iPods, those that featured a front terminal for Universal Serial Bus (USB) and Bluetooth compatibility, and those that support satellite radio and hybrid digital radio. Other products of note were those that featured voice recognition functions, those that incorporated hand-movement recognition func-rntions and those with strengthened interfaces.