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Sunday, 12 April 2009 20:17
What does a fast car have in common with the fastest Mac Mini? Well, not much really but they do make a great couple. The first merge of a Porsche Cayman S with a Mac Mini has happened in Los Angeles by Nasi Peretz, an engineer from USC. Turning on the ignition of the Porsche makes the terrifying exhaust sound that scares most women and at the same time in the background you hear the typical turn-on chime from an Apple machine emitted from the speakers.As you look deeper in the car you find that the center console has a 7 inch touch screen display embedded in a custom bezel created to look stock, and to flow with the aesthetics of the car, as if Apple and Porsche made a partnership to build the ideal car for geeks. The same display then reveals the OS X Leopard background quickly followed by an auto loading Front Row (Apple’s media center software) which reveals a myriad of videos & songs. As you dig deeper in the car you find that the glove compartment has a four port USB hub for external devices and a wireless card for surfing the net while driving at a fast (but always legal) velocity. The last of the elements that you find hidden inside the car is an Infrared port, which allows the Apple remote to control the Mac Mini without revealing the computer’s location.Speaking of the computer’s location, working our way outside the car we find where that little Mac white box is hidden. There are two trunks in this particular Porsche, a front trunk and a rear trunk as the Cayman is a mid-engine car, so with the odds being 50/50 we decide to explore the front trunk first. It reveals a compartment where the Navigation unit usually resides that contains the Mac Mini along with a CarNetix power box. The Mini fits perfectly into the compartment, almost as-if it was made for it and a custom power cable connects it to a DC-DC power regulator which can then be traced back to the car battery along with the ignition. The ignition cable gives the Mini a little kick which alerts it to wake up, and meanwhile the computer sleeps while the car is off. A sleeping computer is not necessarily a computer that is not consuming power, so after 2 days the DC-DC power regulator cuts off all power to avoid draining the battery.

You might be thinking ok this is great, a computer in the car, but you could just plug in your iPod to achieve something similar. Well, not exactly… the possibilities are endless when it’s a Mac Mini, some of the other features it is currently accomplishing: GPS, FM connection via Radio Shark, CNN live video stream during a morning drive, movie watching during long trips, car performance monitoring, emailing checking (highly unsafe in the list of options), and enjoying a wide collection of music & video that our friends at Apple have made available via their wonderful Front Row interface.

Now, getting to the details:
I. Porsche Cayman S – Year 2007
II. The Mac Mini is currently setup with Front Row, two auto loading scripts to adjust screen resolution and pop open front row
III. The display is a Xenarc 705TSV
IV. The input devices as of right now (always expanding): 500 Gig External Hard Drive, USB Hub, Logitech DiNovo mini keyboard w/ Bluetooth receiver, Radio Shark, and Sprint Internet USB Card
V. Front Row, the Apple remote control, and the touch screen do all the heavy lifting when it comes to User Interface for the system, with an occasional need for the Logitech DiNovo keyboard for typing
VI. The Audio is powered by a 4 channel mini AMP that is hidden behind the glove compartment to give the sound a little boost before it makes it’s way to the speakers

I wish the Rabbit had a factory option for this. In fact I wish any car had a factory option for this. It looks so natural on the Porsche. As if it were a build to order from Porsche.

Last edited by gd (2009-07-04 12:00 am)