Yeah, I’ve been busy the last few weeks. Between planning for Christmas, work, planning for Thanksgiving, hanging out with my grampa before he heads to Texas for the winter, planning the logistics for the three BMW projects I have for this winter, and making plans to start working out twice a week with my buddy Ryan, I’ve been a busy little bee. Hence the lack of blogging lately. I apologize. I’ll try to keep my pace steady, my writing spectacular.

At the moment, I’m completely consumed with accomplishing project numero uno for the BMW this winter. This particular project has actually been in the works for almost two years, but I’m just now to a point at which I could brag about it just a little. I call it nMotion ICIE (In-Car Interactive Entertainment).

When I bought my car it didn’t have anything but the factory radio it rolled off the showroom floor with. It still, in fact, contains only that. I’m exceptionally limited to what I can listen to in my car, and while radio is all fine and dandy, being an audiophile has its disadvantages. Such as I can’t stand sub-quality music. Anything broadcast over the radio lacks in quality, no matter how good the music might be, which is why most people have CD players in their rides. I’m aiming to do everyone one better.

nMotion is simply the “software-side” of a larger project. The end result will be a dash-integrated touchscreen interface to more than 3000 songs, movies and videos. In addition, I’ll still have the use of the radio waves, albeit with slightly more functionality than the standard CD player you get from your friendly neighborhood stereo shop. nMotion is the “front end,” or “interface” to all of these things. But I couldn’t stop there. No, no. I have to drive myself insane by seeing just how far I can push a concept, so nMotion will also include the following:

• GPS navigation w/weather, traffic (and traffic light camera) and construction updates
• radar detector integration
• cellular phone integration
• car climate control
• OBD-II diagnostics
• voice-activated commands
• screen gesture integration
• sport mode/seat control/traction control interface
• remote start (perhaps from my laptop from anywhere)
• remote tracking (just in case someone wants to joyride my toy)
• scheduling/e-mail/calendar which will auto-sync to my home network

Yeah, I know, I’m a glutton for punishment. I’ll be writing a few blogs on the creation of these features as I write them. For the moment, I’ve got a good solid framework in place. When it’s complete, I may make it available for purchase or perhaps open-source, complete with SDK. For the moment, however, it’s just another typical project of mine… scope-creeping out of control.