[Ed Zarick] built a module to control his vehicle which he calls the Jeeputer. The name’s a mash-up of Jeep and Computer; the device itself is a combination of Arduino, character LCD, and a collection of shift registers and relays for interfacing. Watch the video after the break to see what this can do. We were surprised in the beginning when he says that all he has left to do is remove the steering wheel lock and he’ll be able to drive using the interface, but we think he means type in a code to unlock the ignition, not remote control for his car. He then goes on to demonstrate garage door control, power cycling for CB radio, GPS, 110V power inverter, vehicle light control, and much more. This must be the most feature packed car computer we’ve seen so far.

In an attempt to create more interaction with our vehicles, researchers have created AIDA. AIDA is basically a car computer and GPS that has some well designed personification. That cute little face will learn your daily habits and schedules and make recommendations to keep you out of traffic. We really like the idea, and the little bit we see of AIDA already has us falling in love, but won’t the placement be a distraction? We already know some people who give their car a name and treat it like a person, we don’t want to imagine what would happen if their car actually had some interactive personality. AIDA’s motion and emotive display are worthy of the crabfu challenge for sure, but do we want AIDA on our dashboard? Yes, most emphatically. She can sit right by the little hula girl.

[via BotJunkie]

[Gabe Graham] sent us this step by step process of building a dock for his Zune and hacking is steering wheel controls to work with it. Like many of us, he was not happy with the performance of those little radio transmitters that hook to your mp3 player. He remedied the situation by mounting a dock for his Zune onto the console and patching into his stereo. The sound quality was great, but controlling it was a pain.

He had one button left on his steering wheel that was not needed for anything.  He created a custom controller for the Zune that would issue different commands based on how long he held the button on the steering wheel. If the button was held for less than half a second, it would skip tracks, any longer and it would pause. Though he could possibly clean up the look of the LED sticking out of the console, the over all effect is quite well done.

The final day for entries in our Hack a Day T-Shirt Design Contest is today. Get your entries in by midnight Pacific time and you could win a Dash Express (or non-US prize).

We need a new t-shirt. The current design is entering its third year. Help us out by designing a new shirt to give away at conferences. Dash has donated a Dash Express for first prize.

Some ground rules:

• You must incorporate the skull and wrenches logo in your design. You’ll find a larger version below.
• You can enter as many designs as you like to hackaday.shirt@gmail.com (JPG, GIF, or PNG mockups only please)
• The design can’t violate any copyright laws or trademarks.
• The design should be one color and the shirt doesn’t have to be black.
• By submitting your design you give us non-exclusive rights to use the image in the design of a Hack a Day t-shirt as well as for other Hack A Day promotional materials.
• We reserve the right to choose no design at all if we don’t like any of the submissions.
• The contest ends September 15th.

UPDATE:

[loopymind] has provided some files to help you out. [ EPS | PDF | DXF ]

[Phesarnion] found the long lost Hack a Day font.

Yes, the contest is open to residents outside the US; we’ll come up with an appropriate prize.

We’ve got a Dash Express in the lab and it’s based on the OpenMoko design. What sort of tomfoolery would you like to see us do with it? What do you think the killer app for the Dash Express will be?

[via Gizmodo]