With the features provided by solid state flash and hi quality MP3 encoding, having a single CD to carry along has quickly become not only retro, but quite obsolete. Of course one could have a 6 CD (or more) changer in their car’s trunk but that only adds to the weight of the car, and in times of 1.30$/liter gasoline, every saved gram is a saved milliliter of gasoline and that equates to money saved. At the end of the day, you realize that you’ve been lugging along an extra 2kg of CD player and CDs for nothing.
So on that thought, car manufacturers are starting to phase out CD Players from their vehicles to replace them with lighter radios that can stream music from your phones via blutooth or by using a cable, or can play music from a USB memory stick or SD card or any other lighter and more efficient media than an old CD.
Let’s not forget that the compact disc, launched in the early 1980s is 30 year old technology and that frankly, as someone who can’t really tell the difference between an uncompressed recording like an original CD, and a high quality 320kbs MP3 compressed song, I won’d miss it. Keep in mind that we’re taking about cars here, not your 10.000$ ultra-hi-fi system in the soundproof den.
A car, with all the background noises that come with it, road and tyre noise, kids arguing on the back seat, squeaks and rattles, pedestrians screaming, trying to get out of your way, police (and ambulance) sirens chasing you, the channel 7 news helicopter, of course gunshots and finally the impact noise from hitting that fence after having your tyres shot out with live ammo by the police, but I digress…
Face it, the next logical step is for PCs to get rid of the CD, netbooks seem to be doing fine without them…
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