from the dept. Connecting cars to the Internet to provide drivers with guides to restaurants and leisure activities and event schedules is an elegant, if not entirely new, idea. Honda Motor Co. and other Japanese automakers are touting their cyber cars as the wave of the future. Honda's Internavi -- offered as a free service -- already has 40,000 customers in Japan. But in practice, the technology underpinning these futuristic automobiles is still a little clunky. Honda's Internavi builds off a computer satellite mapping system found in some 5 million cars in Japan, adding a modem, Internet browser capability and a mobile phone to the dashboard-mounted paperback-sized screen. The navigation machine costs about $1,800, and the extra parts for Internavi cost about $640, including installation fees. Honda has no plans yet to introduce Internavi in the United States, although General Motors Corp.'s OnStar has developed a similar vehicle communication system. < | >
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