Screamin Eagle Performance Super Tuner Pro 32109-08b on 2040-parts.com

Pioneer App Radio officially unveiled

Pioneer has officially unveiled the App Radio that AutoWeek told you about earlier this month. Now that it's willing to talk, Pioneer claims that the radio and audio system is "the first in-vehicle product designed to utilize the processing power, storage capacity, network connectivity and apps of the iPhone and iPod Touch as the primary source for its information and entertainment capabilities." That does sound a lot like what Mini Connected and, in a more platform-agnostic sense, Ford Sync are doing. Pioneer said it couldn't speak to the similarity of those systems, but Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for Pioneer's car-electronics division, briefed us on installation of the device and what Pioneer is doing to minimize driver distraction.

Dr Zetsche opens CES with keynote speech

Hot on the heels of the unveiling of the new Mercedes-Benz SL in Detroit yesterday, Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG hot-footed it to Las Vegas to open the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with a keynote speech that highlighted the company's direction in the ever-important tech space. Car Design News made a similar journey from Michigan to Nevada to bring you the headlines.

Daimler and Renault-Nissan strike a global partnership

Daimler today struck a wide-ranging partnership with the Renault-Nissan alliance, in a deal that will usher in new jointly developed cars, shared technologies and a multitude of cost savings.  Cars such as the new 2014 Smart Fortwo will now be twinned with the next Renault Twingo, while the Forfour is set for a comeback and we can expect plenty of shared combustion engines and electric motors, borrowed platforms and jointly developed SUV tech across all three parties. And that's only scratching the surface of the possibilities opened up by this wide-ranging deal.