One of the biggest take aways from my recent CES trip was just how important the GPS device will be to car tech going forward. I like what Microsoft and Ford are doing with Sync but, for now, that's cell phone and iPod integration which is not that exciting.

What IS exciting is seeing how quickly the GPS vendors like Dash, Garmin, TomTom and others are racing to bring Internet connectivity to the car through their units. Looks like over the next few years at least, it will be in after market, standalone units but not hard to see that this becomes standard on built-in units down the road (no pun intended).

It has already started with real-time traffic conditions and will quickly expand to include local search (e.g. gas stations, restaurants, movie listings, etc.) but the availability of virtually all Internet data and services in the car is inevitable.

I'm excited about having the Internet in the car if its fast, convenient to use, and relatively cheap. There are probably other devices that will attempt to provide connectivity from scaled down PCs to beefed up PDAs and smartphones but from where I'm sitting, it will be the GPS that leads the way (pun fully intended).