Your most expensive piece of electronics probably is not your flat panel TV or your computer. More likely, it’s your car, which can pack 50 microprocessors to control everything from the fuel mix to the rearview mirrors. The recalls and other technical problems besetting Toyota in the last few weeks highlight the risks of relying on electronics instead of the mechanical rods and cables that controlled vehicles for most of the 20th century. Such advancements bring many benefits, but the worry is that the car is a computer on wheels that could freeze up and potentially crash.

Well, the snow continues to fall here in the Linux blogosphere, and Linux Girl is beginning to wonder if it will ever end. Bread and milk are still in short supply at the local FOSS-y-Mart; children are getting cabin fever; and the snow drifts are getting taller than many netizens. Down at the Broken Windows Lounge, in fact, the snow now blocks out most of the light that would be shining through, making it seem as if there are no windows there at all. Such, perhaps, was the inspiration behind a recent conversation that’s come close to fisticuffs.

Apple finally let the iPad out of the iBag Wednesday, with all the style and hyperbole the technology industry has come to periodically expect from Steve Jobs’ company. Jobs and several other Apple executives demonstrated the company’s idea of what a tablet computer should do before an invitation-only crowd of nearly 500 influential tech journalists, bloggers and analysts at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. What the audience saw: a 9.7-inch color multi-touch screen surrounded by a sleek black frame that’s half an inch thick and weighs 1.5 pounds.

It could be the next service announced by your car’s GPS feature when you drive from state to state: letting you know what highway exit to take — and warning you about whether texting/phoning while driving in that state is legal. Tuesday’s move by the Department of Transportation to outlaw texting while driving for interstate commercial traffic makes it clear that the federal government is making distracted driving a priority in 2010. However, it also adds to the tangle of separate state and, in some cases, civic regulations.

It’s a rare day indeed that doesn’t see some new computer technology or other roll out of the starting gates, but when that technology is called the “Open-PC,” Linux Girl can’t help but sit up and pay attention. Sure enough, the Open-PC is billed as the first PC for everyday use “built by the Linux community for the Linux community,” and it uses only free software. The energy-efficient machine uses “100 percent free drivers,” and phone and email support are included in its 359 euros price, as is a donation to the KDE project.

In 13 years of covering technology, I’ve evolved into the journalistic equivalent of Blanche DuBois; I’ve always depended on the kindness of analysts. Whether they were securities analysts working for the big Wall Street firms or technology analysts toiling for the major research companies targeting CIOs and IT-types, I’ve benefited from their tireless hours of research, their trendcasting, their ability to synthesize their analyses in a pithy quote or a 20-second soundbite.

Web surfers, whether hardcore business professionals or amateur Web site creators, frequently find images online either through search engines or Web page browsing. However, in most cases, these images are not free to use. Maybe the photographer who created the image would be open to selling rights for a small fee; perhaps he or she only wants attribution but no pay. In any case, the Internet lacks a standardized method to ensure that intellectual property owners get the recognition and/or payment they are due.

Rock down to “Electric Avenue” at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, and you might think that sales of battery-powered cars were going to take the industry higher sooner rather than later. Twenty models from automakers large and small get their own 37,000 square-foot section at the annual show, and a few of the featured cars, like the Chevy Volt and the BMW B-Class F-Cell, actually hit dealer showrooms this year.

The real world has finally caught up with the concept of a sex robot, something that’s been immortalized in films ranging from “Westworld” to “A.I.” and the fembots of “Austin Powers.” And where else but the 2010 Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas would that vision be realized in the five-foot-seven, 120-pound, lingerie-clad form of Roxxxy? True Companion, a New Jersey-based company, took the wraps off of Roxxxy in Vegas over the weekend, touting her as “the world’s first sex robot.”

In recent months, portable auto GPS navigation systems have been challenged in their market by smartphone applications that mirror much of the functionality of the standalone units. Now an attack is being launched from another vector, thanks to a new iPod gadget announced by a major player in the take-it-with-you auto nav arena. The gadget, made by Magellan, is a device for the second-generation iPod touch or iPhone that mounts on the dash or windshield of a vehicle and contains a GPS receiver, amplified speaker and noise-canceling speakerphone.

Twitter, Pandora Internet radio and other popular smartphone apps are hitting the road, thanks to Ford Motor Company’s Thursday announcement of forthcoming dashboard technologies that will soon be available in a wider, more affordable range of its cars. Ford CEO Alan Mulally, along with other company executives charged with integrating more consumer-friendly technologies into their cars, demonstrated the new options at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A new study from the University of Utah provides more fuel for the conviction that sending and receiving text messages while driving affects concentration and reaction times. However, more potential digital distractions lie down the road — as shown by another Monday announcement: Ford Motor said its second-generation Sync service will turn cars into rolling WiFi hotspots in 2010. Granted, the next-level Sync entertainment and connectivity qualities are designed for everybody in a car except the driver.

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