MIND offers affordable entertainment, office equipment for automobiles
MIND offers affordable entertainment, office equipment for automobiles
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Car owners and drivers in Jakarta increasingly realize that
complaining about chronic traffic congestion is but a vain
attempt to relieve stress.
There is actually a string of options of what to do in cars
while stuck in traffic jams.
And although getting dressed and brushing your teeth in the
car, a la Mr. Bean, might seem a practical thing to do, you'd
probably prefer to watch your favorite TV series or to check your
e-mail.
Budi Harimawan, a civil servant at a ministry in Jakarta, has
installed in his silver Honda New CRV 2002 a complete Windows-
based computer with an 8" LCD monitor touch screen, a DVD ROM
drive and built-in bluetooth.
He has also installed global positioning system (GPS) software
and media car software on the 20 gigabyte hard disk.
Using the built-in bluetooth and his cell phone he can connect
to the Internet and check his e-mail while waiting for the
congestion to ease.
"Recently, I bought a USB WiFi for the computer so I can
browse the Internet when I park my car near an Internet hotspot
area," Budi told The Jakarta Post.
For the basic equipment, he paid a quite reasonable price of
Rp 14 million (US$1,480).
Budi is among the first four customers of car computer
provider MIND, a recently opened private company run by a young
gadget freak, Jefry Cucu, 25.
"I've been tinkering to make the equipment work for six months
last year. I bought some parts from China, and some others from
the U.S.," Jefry said.
"Later I assembled them first in my car as an experiment. When
the equipment was proven to be working well, I started selling
them to people in my circle," he added.
He said that if car owners imported such equipment from, say,
the U.S., the price would be double his price.
"I damaged a number of computer processors during my
experiments," he said.
Finally, at the end of last year he succeeded in assembling
all the gear to build a gadget freaks' dream.
After installing the equipment into four customers' cars and
doing some low-key promotion in Jakarta, he already has a waiting
list of dozens.
Now he has installed computers in more than 30 cars.
"I'm building MIND to be a large company," he said. "Now I
have a small workshop in Kelapa Gading where customers can see
samples of the products," he said, adding that his design was so
simple that any regular car workshop in Jakarta could do the
cabling required.
"MIND can be installed in any car. I even installed one in a
customer's 1995 Toyota Corona," he said.
"The key is to have a good power supply system in your car,"
he added.
MIND now has four specifications ranging from Rp 10 million to
Rp 17 million.
"The most popular type is the one that costs Rp 14 million,"
he said.
Website:
www.id-mind.com