>>160
Actually reviewing the wiki on Secure digital, it has DRM in place
I've never heard of anyone actually using it. I doubt most SD cards even implement it. It's a non-issue AFAIK.
A23 Cells or PP3 batteries (5-6V device, unless you want 4-5 AA or AAA cells). And yeah,there are lots of controller these days now. You can even remove the UPS unit from motherboards these days, extremely carefully.
Actually I would strongly prefer AA cells since they are so common. There is also a lot more variety in the AA rechargeable cell market than for A23 or PP3 (I've actually never seen any rechargeable A23's, and PP3 chargers are pretty damn rare). There is also the advantage that if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere but you still have some alkaline batteries you can use that. Also by not supplying the cells you save some money on shipping (and give the people the option of using whatever cells they want).
4-5 AA or AAA cells
Actually you would need 6 cells since each cell provides between 1.0 and 1.2 volts (depending on how charged it is). Don't forget that some buck converters require the input voltage to be at least 0.5 V higher than the output; if you find a buck converter that doesn't require this you can drop the requirement to 5 cells only. Also note that the heaviness of the AA batteries is a good thing since it'll keep the center of gravity away from the screen (the battery compartment should be as much in the front as possible).
Umm, just coat the LCD with any reflective plastic or tape. <5 USD
that would just reflect light without passing it through the LCD. the point is to make the LCD somewhat visible in high light conditions (e.g. sunlight) by reflecting the light that
passes through the transparent parts of the LCD (and not all of it).
The end ports on both sides will be a variant mini-DIN connector that is easily detachable, but it has an iris diaphragm latch on both sides
What's the point of the diaphragm latch? Wouldn't the extra complexity simply add to the list of things that can go wrong? I'd rather have a cable that detaches too easily than one that breaks in two or destroys the port (which is more likely to be damaged if it is more complex). All I meant was that the design of the connector should be such that when it is accidentally pulled, it detaches easily and cleanly, and that it should support
many insertion/removal cycles.
At the least a 1 GB hard drive for swap and temporary files, that has a special command to wipe itself.
You mean a mechanical hard drive or just flash? The former might add a
lot of extra complexity since you have to add SATA support.
Finally a really neat thing would be some internal empty space with one or two USB ports where you can add wifi or whatever else. Having a usb device plugged in while in a moving vehicle is kind of a risk.