Using a laptop computer in a car can be uncomfortable, but no more. The Laptop Steering Wheel Desk hooks on to your wheel to give you a convenient place for the computer, your lunch, or whatever else you're working on.

Clearly there are great uses for this product, but it's also easy to imagine some dangerous abuses--especially considering all the recent hubbub about problems with people using cell phones and even texting while driving. And we've all heard stories of people shaving, putting on makeup, doing crossword puzzles, you name it.

You just know that someone will try to use their computer while they drive now that they have this table. Probably on a highway where the turns aren't so sharp. It's this image that inspired some of the hilarious user reviews and submitted pictures on the Amazon.com page for this product (check one out, after the jump).

Amazon.com seems to be the main place to buy the Laptop Steering Wheel, although the manufacturer, Mobile Desk, makes a wide variety of computer mounts and other work tools for cars. And the average police car these days seems to come with a computer designed for the driver to use.

Just as awareness of the dangers of distracted driving are increasing and laws are being developed all over to penalize users who phone or text while driving, the industry pushes the envelope more and more. Please keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel.

Ford calls the feature CTA, for cross-traffic alert, but CTA could just as well be called CYA. The blind spot detectors on the rear fenders of the Ford Fusion and other 2010 Fords perform a second task when you're going backwards: They watch your backside for crossing traffic. It's a smart example of how one piece of technology can serve multiple purposes. And it's one of three Fusion technologies that protects your rear flank: CTA, parking sonar, and rear camera.

CTA is another indicator that Ford does the best job among U.S. automakers in providing technology that's about as good as what the expensive imports provide at a higher price, or technology they don't yet have. This was on the 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid, which has many of the benefits of a Toyota Prius, if not quite the same cachet.

Soon, remote control won't be just for toy cars--at least according to one research firm. A new iSuppli report predicts that by 2016, 20.7 million real cars will ship with at least some systems partially controllable via cell phone apps, up from 85,000 in 2010. That's more than a quarter of sales worldwide.

Among the features subject to remote control will include door locks, lights, A/C and heat--similar to Delphi's concept iPhone app from two years ago. HVAC control will be especially important for electric vehicles, which owners can heat up or cool down while still in the garage and plugged in, so as not to drain the battery.

Did somebody beat the Honda Accord Crosstour with the ugly stick, if only on the outside? That's been the pre-launch knock on what is actually the cheapest and most cost-effective of the upscale, fastback, crossover utility vehicles and it offers plenty of mainstream technology. The Crosstour is a fine $30,000 people mover and cargo hauler for those who don't need the size of an SUV or the soccer-mom aura of a minivan: empty nesters and families just starting out. The four people who sit comfortably inside also have the advantage of looking out, not in.

It's hard to screw up a vehicle based on something as solid as the Accord, so Honda starts with a good platform that is offered in front-drive and all-wheel-drive editions. Four people ride very comfortably, with more back seat room than in the $57,000 BMW X6 that will blow the doors off a Crosstour on the racetrack (in case you think that's what these vehicles are for). That's because the Crosstour stands 197 inches long, almost half a foot more than an X6. I'd much rather drive the X6 (it really is awesome on the track) but if I had to sit in the second row for more than an hour, I'd take the Crosstour hands down. Not that these are really competing cars when the typical as-sold price is approaches two-to-one.

The 2010 Volkswagen GTI is a fantastic sports sedan for four with a 200-hp turbocharged engine and a double-clutch gearbox. VW delivers as standard four technology features that cost $1,000 or more on other cars: Bluetooth, an iPod adapter, satellite radio, and a big LCD display. Think of the VW GTI as a Mini Cooper with a usable back seat and bigger trunk.

GM announced that Chevy, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC dealers will begin offering Autonet Mobile's $499 WiFi router as a dealer-installed option for its SUVs and trucks, according to Autoblog.

The router will be available for new vehicles as well as for current owners. The router and installation together cost $499; after that, owners pay $29 per month for 1GB of service. Go over the limit and service stops for that month. Honestly, that's preferable to what the cell phone carriers do instead--which is to charge you something like $400 per kilobyte afterward, and not even tell you it's happening.

Sorry, where was I? The Autonet Mobile router offers a 150-foot-radius hot spot but lacks encryption capability. In practice, it offers 3G download speeds in the 700 to 800 Kbps range, assuming good cellular coverage. Look for the Autonet Mobile router option at the above dealers beginning in November.

Stanford University has teamed up with Volkswagen to build two driverless cars--an Audi TTS and a VW Passat Wagon--and hopes to break a few records along the way.

So far the Audi TTS has already achieved an unofficial speed record for an autonomous car at 130 miles per hour, as Engadget reports. Stanford is hoping that the car will soon complete the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a nine mile race with 156 turns--all by itself.

Meanwhile, Stanford's Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory has developed a Volkswagen Passat "valet system" that handles tough parallel parking, as the report said. Videos of each after the break.

British cars used to be plagued with electrical problems. Not any more (usually). Bentley had an off day Thursday when a transporter truck pulled into New York City in the pre-dawn hours with a prototype Bentley Mulsanne for a media unveiling. Alas, the Mulsanne wouldn't start, and for a while couldn't even be pushed out of the transporter. It finally made it off the truck and into the press conference an hour into the presentation, under human power.

Drowsy drivers may have met their match in new Mercedes-Benzes. The Mercedes-exclusive Attention Assist feature monitors driver alertness and if the driver seems less than attentive, the car sounds a chime and suggests the driver take a break. It's on both the E-Class coupe and E-Class sedan and it's part of the base price. Attention Assist is unobtrusive. It alerts you when you're tired and occasionally when you're not. Unobtrusive also means it's also easy to ignore. I drove an E350 Coupe and was impressed by Attention Assist, even more so by the sensational styling. It's a great car for two adults and two very occasional back seat passengers.

Give Mercedes-Benz credit for putting a PC Card slot in the dash of many models. That lets you copy MP3 or WMA music from your PC to a cheap SD or Compact Flash (CF) card, plug it into a cheap PC Card adapter, then plug it into the dash of your not-so-cheap Benz. The adapter (also called a PCMCIA adatper) and a 2GB SD card each cost about $10, although you can pay more. But check out the prices if you order one of each from an authorized Mercedes-Benz dealer: $102 for the PCMCIA multi-card reader, $48 for a 2GB Mercedes-Benz logo'd SD Card.

The market for portable navigation devices (PNDs, or portable GPSs) will shrink 1% this year after 40% growth last year, then remain more or less flat through 2013. So says market researcher iSuppli Corp, which predicts worldwide sales will remain in the range of 41 million to 44 million over the next four years. All that is music to the ears of PND buyers going back for second, third, or fourth devices. With demand soft and manufacturing costs getting cheaper by the year, prices should continue to drop, meaning more $99 PNDs and lots more really good $250 PNDs. That's our prediction, not necessarily iSuppli's, though it doesn't take a rocket scientist to assume better deals for consumers in times of oversupply, if you stayed awake in Economics 101 and understood the part about supply-demand curves.

Just when you thought you'd heard it all, it turns out that pregnant women living near highways equipped with toll booth E-ZPass systems are less likely to have premature births and babies with low birth weights.

This may seem like an extremely random connection, but when cars use E-ZPass they do not have to come to a complete stop to pay the toll, which reduces congestion and emissions. As a result, premature births declined 10.8 percent and low birth weights dropped 11.8 percent for women who lived within 1.2 miles of the E-ZPass toll plaza, according to study from Columbia University's Department of Economics.

If you lived about 2 miles from a toll booth with E-ZPass, which scans a device equipped to the car window and automatically charges the toll amount to a credit card, prematurity dropped 7.3 percent and low birth weight fell 8.4 percent, the study said. The study compared women living close to toll booths with E-ZPass with women living near toll booths without the systems.

Other studies have already revealed that systems like E-ZPass cut harmful emissions by about 50 percent, but the Columbia study is the first to study its effect on health, according to the Wall Street Journal.

TomTom's Car Kit for iPhone has returned to the UK Apple Store, according to Engadget, with a shipping time of 1-2 weeks. That means it's probably going to hit the U.S. very soon.

Should you be excited? I wouldn't be. There was plenty of back and forth over just what TomTom was including in the package. Unfortunately, it turns out not much, as a disclaimer now spells out quite clearly on the UK store site:

The TomTom app for iPhone is not included with the TomTom Car Kit. The Car Kit dock is compatible with all iPhone models, but the TomTom app only works with iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

In other words, it's a mount and a speaker for $120. Add $100 for the TomTom iPhone app, and you could buy yourself a better-performing, Editors' Choice-winning, 3.5-inch TomTom One 140-S with almost a hundred bucks left over.

The 2010 Ford Taurus gives you many of the high-technology pieces of a full-size $75,000 European or Japanese luxury sedan for half the price. For about $40,000, you can drive a big, comfortable highway cruiser with active cruise control, blind spot detection, rear cross traffic alert, butt-massinging seats, the excellent Sync Bluetooth and music control system, and free Mayday calling. What you don't get is BMW-crisp handling on back roads, or Lexus-perfect fit and finish in the cockpit. In a week driving the Taurus, I found it poised on long trips and got mileage in the upper 20s.

TomTom has unveiled the 4.3-inch XL 340S LIVE, a portable navigation device (PND) that includes an AT&T-powered data modem along with the company's new LIVE services, building on the capabilities of the existing XL 340S. The new unit delivers Local Search from Google, real-time traffic information, a fuel price service, weather reports, and what the company calls QuickGPSfix, which locks onto your current position faster than prior units.

Like other TomTom PNDs, the XL 340S LIVE uses the company's IQ Routes technology, which optimizes trips based on historical speed measurements for different times of day and different road segments. The unit receives traffic speed and incident reports every two to five minutes.

The new LIVE services require a subscription; TomTom includes three free months in the box. In addition to the usual millions of POIs loaded into the device, LIVE features Local Search powered by Google--which seems a little redundant at first glance. It will be interesting to see how the unit distinguishes between the two databases in testing.