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Carmakers navigate a winding road
Latest auto tech must dazzle drivers but not distract them
Ford CEO Alan Mulally demonstrates the automaker’s MyFord all-touchscreen navigation and media system Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
msnbc.com
updated 6:53 p.m. ET Jan. 7, 2010
LAS VEGAS - The exhibit halls of the International Consumer Electronics Show are filled with every kind of technology you can imagine — computers; audio and video systems; the biggest, thinnest television sets; gadgets; peripherals; you name it.

And cars. Lots and lots of cars.

The Consumer Electronics Association, the trade association that runs CES, underscored the importance of automotive technology Thursday by giving its show-opening main keynote address, usually the province of Microsoft Corp., to the chairman and chief executive of Ford Motor Co., Alan Mulally. It was only two years ago that Mulally’s predecessor, Rick Wagoner, became the first auto executive to deliver any of the half-dozen marquee addresses in the more than 30 years the association has put on the show.