In Audi’s first big event at CES, chairman Rupert Stadler said at a Thursday keynote that the company will lead the automotive industry toward a future of Internet-connected cars with the best of infotainment and driver assistance.

“Customers are demanding all that the Internet has to offer, and they expect it in all of their devices, all the time,” Stadler said.

But bolting existing technologies into Audi vehicles is not the answer for the future of connected cars, Stadler said … especially since entertainment devices are designed to capture a user’s attention, when in an automobile you need them to do exactly the opposite.

Audi’s new E-Solutions division is working to create integrated services that provide information and entertainment without distracting drivers from the road. These include Heads-Up Displays (HUD) with laser-projected augmented reality to improve driver safety in low visibilty, and front- and rear-mounted radar to detect potential impacts, alert drivers, and prime safety systems for impact. Their new touchpad can recognize characters in multiple languages, and the multimedia interface (MMI) will use Google speech technology for voice recognition and destination search.

Stadler and NVIDIA founder Jensen Heung previewed the future “digital cockpit” instrument cluster that will run on NVIDIA’s newly-announced Tegra 2 processor. The display demo showed crystal-clear, 60-frames-per-second, 3D graphics, which Stadler said provide drivers greater readability with fewer attention demands than 2D.

The Audi booth in North Hall showcases the e-tron series of electric and hybrid cars.

The market for streaming 3D got a little stronger with the launch, today of online content library 3DeeCentral.

The company behind the launch, Spatial View, has licensed over 100 3D titles from nearly 30 independent 3D filmmakers including 21st Century 3D, Passmore Labs, k2communications, JustCause3D, tree-D films, Dzignlight Studios, Glass Eye Pix, Lumen Actus, and Original SINE.

Most of the content which is a mix of free and pay, is shortform and includes film promos, animation, music videos, 4D theme park experiences and sports. Al Lopez, company COO, said he has held discussions with several studios about licensing 3D feature releases.

A 3DeeCentral application is available for Windows 7, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch devices. An Android app is coming soon as is support for the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4. It does not yet however have any contracts with Internet TV providers.

“We want to offer the most comprehensive coverage of platforms as possible including all,” said Lopez. “We will support all new 3D-capable devices including smartphones, laptops and tablets and we are platform agnostic with support for active shutter and polarized glasses, anaglyph and auto-stereoscopic technologies.”

“The availability of devices will drive the sale of content at the same time having content that runs on every 3D capable device and in whatever 3D format is a driver to help those devices sell.”

Aside from being a content aggregator and distributor, Spatial View is also a tech company. Its innovations include a removable lenticular screen and software for viewing glasses-free stereo 3D on a standard laptop, which it sells to laptop manufacturers. The software includes 3D Blu-ray playback using CyberLink’s PowerDVD software and an eye tracking mechanism via webcam to ensure the viewer’s eyes remain in the sweetspot for 3D viewing.

The company, which launched in 2004 sporting a range of autostereoscopic digital signage technologies, also has IP in lenticular printing and 2D-3D conversion based on multiview generation from two images.