I know I’m not the only one to wonder what smashers could the carmakers put on their concept cars to impress. And I’m not talking about extra-terrestial bodies or almost-zero emissions on a 5.0 guzzler Mustang. It’s about all the pretty stuff, latest technology, sat-nav, many GBs of music, wireless or self-parking “goodies” that make a car have a personality.

Latest egregious piece of folly comes from Volvo. The recent Chinese ID owner revealed “the industry’s first Internet connected Rear Seat Entertainment System with Windows XP, WiFi and a 500G hard drive.”

Officially, it remains a test-bed study for the moment, but the idea is that you can do everything on a rear headrest touchscreen that you can do on your home computer. You can also plug your computer into the car and load the XC70’s system with your own music and video to keep things quiet in the back row. While it’s officially only in the ‘conceptual phase,’ we have it on very good authority that the system will be available in 2011 Volvo XC60 and XC70 models beginning this summer.

What’s next? We will be able to cook dinner on the way home from work, do some gym, have our nails and hair done and clean the house on the push of a button. Oooh, it sounds indecently teasing!

Press release after the jump!

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