Tag: CAR

Google's Street View cameras have caught plenty of embarrassing images in the past, but one family thinks the service may have just identified the man who stole their camper. As Jalopnik explains, 11-year-old Reuben Soames first discovered the suspect while looking up his family's home in Derbyshire, England on Google Maps. The site's Street View images of the Soames' front yard showed their ...

Hybrid cars usually feature snazzy, high-tech designs, but few can compare with the Urbee -- the first car to be manufactured entirely by 3-D printing. Developed by Kor Ecologic and Stratasys, the Urbee was created with an additive manufacturing process, whereby engineers add layers of printed material until finally arriving with a finished product -- in this case, a whole car. As Fast Company ...

Pack up your high-tech sensors, artificial vision systems and solar-powered laser scanners, because it's time for a road trip of the nerdiest order! A fleet of electric vans has just completed an arduous 8,000-mile journey across Europe and Asia -- and the caravan accomplished the ordeal without human drivers or physical maps (although there were a few backseat scientists on board). Dispatched by ...

Google knows that it messed up. In May, the company admitted to inadvertently collecting unencrypted Wi-Fi data with its fleet of Street View cars. Now, Google's offering a little more insight into what kind of information those cars actually gathered. When the scandal first broke last spring, Google wasn't entirely certain about what data it collected from unsuspecting Wi-Fi users -- it just ...

We not only want our cars to get us to our destinations, but to get us there safely, too. According to DVICE, German researchers have developed an in-car, eye-tracking system that monitors facial features, and delivers an audible warning whenever the driver appears sleepy. Dubbed Eyetracker, the system uses two cameras to monitor the pupils' positions, and then watches for changes in a person's ...

Everyone wants a new SUV. But who wants to waste all that time and energy actually test driving one -- especially if it means having to spend time away from your computer? Well, if you happen to be interested in buying one of Mitsubishi's new Outlander Sport SUVs, you may never have to. Beginning November 1st, customers interested in taking the new Outlander for a spin will be able to do so ...

Share Darren Suchon, like many middle-aged unemployed people, used to spend his days playing video games. One day, though, his girlfriend, Colleen Frable, decided she'd had enough of Suchon's idle gaming, and took his beloved PlayStation to work with her. The 42-year-old gamer then did what most video game addicts would do. He drove her off the road. According to the Morning Call, Suchon ...

We've learned by know that stubbornly following your GPS can lead to all sorts of trouble. Usually, the incidents result in little more than embarrassment and a lesson learned the hard way. Sadly, for a man on his way home from a street fair near the Spanish town of Capilla, it led to a close call for his passenger and to his own death. The 37-year-old man was driving home in his Peugeot 306 ...

Japan has been at the forefront of automotive design for quite some time. As if that point needed to be reinforced, Pink Tentacle has collected photos of Japanese concept cars dating back to 1957 that make even modern models out of Detroit look retro. Sure, some are completely impractical, but, if GM had ever made a car like the EX-III above, it probably wouldn't have needed bailing out. ...

Share Most people probably wouldn't drive their cars off a cliff just because their GPS system told them to do it. Driving off-road and up a mountain, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. That's exactly what 37-year-old Robert Ziegler recently did, when his van's GPS system directed him up some ruggedly mountainous terrain in Bergün, Switzerland. Although Ziegler had his ...

Vehicles equipped with self-parking technology already serve drivers with limited parallel parking skills. Parking-challenged residents of Birmingham, England no longer have to wait for automobile-assisted guidance, though, thanks to a new futuristic garage at the city's Cube complex. The three-story-deep subterranean car cave employs a $3 million robotic system that, according to the BBC, ...

When using a GPS, you generally have two choices for getting your directions: looking at the screen, and listening to audio cues. The problem is that taking your eyes off the road, even momentarily, can be dangerous, and the polite British woman (or Darth Vader, depending on your level of geekiness) is not always audible over your blaring stereo and the din of traffic. A new system being ...

Most of us probably don't need to be reminded that texting while driving can put our lives at risk, but, if you're in the mood for especially morbid statistics, here's some food for thought. A new study from the University of North Texas finds that roughly 16,000 people died from 2001 to 2007, simply because their phone distracted them behind the wheel. As Reuters reports, the study used data ...

At this week's DEMO conference in Silicon Valley, a company called Bump unveiled a new mobile technology that allows users to send text messages to complete strangers. Instead of typing in the recipient's phone number, users need only take a single photo of his or her license plate. The service, which launches today, requires users to download an app for their iPhones, and register their ...

Looking to compete with Ford's Sync's messaging technology, GM's OnStar may soon add text messaging and Facebook updates to its on-board communication system. According to The Detroit Free Press, a source claims that OnStar subscribers will be able to transmit text messages and Facebook updates via the on-board communications system by the end of the month. Before you safety advocates go berserk, ...