Tag: TRANSPORTATION

Despite stern warnings from flight attendants and pilots, we've always wondered if our iPods or cell phones could really cause an airplane's electronics to go haywire. According to a recent article in The New York Times, personal electronic devices don't always interfere with a plane's electronics -- but sometimes they do, or can, cause problems. Clear as mud, right? Bill Strauss, an engineer ...

You probably could have guessed this for yourself, but keyless car entry systems aren't particularly secure. A group of researchers found that such such keyless systems could be hacked to unlock and start a car with as little as $50 in equipment and some relatively basic know-how. The group tested ten vehicles from eight different manufacturers and with little effort successfully drove each of ...

In the U.S., politicians use Facebook to connect with their constituents, to announce new initiatives, or, in some cases, to recklessly rabble rouse. Political leaders in Italy, however, are apparently more interested in using the social network to publicly humiliate lazy employees. That's exactly what the mayor of Bari did, when he posted photos of public workers who were being particularly ...

Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cracked down on the sale of Four Loko, what's there to do with all the excess product? According to an Associated Press report, MXI Environmental Services, a waste-management company in Virginia, has been buying truckloads of the caffeinated malt beverage, and will recycle it to get pure ethanol. That's right, the alcoholic energy drink that used ...

Ford decided to use CES as the stage to announce its foray into the field of electric vehicles. In late 2011, the American car company will begin selling the Focus Electric, the first member of its all-electric fleet of vehicles, which will grow to a total of five by 2013. Though the company would not say how far the car can travel on a charge, or what the MPG-equivalence is, it promised that the ...

Ford has not officially announced an all-electric vehicle yet, but that hasn't stopped the company from unveiling 'MyFord Mobile,' an app specifically designed to work with a (currently non-existent) battery-powered car. Ford announced Android, iPhone and BlackBerry versions of the app, along with an HTML5-powered Web-app, accessible from a PC and many dumbphones. The app allows a user to do all ...

The Asteroid from Parrot has been one of the early sensations at CES. It drew such at crowd at the CES Unveiled event that we could barely get near it. This morning, though, we swung by the Parrot booth, and spent some time poking and prodding the in-dash device. The big news about the Asteroid is that it runs Android. It's not just a car stereo; it's a Web-enabled, app-running mini-computer with ...

Hyundai is here at CES, and it wasted no time announcing its new Blue Link system. Combining GPS navigation with an entertainment system and Internet connectivity, Blue Link can turn even the humble Sonata into a digital powerhouse of a vehicle. You can even remote start and disable your car with a text message. The system's speech-recognition software can help you in finding points of interest, ...

After almost 15 years of keeping OnStar exclusive to its own vehicles, GM is finally making the service available as an after-market add-on for other cars. The OnStar mirror should be compatible with most cars on the market when it comes out this spring for $299. On top of the retail price, you'll also have to cough up for an OnStar subscription ($18.95 per month or $199 for the year), and pay ...

Gearheads with cash to burn might want to bid on this amphibious, 762-horsepower HydroCar, which is currently listed for $777,000 on eBay. Rick Dobbertin spent nine years and more than 18,000 hours personally building the HydroCar, which can go from driving on land to floating on water by lowering and extending a pair of giant pontoons. Despite all that work, Dobbertin never could figure out how ...

Honda has begun to reach out to the 2.2 million customers who have had their names, e-mail addresses and vehicle identification numbers (VINs) poached by hackers that infiltrated the car company's database. Honda's luxury brand Acura also had its systems hacked, but only e-mail addresses were stolen. The cause for concern here is obvious. With names, e-mails and VINs in hand, it would be easy for ...

Share An Idaho man was arrested Tuesday night after punching a teenager who wouldn't turn off his iPhone during their flight's final descent. According to Boise's KBOI-2.com, 68-year-old Russell Miller punched a 15-year-old boy in the arm because the teen continued playing games and listening to music on his phone after Southwest flight attendants had asked for all electronic devices to be turned ...

This holiday season, plenty of people are expected to exchange e-readers, tablets or smartphones. One gadget that probably won't be under the tree, however, is a portable GPS device. According to statistics from the NPD Group, unit sales of portable navigation devices (PNDs) have dropped by 9-percent through the first 11 months of 2010. Sales revenue, meanwhile, has slid by 22-percent since ...

Say what you will about their incessant strikes, their unwavering arrogance or their myopic fear of modernity. But when it comes to green transportation, there's no denying that the French are well ahead of the curve. Today, it's virtually impossible to stroll through the streets of Paris without seeing at least a few people cruising around on Vélibs -- the public bikes first introduced a ...

Fashion flash-sale outlet Gilt is going to be selling three 2011 VW Jettas, one a day, starting tomorrow afternoon for $5,995 each -- a stunning $10,000 off the list price. Wednesday will be exclusive to users of the mobile app, but Thursday's and Friday's sales will be extended to the website. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Dress for Success. ...