Items tagged with automobile

Things aren't looking so good for Takata Corporation, the Japanese maker of automobile air bags serving about 20 percent the market. A recently discovered (and potentially deadly) defect in the design of certain air bags dating back to at least 2008 has already resulted in the recall of millions of vehicles,and now... Read more...
In just a few short years, Intel's entire world has changed. The company used to rake cash in with server, desktop, and laptop chip sales. These days, desktop sales are waning and laptops are being replaced by tablets. In other words, Intel has to figure out a way to get its silicon into different and more varied... Read more...
Any time you deal with technology, rooting out bugs is inevitably part of the process. Sometimes it's a literal step -- just ask Mazda, which for the second time in three years is recalling its Mazda6 sedans in North America because of spiders that like the smell of gasoline crawling up into the fuel system and... Read more...
Heads up for all you California motorists, and perhaps drivers in all 50 states. If you're donning a pair of Google Glasses while behind the wheel of your car, you might get a ticket. Cecilia Abadie found that out the hard way when she was issued a citation by a police officer in California for what essentially... Read more...
Italians make the best food (I won't debate this) and without a doubt some of the sexist cars too, most notably Automobili's Lamborghini line. Sexy often borders on obscene, such as the brand spanking new Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, an open racing prototype boasting an "extreme design" and "breathtaking performance"... Read more...
Detroit may be bankrupt, but the surrounding towns seem to be doing quite well. Ann Arbor has traditionally been a fairly well-to-do place, with the University of Michigan no doubt having a very positive impact. And clearly, NVIDIA is willing to bite while everyone else is selling The Motor City. The company has just... Read more...
Know what happens when an armored vehicle company decides to go green? You get the Jo-Mojo, a lightly armored open-top electric low-rider with a top speed of 125MPH and a bulletproof exterior. Yep, this thing steers clear of gasoline, has a respectable amount of get-up-and-go, and can take a bullet, should the need... Read more...
A car isn't really a piece of computer hardware. It's made of up lots of them, though, and Chevrolet's Volt holds a special place in the hearts of technology freaks. For years, people have watched the Volt progress from a concept, into a car with a questionable future, into a car that's all-but-ready for release. Now, the final hurdle is upon... Read more...
Comedians often make cracks at banks for including Braille on drive-through ATMs (there are number of valid reasons why they do this), but given the progress made by researchers at The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech, don't assume that the driver in front of you isn't actually visually impaired. While it may seem an unlikely... Read more...
Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Sounds like such basic advice, doesn't it? Be that as it may, the advent of cell phones has disrupted this most fundamental building block to becoming a good driver and you can't drive down to your local grocery story without seeing someone yapping on their iPhone, Nexus One, or other mobile device.... Read more...
It's been a dream of Earth's residents since The Jetsons made us believe it was a possibility: true auto-pilot. It's alive and well in some cases, but not all. Existing commercial airplanes have an auto-pilot button that guides the planes controls based on the route it needs to take, but that's relatively easy... Read more...
Just a few years back, car stereos were fairly lackluster from the factory. To get any sort of serious audio within the automobile, you had to turn to complicated aftermarket installs. At some point between then and now, automakers have seemingly figured out that consumers are demanding more right from the showroom... Read more...
Here comes still more technology based on fish. As opposed to the earlier tech, autonomous robotic fish built to detect pollution, Nissan has developed a system that emulates schooling behavior of fish to avoid auto collisions.Nissan's new "EPORO" robot car concept is designed to travel in a group of "cars" while avoiding obstacles (including... Read more...
It was only a matter of time, right? With digital becoming the new black, we knew that those hugely thick, underutilized user guides that shipped with automobiles would one day fade from existence, and it looks as if the fading has begun. Chrysler has just announced that it will become the first automaker to ditch the paperback and go digital... Read more...
The much-hyped CARS program may be drawing to a close, but you know you you'll still be longing for one of those cute-as-a-button MINI Coopers even after that clunker rebate vanishes. If you needed just one more excuse to give your local dealer a visit, how's this? MINI USA has today become the first automaker in the... Read more...
We were pretty moved by DOW Chemical's recent "Human Element" campaign, and we're delighted to see yet another major American corporation going above and beyond the call of duty in order to better our planet. Ford, along with its utility partners, have announced that they are testing out one of the industry's first... Read more...