As the open source revolution continues to gain momentum, websites like Kickstarter are popping up everywhere. This week’s kickstarter of the week comes from the site, indiegogo, which is similar to the namesake of this series, except that the funding is provided, regardless of a successful campaign. The EZ-EV is a simple-to-assemble, three-wheel, electric car […]
Automotive/Transportation
New Concrete to Increase Bridge Life Span
Purdue University research is enabling Indiana to improve bridges in the state with a new “internally cured” high-performance concrete. “This material will reduce maintenance costs and allow bridge decks to last longer,” said Jason Weiss, a professor of civil engineering and director of Purdue’s Pankow Materials Laboratory. “Our testing indicates that internally cured high-performance concrete […]
Chuo Spring: Chinese Joint Venture to Make Car Springs
TOKYO, Feb. 8 (Kyodo) — Chuo Spring Co., a Nagoya-based suspension spring supplier affiliated with Toyota Motor Corp., said Friday it has signed an agreement with China Spring Corp. to form a joint venture to manufacture automobile coil springs and stabilizers. Under the accord with the Shanghai-based firm, Chuo Spring will set up the fifty-fifty […]
$1.4M Bill for Fixing Rowan Atkinson’s McLaren
Everyone who’s had a fender bender knows the cost of repairs is going up. But few cars can be as costly to fix as “Mr. Bean” actor Rowan Atkinson’s rare McLaren F1. It took more than a year — and more than 900,000 pounds ($1,400,000) — to get his supercar up and running after a […]
Nissan Earnings Update
TOKYO, Feb. 8 (Kyodo) — Nissan Motor Co. said Friday its group net profit dropped 12.7 percent from a year earlier to 232.39 billion yen in the April to December period, due to sluggish sales in China in the wake of anti-Japanese protests in the country as well a drop in sales in Europe amid […]
China’s January Auto Sales Surge
China’s auto sales rose 46 percent in January to a monthly record on strong demand for SUVs in pre-Lunar New Year shopping, an industry group reported Friday. Customers bought just over 2 million vehicles last month in China, the biggest auto market by number of vehicles sold, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. […]
Mitsubishi Electric Develops Car Display System with Free-form Screen
TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Feb 6, 2013–Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503) announced today that it has developed a prototype car display system with an optical engine that can project images on curved, oval or triangular screens to suit a wide range of car interiors. The system’s free-form screen responds flexibly to the increasing use of curves and other design […]
Smart Satnav Drives Around the Blue Highway Blues
Endlessly frustrated by congested roads, computer researchers at California State University, in Fullerton have developed a satellite navigation system, GeoTNavi, which hooks into historical traffic data and current vehicle movements to find the shortest commute and avoid the traffic jams. Writing in the latest issue of the International Journal of Data Mining, Modelling and Management, […]
X-Rays Shine Light on Mystery of Picasso’s Paints
The Art Institute of Chicago teamed up with Argonne National Laboratory to help unravel a decades-long debate among art scholars about what kind of paint Picasso used to create his masterpieces. The results published last month in the journal Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing add significant weight to the widely held theory that […]
‘Invisible’ Particles Could Enhance Thermoelectric Devices
Thermoelectric devices — which can either generate an electric current from a difference in temperature or use electricity to produce heating or cooling without moving parts — have been explored in the laboratory since the 19th century. In recent years, their efficiency has improved enough to enable limited commercial use, such as in cooling systems […]