A couple of months back, DARPA announced it’d been working on developing technologies to help during natural or “man-made” disasters, and this TEMP plan (Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform) included the addition of four key modular systems — one of which was sea-delivery vehicles such as that monstrous one pictured above. Dubbed Captive Air Amphibious Transporters, [...]
Archive for the ‘Transportation Gadgets’ Category
Morpheus lander crashes, burns and explodes in untethered flight test
August 13th, 2012
mrinal As noisy as we found Project Morpheus’ tethered flight test, its untethered follow-up was far, far louder. Yesterday, the experimental lander suffered a hardware component failure, which NASA says “prevented it from maintaining stable flight.” This caused it to crash into the ground and well, explode. On the upside, the space agency says that these [...]
Samsung files for patent on safe taxi service
August 10th, 2012
mrinal Anyone who often relies on taxi service to get around, as good as it can be, has likely had a driver who was less than courteous — and in the worst cases, outright scary. Samsung wants to keep passengers safe, and drivers honest, through a just-published patent application for an end-to-end taxi service. On a [...]
Ford C-MAX Hybrid rated for 47MPG across the board
August 9th, 2012
mrinal The wait for the Ford C-MAX Hybrid has been a long one, and we’ll still be waiting until the fall before the driving public takes a set of keys. In the meantime, there’s good news from the EPA for travelers wondering just how far that hybrid MPV will go on its combined power. It should [...]
Road safety project simTD connects cars, infrastructure
August 8th, 2012
mrinal A new trial scheme in Frankfurt Germany, however, could prevent even more unnecessary road-rage. The project involves 120 vehicles from a range of manufacturers, loaded with “car-to-x” technology. Cars will communicate with each other, and with general infrastructure, in an attempt to make roads safe and less congested. As well as basic location data, other [...]
New EU legislation requires cars to include autonomous braking system
August 7th, 2012
mrinal While we’re still a long way from living the fully autonomous car dream, baby steps are being taken. The EU evidently shares this dream, and has passed regulations that will require new cars to have emergency self-braking systems (known as autonomous emergency braking, or AEB) if they want to achieve a five-star safety rating. The [...]
Nissan’s e-NV200 all-electric van earmarked for a London taxi makeover
August 7th, 2012
mrinal Buried within an announcement from Nissan about its NV200 diesel compact van hitting the London streets, the company has also outed its plans to trial the all-electric variant for ferrying people around the city. The e-NV200 went from concept to reality earlier this year, shortly after the diesel version got a New York paint job [...]
Chrysler taps Sprint for new Uconnect in-car data, wants always-on internet that’s hands-off
August 7th, 2012
mrinal Interior technology is increasingly the main battlefield for automotive giants. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Chrysler is bringing in some bigger guns for its Uconnect service through a team-up with Sprint. The carrier will integrate its cellular data into a Uconnect Access system where the source of pride is precisely how little Chrysler drivers [...]
Ford, GE and University of Michigan team on sensor to track EV battery life
August 6th, 2012
mrinal Believe it or not, EV battery life is still something of a Pandora’s Box, even for automakers: they can tell you the battery pack’s current and voltage, but not how it’s really performing under pressure. Ford, GE and the University of Michigan are uniting to unlock that mystery through a new ARPA-E project. In its [...]
Quirky helmet concept gives new meaning to headlight
August 3rd, 2012
mrinal As a general rule, it’s usually never a good look to strap things to your noggin. That said, we’re willing to let this particular Quirky-made concept slide for two reasons: it could very well save your motorcycle-loving life and it won’t muck up your head gear. The in-development helmet light, which goes by the plain [...]




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