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Toyota crosses a smartphone with a runaround and reveals a car that can change its look at the touch of a button


If Toyota has its way, paint jobs could become a thing of the past, because it’s unveiled a car that can change its whole look in an instant.
The Fun-Vii, which stands for ‘vehicle interactive internet’, is a concept car with a bodyshell made of touch-screen panels that not only allow the driver to change the pattern on display but also connect the car to the dealership’s website for a check-up.

It even greets its driver with a message that flashes up on the door.
Toyota showed off the unique car ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show today, with company president Akio Toyoda saying: ‘A car must appeal to our emotions. If it’s not fun, it’s not a car.’

The car giant has no plans to put Fun-Vii into production just yet, but explained that it’s an example of the kinds of technologies that it could incorporate into designs in the future.
It said in a statement: ‘It heralds Toyota’s vision of a future where people, cars and society are linked.’
Two other electric Toyota concept cars have also been revealed.
The FT-EV III is a four-seater electric vehicle based on the Toyota iQ.
Equipped with a lithium-ion battery, it achieves an estimated cruising range of 65 miles on a fully charged battery.
Toyota is developing EV technology with the aim of launching a vehicle suitable for short-distance travel in 2012, when the plug-in market comes to the UK.
The FCV-R (Fuel Cell Vehicle – Reality & Revolution) concept, meanwhile, is a practical, family sized vehicle fuelled by hydrogen. 
This concept model represents the next step towards the commercial launch of a Toyota fuel cell vehicle by 2015.
This should be able to reach 430 miles on one charge.

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Chevrolet Miray Concept


According to GM Korea President and CEO Mike Arcamone, “‘Miray’ is Korean for ‘future.’ As GM rolls out Chevrolet across Korea, the Miray concept offers an exploration of future possibilities for the brand. It strengthens the bond between car and driver, creating a fresh look at what sports cars of the future might be.” The Chevrolet Miray Concept was developed at the GM Advanced Design Studio in Seoul. Combining cutting-edge hybrid powertrain technology and advanced styling, it balances iconic Chevrolet design cues with a future design vision as Chevrolet celebrates its centennial in 2011.
Made of carbon fiber and CFRP (carbon fiber-reinforced plastic), the wedged body side is divided by an angled character line, with ambient lighting underneath. This accent creates a sweeping line of light when the car is in motion, bringing a warm glow to the sculptured body. Le Mans racer-style scissor doors open up and out of the way for dramatic access to the interior.
The powerful front end offers a reinterpretation of the Chevrolet face. The Chevrolet Miray Concept‘s dual port grille is flanked by LED headlamps with new signature daytime running lamps. The front and rear fenders evoke Chevrolet Corvettes of the past and express the concept’s sports car spirit. At the corners, carbon-fiber spoilers help control down force and airflow. The interior compartment is surrounded by a carbon fiber shell, which gives it a lightweight yet rigid structure. Its flowing, yet slightly tensioned, twin cockpit tightly wraps around the driver and passenger. The cockpit is driver focused, drawing inspiration from the iconic Chevrolet sports car. However, the passenger is also fully engaged in the driving experience.
Asymmetric seats flow from the door, forming a symmetric interior that gives the driver a feeling of being fully connected with the car. Ambient lighting, which starts from the upper instrument panel and flows into the seat back area, adds a sense of luxury. Seat cushions and headrests are connected by the lightweight carbon fiber shell and mounted on a single aluminum rail. The headrest area follows the exterior form, integrating with an air scarf for open-air driving.
The Chevrolet Miray Concept is propelled by two front-mounted 15-kW electric motors for quick acceleration and zero emissions in urban driving. The motors are powered by a 1.6-kWh lithium-ion battery that is charged through regenerative braking energy. The Miray has the capability of being switched from front-wheel drive to rear-wheel drive.
For performance driving, the Chevrolet Miray Concept‘s 1.5-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine combines with the electric motors, providing spirited torque control to both the left and right wheels as needed. The high-tech engine, mounted behind the cockpit, drives the rear wheels while seamlessly integrating electrification technology that defines a new standard in the compact roadster segment.
 Source :

Solar power station: A cool device with smooth design and good performance































Introduction


With the go-green thoughts spreading like a wild fire throughout the world, a lot of innovative green ideas have come into existence the past few years. One such initiative is harvesting solar energy to produce electricity. Electricity generation contributes a lot to the already increasing carbon foot print. By this idea of harvesting solar energy, one can reduce its contribution to the carbon foot print in many folds.
The solar universal USB – DLM2263 is a cool device with smooth design and good performance. The 3 important features of this solar charger are
1. You can charge your gadgets – cell phones, laptops, and iPods on the go. Its wide range of compatible gadgets makes it an ideal companion in your journey. It has both a micro and mini USB cable included.
2. It has a portable power by which you can charge this device either with sunlight or using your laptop’s USB. If you are away from a power source, this feature comes handy.
3. This universal USB charger apart from its performance has a sleek design which makes it look stylish and soft to touch. The size comes as an advantage as it hardly occupies any space in your travel kit. Also features like its hidden power – indicator light are an added advantage as you can monitor the device’s progress.

    Specifications
    This pretty charger’s looks don’t compromise in its durability. Its silicon exteriors aid in shock protection thereby making the gadget rugged. Apart from robust exteriors, the device has a wide range of specifications.
    1. It has the latest USB 2.0 for compatibility. The USB cables included are the ones which support the iPhone & iPod (30- pin), the micro USB and the mini USB. The cables are long enough to suit your convenience. The 30- pin’s cable is 0.3 m in length while the mini & micro USB’s length.
    2. The output power from this green gadget is 5VDC 500mA while the battery capacity is 1350 mAh.
    3. The dimension of the solar energy USB charger is 12.7 x 17 x 5.1 cm and its gross weight is 325g. The size and weight makes it compact to be a part of our travel kit.
    Advantages
    The solar charger comes with a lot of advantages by its side. It is like a book which you can carry practically anywhere. You don’t need to go in search of power to charge your laptops and cell phones. All you need to do is open the device such that the light falls on the solar cells for the conversion of electric energy. With the solar charger in your hand, you can choose to work practically anywhere with your laptop as it can also charge using the laptop. The battery pack is very intelligently made to first provide power to the gadgets, so that we can remove the pack and still have full battery on your device. By this innovative idea, we can make an effective contribution to the concept of “Go green”.

     


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Huge multitouch desk feels like the future, is for sale next year




















We haven't even made it to Black Friday yet, and already we're getting a taste of the futuristic swag that'll be on display at CES in January. Over the weekend, ExoPC posted a video teasing a multitouch surface called the EXOdesk, promising more details when the show kicks off after the new year. The desk measures 40 inches (make that "40 high-definition inches") and, as you'd expect, supports a smorgasboard of multi-fingered gestures. The entire teaser lasts less than a minute, but you don't need more than a few seconds to realize this isn't the same UI we reviewed with the ExoPC Slate. So far, we noticed you can run apps at full-screen and swipe widgets to chuck 'em out of sight. You can also swipe the corner with four fingers to reveal what appears to be an RSS feed, and then swipe individual items to make them disappear. That's all we know about how it works, though the company did reveal it'll go on sale next year for $1,299 -- a fraction of the $8,400 you'll pay for the new Samsung SUR40 running Microsoft Surface. We'll be keeping an eye out for this when we stake out CES in January, but until then, we've got the teaser vid tucked after the break.



Hotel room of the future revealed


HOTEL guests of the future will be able to control their room environment with body gestures and voice recognition, while a high tech entertainment area known as a "green capsule'' will replace a traditional balcony.









Unveiled in France, the architecturally-designed hotel room of the future is divided into two spaces - one for rest and one for entertainment. 
Each space has its own Xbox 360 console with the motion sensing input device Kinect.
Based around a webcam-style add-on, the Kinect enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller.
Novotel and Microsoft teamed up to launch the concept, called Room 3120, at Novotel Paris Vaugirard Montparnasse.
Designed to accommodate up to four guests (two adults and two children), the room is available for 199 euros a night until February 14.Novotel will use feedback from guests to introduce new features for rooms across the group.The room has a Sensorit mirror based on Kinect technology - an apparently ordinary mirror that displays information in graphic or text form.Users can choose information tags with a wave of the hand, accessing news, local weather or multimedia content. It also has a Surface multimedia table, which has applications ranging from web browsing and board games to interactive maps that guests can use to select destinations in the city.While the first space, intended for adults, is white and has a fold-up bed, the second is designed more as a playroom for kids.The room is colourful and has a tatami mat that rises up on one side to form a bench containing a Surface table with games and various multimedia applications.The furniture disappears to make way for integrated, modular functions.












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Future Traveler


In the U.S., if you are getting ready for or are already embroiled in the Thanksgiving travel crush, or if you are abroad and just find yourself elbow-to-elbow with similarly harried travelers in an airport, take a moment to consider a utopian vision of the travel experience in a not-too-distant future.
It comes to you in the form of a Future Traveler video, with a dash of self-promotion, from Sabre.
It is a world where your every travel whim is at your fingertips via tablet-like mobile devices.
Biometric scans are your gateways to business or adventure travel, the latest flight updates momentarily interrupt your e-reading and video-conferencing technology makes corporate meetings more efficient and brings continents together across a vanishing divide.
Of course, in Sabre’s depiction of an uncomplicated, stress-free and high-tech travel future, you hardly ever even see another traveler in these luxurious, friendly, pristine and worry-free airports of the future.




2016 Lamborghini Madura Concept Car Is Named Island in Indonesia

2016 Lamborghini Madura Concept is style by Slavche Tanevsky, who may be a student of Munich University. The Lamborghini Madura named like that as a result of need to create this car strong because the strength of culture on the island of Madura with cultural bull. The Lamborghini Madura concept hybrid sticks to the brand’s performance and smart looking basics, and gets a sleek and a lot of aggressive profile. The hybrid powertrain is mounted up front, where the automobile has huge air intakes, a curvaceous hood and slim headlights of Lamborghini Madura Concept.


The suave wanting model is alleged to be surroundings friendly, that have the electrical engine hidden below a curved front hood, a slender body galvanized by Lamborghini Gallardo and Murcielago and spoilers that jut out of aspect panels that connect laser beams, which is alleged to be symbolic for the electrical drive system. This automobile is meant as an environmentally friendly automobile of interest and fast. Proportionally, the automobile has rather short wheelbase, and equally long overhangs. The short wheelbase provides it higher agility and driving performance. The long overhangs on the opposite hand are visually shortened by fiddling with skinny layering surfaces that are a part of separate body parts.
The interior of the car is created within the general variety of the Lamborghini; the front bumper placed monumental air intakes, the headlights as narrowed, thereby emphasizing the corporate identity of the complete. The case itself is formed using refined lines that make a supercar look terribly impressive.
Lamborghini Madura was done as a part of the Lamborghini Raw Materials Project led by Prof. Dr. Othmar Wickenheiser, where all students at the varsity may participate in. The Feruccio Lamborghini’s appreciation to Spanish culture and bull fighting/running led to naming all Lamborghini cars when some famous bulls or some places or families connected to bulls. Respecting this fradition, the automobile is called when the island in Indonesia, that is legendary for bull races. The Madura may be a proposal for the primary hybrid Lamborghini scheduled for 2016. Doing an automobile additional economical and additional nature-friendly, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be exciting, good-looking and quick. However in my opinion this new propulsion system ought to be represented on the appearance of the automobile.
The body hybrid Lamborghini scheduled for 2016 is very cab-backwards vogue that is new for today’s Lambo vary, however as aspect read silhouette isn’t strange to Lamborghini, particularly the Lamborghini Silhouette and Urraco had terribly similar body-cab compositions. Proportionally, the automobile has rather short wheelbase, and equally long overhangs. The short wheelbase provides it higher agility and driving performance. The long overhangs on the opposite hand are visually shortened by fiddling with skinny layering surfaces that are a part of separate body parts. The front is extremely sleek and aerodynamic. It consists of the bonnet, with electrical engine beneath, and spoiler with blades between for additional depth of the planning, and higher CW result. The headlights are terribly skinny and horizontally oriented to stress the cars’ width Lamborghini Madura body style 2016.”










Samsung unveils £7,500 40-inch Full HD touchscreen table that can ‘feel’ 50 touches at once


The multi-touch technology that Apple pioneered with its iPhone is now everywhere in the modern world – but Microsoft is about to pump up the technology to a new level.

The next generation of its ‘Surface’ table is a 40-inch touchscreen that can feel 50 ‘touches’ at once – and can also ‘feel’ pens, pointers or anything else placed on the table. Screens on gizmos such as iPhone can only feel fingers.
The Full HD screen has a high-powered Windows PC built in – and is just four inches thick.
The Surface touchscreen is just four inches thick – it can be used in ‘table’ format, or even hung on the wall like a painting
Microsoft’s Surface display is a 40-inch multi-touch screen which overcomes the limitations of most touchscreen technology – the fact that the screens arebamboozled if too many people touch at once

The screen works by shining light upwards through the screen, which bounces back to a layer of sensors behind the screen.
It can detect not only fingers but objects on the table – whereas other touchscreen technologies are limited in what they can detect.
For instance, touching an iPhone screen with a pen will have no effect.
With that in mind, the tablet ships with apps allowing children to paint or draw directly on screen – or even edit photos and upload them to Facebook.
Microsoft’s previous Surface table was a bit of a cheat – the surface was semi-transparent, and touch was detected by cameras underneath the table.
The result was that displays using Surface looked a little washed-out – and the table wasn’t as responsive as multi-touch touchscreens.
At CES 2011, Microsoft unveiled the next generation of the Microsoft Surface experience featuring PixelSense™ technology, which gives LCD panels the power to see without the use of cameras.
The table will also include apps that allow people to ‘paint’ directly onto the table, or edit photos then add them directly to their Facebook accounts
The screen can hang on a wall, be built into a wall, or comes with standard leg supports.If that doesn’t fit with your home, you can choose your own legs.
The gizmo was named a 2011 ‘Best of What’s New’ award winner by Popular Science magazine.
The Surface SUR40 is available for pre-order now for £7499. 

Futuristic Bike “Detonator” by Daniel Simon

 “The Detonator,” this bike of the future from Daniel Simon
 integrates science fiction style with all the abilities of modern technology.
The Cosmic Motors Detonator is an unique concept created by German automotive futurist Daniel Simon for his futuristic vehicle design company, “Cosmic Motors”. Simon calls this futuristic bike a “street cruiser bike built for humanoid droids.” Simon obtained his degree in vehicle design in 2001 at the University of Applied Science in Pforzheim, Germany. After completion, Simon went to Barcelona and designed concept cars for Bugatti and Lamborghini, followed by five years at the VW Group’s Advanced Studio where he is currently designing virtual vehicles for his brand Cosmic Motors. He has published a book, “Comic Motors” and continues to offer his services to premium carmakers while designing his own concepts.


Source: Beautiful Life







ECCO A zero-emissions mobile living solution by NAU | Future Design Series no. 5


Since their introduction, automobiles have been a source of passion and meanings as individual as their drivers. Today they are often associated with luxury, performance or safety, but the Ecco aims to remind us they can still be about freedom.

Following on the heels of design classics like the Airstream or VW camper van, the Ecco gets passengers to their destination, and becomes a temporary home when they get there. Compact, stylish and aerodynamic while on the road; when it is parked, the Ecco expands to provide a level of space and comfort that its forebearers could only dream of.

The exterior is a harmonious blend of precision aluminum and glass. Its direct and sculptural form cheats the wind while pleasing the eye. While a bit wider than its Volkswagen predecessor, the Ecco’s form is more aerodynamic, and the vehicle rides closer to the ground. The result is vastly improved interior volume, wonderful sight-lines for all passengers, and less wind resistance to boot.

As an all-electric vehicle, the Ecco has no emissions of its own, and can be quickly charged at a standard 240V station. But when used for extended living purposes, even where no electricity is available, its built-in photovoltaic panels and solar sail roof mean that it can cut out the middle man, and charge directly from the sun. The Ecco’s promise:  Zero emissions.  Zero guilt.  Unlimited space to dream.

TECHNICAL

Dimensions
Length: 4.62m
Width: 2.55m
Height: 1.97m
Weight: 1,600kg (3527lbs)
Occupancy: 5 persons

Construction
Envelop: sealed aluminum skin (clearcoat & black lacquer)
Integrated thin-film photovoltaic cellson roof & expansion membrane
Unibody all aluminum chassis

Power
Photovoltaic generation: 1.1kW
Charge time (240V): 8 hours
Electric Motors (combined): 127hp



 Source:  Behance Network


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