Author: Serkadis

General Motors and NASA announced today that they will launch their humanoid robot Robonaut 2, or R2, to space later this year. The R2 will become a permanent resident of the International Space Station and will work with astronauts in space and another robot at the space station known as Dextre (developed by the Canadian Space Agency).

“While Dextre is located on the station’s exterior, R2 will be confined to operations in the station’s Destiny laboratory,” GM said in a statement. “However, future enhancements could allow it to move more freely around the station’s interior, and it could one day be modified to operate outside the complex.”

“The use of R2 on the space station is just the beginning of a quickening pace between human and robotic exploration of space,” said John Olson, director of NASA’s Exploration Systems Integration Office. “The partnership of humans and robots will be critical to opening up the solar system and will allow us to go farther and achieve more than we can probably even imagine today.”

GM says that the R2 can use its hands to do work beyond the scope of prior humanoid robots and can work safely alongside humans – and it can apparently workout as well.

Hit the jump for the press release.

GM / NASA Robonaut 2:

Press Release:

NASA to Launch GM Co-Developed Robot to International Space Station

Technology to drive advancements in vehicle and manufacturing safety systems

WASHINGTON — NASA will launch the first human-like robot to space later this year to become a permanent resident of the International Space Station. Robonaut 2, or R2, was developed jointly by NASA and General Motors under a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans, whether they be astronauts in space or workers at GM manufacturing plants on Earth.

The 300-pound R2 consists of a head and a torso with two arms and two hands and will launch on space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133 mission planned for September. Once aboard the station, engineers will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness. R2 joins another station robot, known as Dextre. That robot, built by the Canadian Space Agency, consists of two, long arms to perform tasks that normally require spacewalking astronauts to complete.

The dexterous humanoid robot not only looks like a human, it is designed to work like one. With human-like hands and arms, R2 is able to use the same tools that station crew members use. In the future, the greatest benefit of humanoid robots in space may be as an assistant or stand-in for astronauts during spacewalks or for tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans. For now, R2 is still a prototype and lacks adequate protection needed to exist outside the space station in the extreme temperatures of space.

Testing the robot inside the station will provide an important intermediate environment. R2 will be tested in zero gravity, as well as being subjected to the station’s radiation and electromagnetic interference environments. The interior operations will provide performance data on how a robot may work side-by-side with astronauts. As development activities progress on the ground, station crews may be provided hardware and software to update R2 to allow it to do new tasks.

R2 is undergoing extensive testing in preparation for its flight. Vibration, vacuum and radiation testing along with other procedures being conducted on R2 also benefit the team at GM. The automaker plans to use technologies from R2 in future advanced vehicle safety systems and manufacturing plant applications.

“The extreme levels of testing R2 has undergone as it prepares to venture to the International Space Station are on par with the validation our vehicles and components go through on the path to production,” said Alan Taub, vice president of GM’s global research and development. “The work done by GM and NASA engineers also will help us validate manufacturing technologies that will improve the health and safety of our GM team members at our manufacturing plants throughout the world.”

“Partnerships between organizations such as GM and NASA help ensure space exploration, road travel and manufacturing can become even safer in the future,” Taub said.

GM’s manufacturing engineering team is already working to identify potential applications for R2’s array of vision, motion and sensor technologies that will assist workers in manufacturing operations.

“Our strategy is to develop technologies that can fundamentally change the way we manufacture cars and trucks”, said Kenneth D. Knight, executive director GM Manufacturing Assembly & Automation Center. “This includes a focus on developing ways to further support our operators.”

While there was a recent argument being made (weakly) that all property is intellectual property, reader Kerry Kaye recently pointed out a discussion of the opposite point of view, saying that intellectual property is actually a violation of the concept of real property. I have to admit that, while I had hoped to find the article compelling, I actually found it to be lacking in substance. At points it seems to go around in circles without clearly making a point. You could, potentially, make a case that intellectual property tries to limit what you can do directly with the output of your own mind, and that is antithetical to the concept that you have the right to make use of the output of your own brain — which could violated basic property rights, depending on your definition of property rights. In fact, this is the part that I find most troubling about intellectual property laws (especially patents): that it effectively tells you that even if you come up with something entirely on your own, others can stop you from making use of those ideas.

Perhaps a much more compelling (though, I’m sure not to strong believers in intellectual property) discussion on a similar topic is a recent piece by Vedad Krehic, (pointed out by Michael Scott) that discusses how intellectual property laws turn IP holders against their own customers. In it, he makes a similar, but much clearer argument like the one above:

If a friend, however, lends me a music CD and if I then make a copy, so that I can listen to the music without having to borrow the disc again in the future, nobody is harmed. It is possible that I could, for example, have made an agreement or contract with him when I borrowed the disc stating that I cannot copy it. If I were to do it anyway, I’d be in violation of a private agreement. If not, who is harmed by my act of duplication? I used my own tangible property (CD drive, computer, and hard drive or blank CD) to fashion a duplicate of the data on the CD. The original CD is still my friend’s property. I return it to him, and while he is no better or worse off than he was before, I am now better off. The imprint of the music on my tangible property makes that property marginally worth more to me, as I can enjoy its use to a greater extent than previously.

Was anyone harmed at any point here?

Yes — if you choose to believe the consumer entertainment industry. They claim there was a third party here that was being harmed. Can you see the third party? There was me, and there was my friend. There was my property and that of my friend. I don’t see the third party anywhere in that process. I suppose my friend could have been in a contract with the person or organization he purchased the CD from not to copy it, but I wouldn’t have been bound by that contract. Either way, I did nothing wrong.

And this is where the trouble comes in for intellectual property versus real property:

Can anyone please explain to me how someone can be a just owner of something, yet not be allowed to exercise his or her ownership rights over it? He can throw rancid tomatoes at the painting, but not duplicate the pattern that makes the painting a painting, rather than just canvas and paint? Or, to use a different type of copyrightable pattern, how can someone own their own brain yet not own the part of it containing a song they memorized?

The logical conclusion is that the natural right of property and the idea of copyright, and of intellectual property in general, are fundamentally incompatible and conflict sharply. You cannot own something and have someone else dictate to you what you can and cannot do with it, without that being an element voluntarily arrived at through contract. In absence of a contract, the dictating party is initiating aggression against the just owner of an item. Intellectual property is an assault on tangible property.

And that’s the problem that we keep pointing out around here that troubles us so much. There are many — especially in copyright debates — who insist that those who don’t agree with copyright law should just avoid supporting those who do. But they ignore how copyright law is used, regularly, to limit what should be fundamental property rights of individuals to do as they please to products they legally purchased.

In fact, Krehic then takes this further, and notes that much of the entertainment industry’s troubles today may be traced back to the fact that it has aggressively tried to use copyright law to stop people from doing what they want with their own property, and it’s that mistake (which they keep compounding) that has resulted in customers defecting, rather than any issue of “piracy.” Again, it’s easy to predict that intellectual property supporters will scoff at this and dismiss it as ridiculous, but there is growing evidence to support this position. As we’ve seen over and over again, content creators who learn to embrace file sharing and the power of new technologies, while connecting with fans, and providing a smarter business model, have been thriving. It’s not piracy that’s causing harm, it’s bad business model choices, and many of those bad business model choices are driven by an over-reliance on the “crutch” that intellectual property provides, which gives firms the ability to take away property rights from individuals.

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About a year and a half ago I posted the question as to whether or not the large industrial gas companies could replace Big Oil at some point in the future. My thinking was that if we transition from a petroleum based transportation system to one based upon hydrogen, what companies would be most likely to build the infrastructure?

Some of the big oil companies, to their credit, such as Shell and Chevron have put up a few hydrogen fueling stations even though it’s not in their best financial interests to do so (and have been scaling back recently). Oil is cheap and there is already a system in place for pumping oil, producing gasoline or diesel fuels and delivering it to stations for a low price.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, as an emerging technology is not yet cheap to produce, or distribute and there are few fueling stations in which to deliver it. These are just the facts as they stand now. So, Big Oil has no financial incentives to build a hydrogen fueling infrastructure. But how about Big Gas?

Some of the major industrial gas companies such as Air Products, Praxair, Linde and Air Liquide sell most of the hydrogen they currently produce to Big Oil’s refineries to desulfur petroleum.

There is already a vast network of hydrogen pipelines along the Gulf Coast region of the U. S. supplying hydrogen to refineries. And, according to Linde, “Hydrogen demand will increase in the upcoming years as a result of stricter environmental legislation, more extensive processing of residues and higher diesel demand compared with gasoline.”

This makes me wonder about the inherent conflict of interest that Big Gas may have with Big Oil. If Big Oil is one of the biggest customers of Big Gas and Big Oil is a major competitor in regard to the fueling stations as well, how will this scenario play out in the months and years to come?

Right now, all of the big gas companies I’ve mentioned have hydrogen fueling stations and pumps in some regions of the world, supplying H2 to vehicles. But, this isn’t real competition yet for Big Oil.

Building thousand of hydrogen fueling stations or even just hydrogen fueling pumps for current stations will be seen as a threat to Big Oil profits. And the Big Oil companies are not going to let this happen without a fight, perhaps changing vendors to the Big Gas companies that competes less with them.

This means that some Big Gas company will have to take a huge risk and have the financial backing to start putting up hydrogen fueling infrastructure knowing that their contracts may be dumped by Big Oil.

Which Big Gas company will be willing to take this risk? Of course no one knows for sure, but what if none of the big gas companies decide to take this risk – where does that leave us?

The upside to this scenario is that the market will be wide open for smaller players to build infrastructure and reap big profits especially if aided by government incentives. This also leaves the market open for hydrogen coops to form and buy their own hydrogen stations.

The manufacturers of hydrogen on demand pumps like ITM Power or Hydrogenics or the makers of hydrogen slurries may step in to fill the void. On another positive note, Big Gas may not build hydrogen stations, but may build hydrogen pumps and sell them to other parties. Air Products has developed a modular series production system for their hydrogen pumps that will bring the cost of these pumps down considerably.

But, when Air Products starts selling too many of these H2 pumps and they start cutting into the profits of Big Oil, then at that point, Big Oil is sure to notice and take action. This, however, will leave the market open for another smaller company with no ties to Big Oil and step in to take over the market.

Like FedEx did for the shipping industry, some smaller hydrogen fueling company may do for the hydrogen transportation system. Starting small with some Big Idea we may see an unknown company come out of nowhere to become a transformational company for the building of the upcoming nationwide hydrogen highway network.

Google has released an interesting new feature for its real-time search, which enables users to ‘travel through time’ and see what people were saying about any topic at any point in history. Well, in a rather short history, they can only go as far back as February 2010, not exactly ancient times even by Internet standards. In the future though… (read more)

From Green Right Now Reports

If you are looking to simplify your cleaning regimen, while also squeezing the phosphates and other harmful chemicals out of the products you use, watch for DuoDish, a new offering by Earth Friendly Products.

This new entrant in the natural dishwasher category is so safe, it can be used as a hand dishwashing soap. No more need for two products.

It’s all about convenience and providing more choices for consumers, says company CEO Van Vlahakis.

DuoDish caught our eye because we’ve had accidents, promulgated by kids who don’t much use the dishwasher, in which the dishwashing soap was used when the dishWASHER soap was called for. So we know first hand that dish soap for hand washing dishes does NOT translate for the dishwasher. In fact, it results in a sudsy bath for the entire kitchen! (Or did in one memorable event.)

More importantly though, it’s nice to keep it green and clean, and Earth Friendly Products have met the EPA’s test for being environmentally safe. DuoDish is free of synthetic fragrances, phosphates, 1,4 dioxane, formaldehyde, bleach and petroleum products.

It’s also nice to simplify, and as our cleaning products step down from using overly harsh chemicals, more and more of them might have cross over uses. We already use a couple products, instead of say five or six, to clean our bathrooms. Why not aim for an easier approach in the kitchen?

We haven’t tried DuoDish yet. It was just introduced at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last month. But we will. We expect it to work as well as the Earth Friendly Products we have used, such as the effective and affordable Ecos Liquid Laundry Detergent.

DuoDish retails for $3.99 for a 25 oz. bottle. It’s sold at Costco, Sams Club, Whole Foods Markets and other retailers.

• Earth Friendly Products distributes environmentally friendly cleaning supplies for households and commercial use worldwide. The cleaners are created from sustainable plant-based ingredients. The company has won “champion” level recognition from the EPA’s Design for the Environment program.

Filed under: Classics, Performance, Auctions, Etc.

Why is it that people feel compelled to do silly things to DeLoreans? At least this one hasn’t been totally ruined by making it another “Back To The Future” tribute car to manifest its owner’s fawning lack of originality. This particular DMC-12 doesn’t want for ingenuity, just pop the hood. No, not the rear engine hatch, where you’d expect to find an underwhelming PRV V6, but the compartment up front that used to be the trunk.

Why is there a 2.0-liter Honda engine stuck in front? Well, it teams with the 8.2-liter Cadillac engine out back, of course. The Caddy motor isn’t included in the auction, curiously, but it is available for an extra sum. Reading through the seller’s comprehensive information clearly points out that the car wasn’t a concours example before the swap, and settling for a simple restoration wasn’t going to happen. So you end up with a DeLorean with an aggregate of twelve cylinders, none in stock form. The car isn’t perfect, but hey, what do you want for a current bid price of $6,100? Thanks for the tip, flyingaero!

[Source: eBay Motors]

eBay Find of the Day: Great Scott! It’s a twin-engined 1982 DeLorean originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over in Journal of Infectious Diseases, the MERIT study was recently published (with Chuck Hicks’ Journal Watch summary here), demonstrating that maraviroc is non-inferior to efavirenz — provided that the enhanced-sensitivity tropism test is used to select appropriate candidates.

(The MERIT study began in 2004-5.  Don’t think I’ll ever forget that, since the investigator meeting overlapped with this memorable series.  Notable event pictured.)

Despite these favorable results from the trial — and the FDA approval of the drug for treatment-naive patients — I agree with Chuck that mariviroc will get little use in this population, if only because the “preferred” alternatives (efavirenz, atazanavir/r, darunavir/r, raltegravir) are so incredibly good.

Our reader poll (right side of page) confirms how rarely the drug is prescribed as initial therapy.  I suspect that some of the respondents who said they have given the drug to these patients did so within a clinical trial, which would make the response even lower.

Will maraviroc — or another CCR5 antagonist — ever have widespread use in HIV treatment?

Call me an optimist, but I envision that these drugs will be part of an aggressive eradication strategy, somehow based on the remarkable case of “cure” following bone marrow transplantation from a CCR5-negative donor.

Hey, I can dream can’t I?  Red Sox fans certainly did in 2004.

Como já fazia tempo que não aparecia aqui algumas beldades, não podia deixar passar essa oportunidade aqui no Carango! Depois das lindas garotas do 4Tuning Days, chegou a hora de mostrar algumas das moças que estavam em mais um evento no exterior.

Aconteceu em Leipzig, Alemanha, o Auto Mobil International que é mais um evento de belos carros e garotas tão belas quanto, e está acontecendo desde o dia 10 de abril, se encerrando no próximo dia 18 de abril.

Sem mais demoras, confiram as imagens a seguir e dêem sua opinião. O fato é que essas garotas realmente estão mais “vestidas” em relação ao 4Tuning Days, mas não deixam de exibir sua beleza. Durante os próximos dias, vamos colocar mais alguns eventos que aconteceram no decorrer desse ano com mais garotas exuberantes. Não percam!

Gatas que participaram do evento

Via | Carscoop

El iPad uno de los gadgets mas criticados por todos y ganador del Fiasco Awards 2010 a lo peor de la tecnología parece que se ha ganado el corazón de un grupo selecto de “individuos” a los que los ingenieros de apple no apuntaban.. Tal vez en un futuro se abra una sección en el app store con aplicaciones para ellos.-

Nota: No hagan esto en sus casas.. la pantalla del ipad podría quedarles como un colador.

Visto en mashable

From Green Right Now Reports

Houston’s Aveda network of salons is hosting a Walk for Water in Houston, starting at Terry Hershey Park on Sunday, April 18.  The walk is open to the public, and many Aveda stylists, spa therapists and owners will be participating.

The Walk will be 6 km (4 miles) to represent the average distance women in developing nations have to walk every day for access to clean water.

Aveda, which manufactures plant-based hair care, skin and makeup products, runs a global campaign to promote clean water. The Houston walk will benefit the Gulf Restoration Network and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper organizations.

The walk is one of 82 walks being organize by Aveda institutes, salons and spas to celebrate Earth Month 2010.

Cost of the walk is $50 per entrant.  Pets are welcome. Public attendance (non-walkers) is free. Registration starts at 10 a.m. at Terry Hershey Park, 15200 Memorial Drive.

One of the major issues in Oracle’s delayed and disputed acquisition of Sun Microsystems was MySQL. The European Commission anti-trust watchdog blocked the acquisition for several months as it investigated the impact the sale would have on the database market. It finally gave the go-ahead and Oracle completed the acquisition earlier this year. Now, the comp… (read more)

Even as home prices tentatively rise, the gorilla in the room is growth in delinquent loans.

Delinquent loans are up for several reasons. Obama is doing everything he can to prevent foreclosures, which means more mortgages languish in delinquency. More Americans are poorer than ever, and are unable to pay the mortgage. Others have caught the default contagion and may be flirting the idea of a strategic default.

What happens if delinquent loans become foreclosures and flood the market is a severe drop in home prices.

The evidence is in the latest Mortgage Monitor from LPS.

See the evidence here >

February delinquencies were up 21.3% from last year

Source: LPS

Foreclosure inventory is up 51.1% from last year

Source: LPS

Inventory is bloated with non-current loans

Source: LPS

Red dot means a major foreclosure problem

Source: LPS

Red dot means a major foreclosure and/or delinquent loan problem

Source: LPS

Loans are going bad at record rates

Source: LPS

1,145,000 loans went bad from Jan. to Feb.

Source: LPS

Nevada and Mississippi are at the heart of the delinquent mortgage spike

Source: LPS

Foreclosed homes are not selling

Source: LPS

Although FHA production declining…

Source: LPS

And although FHA origination attributes have improved…

Source: LPS

FHA loans are still going bad at rising rates

Source: LPS

Even at moderate credit scores

Source: LPS

Even at good credit scores

Source: LPS

2008 FHA loans are going bad as quickly as other high risk products

Source: LPS

An unprecedented volume of FHA loans are in advanced delinquency

Source: LPS

But it’s not all bad news

While delinquent loans present a huge risk, other aspects of the housing market are getting better.

Better loan practices will decrease the number of new delinquencies. A strong-enough recovery in prices could salvage underwater mortgages, removing the incentive to default.

February is a clear improvement

Source: LPS

Delinquent loans are improving at record rates

Source: LPS

HAMP is helping

Source: LPS

Although more loans deteriorated than improved…

Source: LPS

The ratio of deteriorating-to-improving loans is improving

Source: LPS

Roll rate into foreclosure is down (thanks to high number of delinquent loans)

Source: LPS

Recent deterioration rate (red) is bad… but things have been worse (gray)

Source: LPS

Banks have become slower to foreclose on delinquent loans

Source: LPS

Jumbo loans are in decline

Source: LPS

Jumbo loan standards have improved

Source: LPS

Almost all jumbo loans have solid credit scores

Source: LPS

First payment default rates for all loans are down

Source: LPS

Read more…

The 10 Housing Markets That Are Still Wildly Overvalued

Join the conversation about this story »

At next week’s Beijing Motor Show, Chinese automaker JAC’s will reveal its Smart ForTwo competitor, a car that looks like the Toyota iQ… but better. Why better? Because the JAC IV Concept was designed by the firm’s Italian facility in Milan, so right off the bat it’s got some sex appeal for a subcompact ride.

Click here for prices on the Smart ForTwo.

The $2 million dollar facility was built in 2005 and focuses on the design of JAC cars and engineering techniques that can be sent back to the Chinese automaker’s owner r&d department.

The JAC IV Concept will have a hybrid powertrain, but we’ll get more details next week. Stay tuned.

JAC IV Concept:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: AutoCar

With Geohot’s PS3 “custom firmware” still not out, PS3 owners who want to keep the Other OS feature have been staying on FW 3.15 and using a proxy hack to play online. Thing is, Sony have reportedly

Ford’s V6 EcoBoost engine is already a pretty impressive unit, offering V8 power with V6 like fuel-economy. How do they do that? They use many of the same technologies found in today’s state-of-the-art diesels, including turbocharging and direct-injection.

Ford announced today that the next-generation of EcoBoost engines will get even closer to diesels as Ford will introduce cooled EGR (exhaust gas recirculation), which will help the units have higher compression ratios. Ford said that the addition of EGR to EcoBoost should yield in another 5 percent gain in fuel-economy.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Lincoln MKS EcoBoost.

“The first generation of EcoBoost applied some of the key technologies found in powerful diesel engines – such as direct injection and turbocharging – and optimized them for the gasoline engine,” said Bob Fascetti, director of large gas and diesel engine engineering. “The next generation of EcoBoost engines will continue that path to deliver more power and even better fuel economy with lower emissions, which are key customer benefits of EcoBoost technology.”

Fascetti said that Ford is going to introduce about 30 powertrains over the next couple of years to power everything from small cars to large pickup trucks.

Earlier this week, Ford confirmed it will have three EcoBoost engines by the end of 2010.

Make the jump for the press release for more details.

Press Release:

NEXT GENERATION OF FORD’S ECOBOOST ENGINES PROMISE EVEN MORE POWER, BETTER FUEL ECONOMY

* Ford’s award-winning EcoBoost™ gasoline engines use many of the same technologies found in today’s state-of-the-art diesels, including direct injection and turbocharging
* The next generation of EcoBoost engines will move even closer to diesels as Ford introduces cooled EGR (exhaust gas recirculation), which helps enable higher compression ratios
* Further refinements to EcoBoost engines expected to yield another 5 percent gain in fuel economy

DETROIT, April 14, 2010 – At the 2010 SAE World Congress this week, Dan Kapp, Ford’s director of powertrain research and advanced engineering, and Bob Fascetti, director of large gas and diesel engine engineering, will detail how the next generation of the company’s award-winning EcoBoost engines will further connect gasoline and diesel engine technology.

Technologies being studied to further expand the potential of EcoBoost include cooled EGR and more advanced forms of turbocharging, which also have links to modern diesel engines. Cooled EGR as applied to an EcoBoost engine can improve efficiency and reduce the tendency for an engine to knock. Cooled EGR is exhaust gas that is cooled in a heat exchanger before being pumped back into the cylinders, where it lowers the combustion temperature.

The result: a cleaner-running engine that develops more power and delivers as much as a 5 percent gain in fuel economy over today’s already efficient EcoBoost engines. Ford’s current generation of 2.0-liter EcoBoost I-4 and 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engines deliver between 10 and 20 percent better fuel economy than comparable normally aspirated V-6 and V-8 engines, respectively.

Ford holds more than 125 patents on its EcoBoost technology, which combines direct injection, turbocharging and variable valve timing to increase performance and reduce emissions. EcoBoost gasoline engines already use much of the same technology that is found in today’s state-of-the-art turbo-diesels.

As with diesels, today’s EcoBoost engines feature:

* A high-pressure direct-injection fuel system fed by a common rail that delivers a precise amount of gasoline in the exact spot for fast and complete burn
* Turbocharging to create a more dense mix of air and fuel in each cylinder
* Special pistons with optimized bowls in the center to improve combustion efficiency. These pistons are also oil-cooled, which reduces in-cylinder temperatures
* Reduced CO2 emissions and higher fuel economy

And just like diesels, Ford’s EcoBoost engines deliver outstanding performance and driving enjoyment at all speeds. EcoBoost accomplishes this at less cost than a similar-displacement diesel engine.

“When it comes to smaller-displacement engines, EcoBoost is the perfect solution for most consumers,” said Barb Samardzich, Ford’s vice president for Powertrain Engineering. “EcoBoost delivers what customers need most – outstanding fuel economy and low-end torque.”

Adapting diesel engine technology to a gasoline engine involves more than simply machining a few new parts and then just bolting them on, explained Brett Hinds, manager of Ford’s advanced engine design.

“An EcoBoost engine has much higher operating temperatures than a diesel engine,” said Hinds. “Many parts had to be upgraded to special metals and alloys that hold up to that environment. Our exhaust manifolds, for example, are made of stainless steel, and the turbochargers are made from high-temperature cast-iron alloy.”

EcoBoost and diesel engines share higher pressures in the fuel system and higher compression ratios. For example, a regular port fuel-injected gasoline engine’s fuel pressure is around 65 psi, while the pressure at which the fuel is delivered through the injectors in an EcoBoost engine can be as high as 2,250 psi.

State-of-the-art diesel engines, such as the new Ford-designed and Ford-built 6.7-liter Power Stroke® V-8, have fuel pressures that are even higher. But in both engines, the fuel is delivered to almost the exact same area. With EcoBoost, the fuel is introduced directly into the cylinder head, just like a diesel, and the fuel injection tip is right in the combustion, just like a diesel.

“We’re introducing about 30 powertrains over the next couple of years to power everything from small cars to large pickup trucks,” said Fascetti. “Our experience with a wide range of engines allows us to take the best solutions and apply them to many platforms to benefit the customer.”

– By: Omar Rana

O novo e esportivo Seat Leon Cupra R mal chegou e a empresa alemã especializada em preparação JE Design tratou de lançar o seu pacote esportivo para o modelo, que além de ganhar mais potencia em seu motor, recebeu um esportivo kit estético.

Seu motor original quatro cilindros de 2.0L turbocharger que rende 265 cavalos de potência recebeu um afinamento técnico com um novo filtro de ar menos restritivo, sistema de escapamento redimensionado e um remapeamento em sua central de injeção. Com isso, sua potencia pulou dos 265 cv originais para 330 cavalos.

Dessa forma, a aceleração do esportivo hatch de 0 a 100 km/h é feita em 5,8 segundos, atingindo a velocidade máxima de 268 km/h. Com a capacidade de atingir velocidade mais altas, seu comportamento dinâmico também foi melhorada com uma suspensão regulável que pode ser rebaixada em até 40 mm, fazendo com que o modelo grude mais no chão em velocidades altas e no tangenciamento das curvas.

Visualmente o Seat Leon Cupra R da JE Design ficou mais esportivo e um pouco extravagante com um bodykit que inclui novos para-choques, extrator traseiro, ponteiras duplas de escapamento e aerofólio como principais destaques, além é claro da indiscreta pintura tipo fosforecente de algumas peças do modelo.

Sua rodas que também são pintadas da indiscreta cor, são de 19 polegadas e são calçadas com os pneus de perfil 235/35. De acordo com a JE Design, o seu interior também poderá receber alguns detalhes diferenciados, como a pintura na parte inferior do volante, saídas de ar e na costura dos bancos de couro.

Seat Leon Cupra R by JE Design

Fonte: CarScoop

Foi anunciado o investimento de 175 milhões de euros pelo Grupo PSA Peugeot–Citroën na produção de um motor de 3 cilindros a gasolina, que vai ser fabricado em Dourvin, França, com versões turbos com foco na eficiência. O presidente do Grupo PSA, Philippe Varin, diz o seguinte:

“A nova família de motores vai permitir que a PSA Peugeot-Citroën lute pela liderança dos veículos com emissões reduzidas de poluentes”.

A construção de novos motores começará a partir de 2012, dando continuidade nos planos de lançamento de carros com motores ecologicamente corretos, e a fábrica francesa já produziu aproximadamente 1,3 milhões de motores, sendo a maior parte deles para o Grupo PSA.

Via | Autoportal

Filed under: China, Hatchback

This will get some heads turning: after a drive on challenging Welsh roads, Autocar has written “In its poise and agility I’d even say the MG6 is superior” to the Ford Focus Zetec S. There are other compromises: the interior, the gearchange, the NVH, grunt at high revs. But the first bespoke Nanjing-created MG, the MG6, is a certified runner according to the UK mag.

The MG6 hatch was designed at Longbridge, and it benchmarked the Focus for its own handling prowess. The turbocharged 1.8-liter Honda K-series engines isn’t new, but the platform is, and this version of the car was tuned for European drivers and roads. As we said, there remain a few niggles, but for a pre-production car to be declared “borderline best-in-class to drive,” and by a British pub no less, well, there could be gold in them thar (unlikely) hills.

[Source: Autocar]

Nanjing’s first clean-sheet MG gets tested, better to drive than Ford Focus? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tana delivered its first shredder to Russia just after Christmas. As its first assignment the machine was taken to local customs warehouse to shred pirate products. Russian media noted it and a piece of news was broadcasted in the Russian news.

The material which needed to be shredded was pieces of clothes, untouched in original packages. Textiles can be challenging to shred but Tana Shark shreds them without trouble. Single rotor and high torque of the machine ensure a smooth shredding process. Please see the Newsclip in the Russian RBC television news here starting at 7:39.