Author: Serkadis

Filed under: Classics, Coupe, Performance, Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Audi, Luxury

In what is currently raw footage but what will soon undoubtedly be slickly produced promotional material, the brutalicious 2011 Audi RS5 growls around a track and on various European roads. For a brief spell it even shares the screen with one of its spiritual brethren, the Ur Quattro.

These things don’t need lots of explaining – follow the jump for the sight and sounds of two of the finest Audi models ever.

Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: Carscoop]

Continue reading Video: Promolicious clips of the Audi RS5 meeting its Ur Quattro brother

Video: Promolicious clips of the Audi RS5 meeting its Ur Quattro brother originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Article Tags: Public Polls

Critics point to mistakes, e-mail theft to raise doubts on research; poll shows less public concern

A series of highly publicized errors in a landmark report about manmade global warming – and lingering controversy over hacked e-mails between climate scientists – is eroding public confidence in the research and could further stall efforts in Congress to pass climate legislation.

The errors – involving projections, citations of source materials, and geography – have been seized on by skeptics of the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is almost certainly the most significant cause of earth’s rising temperature. Now, there are signs the critics are succeeding at raising doubts.

In recent weeks, Texas, Virginia, and Alabama officials filed challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that manmade greenhouse gases threaten public health, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from the coal state of West Virginia, introduced a bill to postpone for two years EPA rules stemming from that determination.

Republican senators have pointed to the errors as another reason to oppose a climate bill, spearheaded by Senator John F. Kerry, that would limit carbon dioxide emissions.

Source: boston.com

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Yahoo Mail is about to get a bit of an update focusing on usability. Some of the menu items will be changed or regrouped to make everything more intuitive and easier to find. It’s not a major update or too much of a change but Yahoo decided to give users a heads-up before the new look goes live.

The first changes were made to some of the menu buttons in the email Inbox tab. Under the “Actions” drop-down menu, the items are being regrouped and reorganized, and several new entries are… (read more)

Article Tags: Lorne Gunter

If you are driving a car (say an unrepaired Toyota) and it suddenly surges up to very high speeds, then runs out of gas, it may be true that the first 100 metres after the tank goes dry are the fastest 100 metres the car has ever travelled. It does not follow, though, that the car is still accelerating dangerously. Or at all.

In their attempt to repair the recent damage to their climate-change cause, environmentalists — such as former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, whose defence of the climate-change theory appears opposite — have begun pointing out that the last decade was “the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.”

“What is important,” Mr. Gore writes, is not the errors and manipulations recently uncovered in the work of the UN and leading climate scientist, but rather “that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.”

To both claims, I say, “So what?”

Since 1998, we haven’t seen things heating up. One of the four main sources of worldwide temperatures (NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies) claims 2005 was hotter — slightly — than 1998. But the point is, the trend over the last 12 years been roughly flat. The earth is not getting warmer, at least not significantly. Global warming has paused.

So think of the climate like our runaway car. Temperatures rose rapidly from 1979. Yet after 1998, the climb seems to have run out of gas. It’s been warm since, but it is no longer getting warmer rapidly, if at all.

Source: network.nationalpost.com

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Filed under: Videos, Toys/Games

Perhaps Polyphony Digital should just go into the commercial rendering business. Gran Turismo 5 remains stuck behind a palisade of silence, but new trailers for the game are thrown over the barriers to the salivating hordes every couple of weeks.

A few days ago, Polyphony laid out a NASCAR feast, while this latest, called “Nights,” is a potluck dinner with regular gameplay, sports car racing, pit stops, NASCAR, night racing and damage scenes. Plus, a lot of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG. And music from Ibiza. Follow the jump to sample the newest dish.

[Source: Joystiq]

Continue reading Video: Gran Turismo 5 “Nights” trailer has it all

Video: Gran Turismo 5 “Nights” trailer has it all originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Article Tags: Green Tax

Have you ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU? Now you have your answer. Green pressure groups are becoming financially dependent on Brussels. Ten years ago, they received €2,337,924 from the European Commission; last year, it was €8,749,940.

A study by the International Policy Network reveals the extent to which Green lobbyists look to the EU for their income: Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, WWF, they’re all at it. Much of this money, the paper shows, is then recycled into lobbying the EU.

You see how the system works? The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities (see here).

This isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s bad for the environment, because it equates conservation with state intervention and supranationalism. One of these Brussels-funded organisations recently produced a league of which MEPs were greenest. I like to think that I am pretty eco-conscious. I try never to fly or drive when trains are an option; Mrs H sources food locally, and reuses and recycles meticulously; we even had washable nappies for our children. But I came near the bottom of the table because I had voted consistently against giving more power to Brussels.

That’s the Left for you, I suppose, elevating motive over action, valuing the moralistic over the moral.

Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

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Article Tags: Benny Peiser, Nigel Lawson, Press Release, Ross McKitrick

LONDON, 9 March 2010 – In the few short months since its launch last November, the GWPF has already been able to make a considerable impact on the climate debate. As a result of growing interest and support, the GWPF can announce today that it is expanding its Academic Advisory Council with the addition of seven eminent scientists and economists from Europe, North America and Asia. This brings the total membership of the Council to 22.

Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the GWPF said: “The GWPF has already established itself as a voice of reason and moderation in what I hope is the start of an emerging international organisation. While climate science and climate policy face a crisis of credibility, we are attracting more and more backing from level-headed researchers from around the world.

Our aim is to become the most trustworthy source for those who wish to be informed of the most reliable and authoritative analysis of both the claims of climate campaigners and the policies currently in place or being discussed.”

Nigel Lawson, the GWPF chairman said: “I warmly welcome our new Academic Advisory Council members, who embrace a variety of viewpoints, and whose advice will be invaluable as we develop our activities, as we intend to do, over the coming year.”

Source: thegwpf.org

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Modplan alerts us to a developer at Wolfire games who wrote a blog post claiming that DRM can be “effective,” and giving the example of StarForce’s DRM on Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory, which supposedly took over a year to crack. But, for this to happen, there were all sorts of problems and even lawsuit threats over people reporting on those problems:

StarForce 3.0 used a plethora of controversial methods to achieve this, most notably, it secretly installed mandatory device drivers. This obviously was highly controversial and there were many reports of new security vulnerabilities, performance degredation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues. As an aside, StarForce actually threatened to sue BoingBoing and CNET for reporting on these issues.

Massive consumer issues aside, it worked.

Wait, what? You can’t just toss aside those massive consumer issues. “Security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues,” does not sound like it “worked” at all. It sounds like the exact opposite. It pissed off and potentially put at risk tons of paying customers. That’s not DRM “working” — though, that is how DRM works. Anyone who reads about “security vulnerabilities, performance degradation, incompatibilities, system instability, and other issues,” and thinks that’s an example of a system to be emulated, is not someone who you should ever trust to do business with. I’d consider that fair warning to stay away from Wolfire games. As pointed out in the comments, we may have been too quick to judge on this one. Wolfire makes it clear they don’t believe that DRM makes sense. The folks from Wolfire also reached out and pointed out that this post was actually a small “correction” to an anti-DRM piece written earlier. As for DRM, Wolfire makes it clear: “We have never used DRM, we hate DRM, and we never will use DRM!” On top of that, they “encourage all other game developers to remove DRM.” My apologies for jumping to conclusions on that one. Ok, now go support Wolfire Games…

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Giz friend Adam Savage, in our estimation, can make just about anything. Here he explains the path he took to turn a toy gun into an astoundingly sharp Blade Runner pistol replica.

I made my first Blade Runner pistol when I was 18, while living in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC. I stared at the VHS version on pause and made sketches. Put it together from toys and model kit parts. It’s lovely and terrible. (Years later the internet would teach me that the six dollar plastic gun I bought on Canal Street in NYC and cannibalized for the grip was created by Edison Giacattoli, a legendary toy gun designer.)

I made a crazy accurate scratch built when I was 30, from resin and bondo. I had great picture reference but shitty size reference—it was 20% too small. Fuck!

I even had it chrome plated at one point, and I weathered it.

In 2006, the screen-used original surfaced after 25 some-odd years and sold at auction last year for $256,000. Supposedly to Paul Allen. Update: We’re just now told that Paul Allen specifically did not buy this.

The last picture is the final iteration. It’s 95% finished. My hand-built baby. About 30 to 40 hours of labor spread out over (at least) 6 years. An original Steyr-Mannlicher .222 target rifle receiver and magazine and a Charter Arms Bulldog .44, both demilled and gunsmithed by me (working with hardened steel—FUN!) with custom machined aluminum and steel parts (barrel, grip, butt) and made as close as possible, in every respect, to the original. Painstaking.

That is all I have to say on the subject (probably not). I can’t even describe how good it feels to hold it in my hand.

Follow Adam on twitter!

Apple has a default set of apps that come with every iPhone and iPod touch that you can’t remove from the device, and that provide some basic features that are likely to appeal to a wide swath of users. The iPad will have a default set, too, but it won’t necessarily include all the familiar apps you know and possibly love.

According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, apps that Apple didn’t show off during its iPad unveiling event weren’t just left out because there weren’t many major changes made to them, they actually won’t appear on the platform at all. Or, if they do, they won’t ship with the product and instead will be downloadable after the fact via the App Store.

The apps in question are Calculator, Stocks, Weather, Clock and Voice Memos. According to Gruber’s sources, the apps won’t be included not because Apple has deemed them any less useful or appealing to consumers in terms of function, but because Cupertino couldn’t come up with iPad-complementary large-format designs for their user interfaces.

Personally, I’m not too upset about the omissions. I barely ever use Calculator and Voice Memos, and I’ve opened Stocks maybe once or twice. Weather I’ve replaced with a much more functional third-party app. Clock is the only one I use regularly, but I suspect it won’t be that hard to replace it via third-party sources if necessary, either, and I probably won’t have the iPad at the gym anyway, which is where I use Clock the most for its stopwatch functions.

I’m still of the opinion that Apple should make all of its native apps downloadable content, aside from the iPod and phone-related apps on the iPhone, so this is probably as close as I’ll get to that coming true. But it raises an interesting question about third-party apps: if Apple can’t see a way to make some of its content work on the iPad, how are developers going to be expected to cope?

Changing screen size doesn’t only change the amount of space you have in which to display things. It changes a user’s expectation of what a piece of software will be able to do, and the way in which the program will do it. Games may be able to escape this expectation gap, since they provide roughly the same thing whether portable or not (hence the success of PS ports on the PSP), but utilities and other apps likely won’t.

It’s fine for existing iPhone and iPod touch owners, who will probably just find using old apps dissatisfying, but know to wait for iPad-specific programs. But what about users new not only to the platform, but to iPhone OS as a whole? Ill-fitting apps could sour these new customers against the iPad right out of the gate, conceivably alienating some so strongly that they might not return to Apple for future products.

There’s two ways Apple can fight this: from launch, it should highlight and drive new customers to an iPad-specific section of the App Store, possibly through a modification to the App Store application itself on the device. I’m almost certain this will happen anyway, but the app should default to iPad-only titles at launch to make certain that inexperienced users will only be exposed to those if they don’t understand App Store navigation fully off the bat.

Finally, Apple needs to better encourage developers to convert existing apps to the iPad’s dimensions, and alter their UIs accordingly. I’m not sure yet how Apple is planning to deal with developers wanting to offer iPad and iPhone-specific versions of the same app, but making that process as simple as possible for consumers looking to choose one over the other will be key to establishing developer good faith, and convincing users that the iPad isn’t jut the big iPod many detractors are making it out to be.

Related Research from GigaOM Pro:

• Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits the Right Notes
• How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic
• 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad
• With the iPad, Apple Take Google to the Mat

Filed under: Sedan, Jaguar, Reviews, Luxury

Xynthia ripped into France merely hours after our arrival. Packing gale-force fury, the ruthless wind and rain battered the coast before moving inland with its crushing blow – sadly, it was the country’s deadliest storm in more than a decade. While we were spared most of its rage, the countryside outside Paris was a soggy debris-laden mess – not exactly optimal conditions to test the latest flagship sedan from Jaguar.

Soldiering forth – and more intrigued than ever with the all-new saloon – we ignored the rain and spent a long day trekking around the drenched landscape with both the short- and long-wheelbase models. What makes this new XJ so different from its predecessors? Does its performance mirror its powerplants? And, what’s up with that painted C-Pillar? The answers, and more, are found after the jump.

Photos by Michael Harley / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

Continue reading Review: 2011 Jaguar XJ is indisputably British and not afraid of a storm

Review: 2011 Jaguar XJ is indisputably British and not afraid of a storm originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Published Mar. 7, 2010
By Loretto J. Hulse, Tri-City Herald staff writer

Eighteen Mid-Columbia women — including a mother and daughter — were honored by three Tri-City chapters of Soroptimist International on Thursday.

This was the first time awards were presented to a mother and daughter on the same evening since the Pasco-Kennewick club, the oldest in the area, was chartered in 1948.

All the women were recognized for their volunteer service or educational pursuits by Soroptimist International of Mid-Columbia, Soroptimist International Pasco-Kennewick and Soroptimist International Three Rivers.

The award ceremony emphasized the Live Your Dream campaign, designed to inspire women and girls to live their dreams and pass on their good fortune to others.

“This is just the second year that all three clubs have had a combined program,” said Marilyn Heasely, a member of the Three Rivers club.

Three teens, ages 14 and 17, received the Violet Richardson Award for commitment to making the world a better place through their accomplishments as volunteers. They were Lauren Goetz of Kennewick, Desiree Westfall of Kennewick and Katerina Howard of Pasco. Howard is the daughter of Ruby Award winner Kim Keltch.

Winners of the Women’s Opportunity Award — for women who often have made a significant life change and returned to school — were Julie Savard of Richland, who is working on her nursing degree at Washington State University Tri-Cities; Celinda Parrish-Shaftoe of Kennewick, who is enrolled in the ultrasound program at Columbia Basin College; and Diana Young of Prosser, who is working on a bachelor’s in social sciences at Washington State University.

Renee Suwalski of Kennewick, who attends Yakima Valley Community College and is pursing accreditation as a pharmacy technician, won second place.

The Three Rivers club also presented a Women’s Opportunity Award as a memorial to Luella Bixby, a former member of the Pasco-Kennewick club and charter member of the Three Rivers club. The award went to Shannon Allen of Kennewick, who’s working on a nursing degree at Columbia Basin College.

The Ruby Award is a service award that honors a woman who works to improve the lives of other women and who inspires and encourages them. The winners were Bonnie Roseberry of Pasco, director of the “Don’t Quit” program at Columbia Basin College; Kim Keltch of Pasco, domestic violence services coordinator for the Pasco Police Department; and Barb Puigh of Richland, acting director of Elijah Family Homes.

Other awards were:

• First place in the Professional/Technical Award went to Livier Lopez of Pasco; second place, Elizabeth Venegas of Kennewick.
• The Helen Cox Memorial Award to encourage women to fulfill their educational goals to maximize their business career potential was given to Rachel Hysjulien of Richland.
• The Fellowship Award for outstanding post-graduate study went to Megan Moody-Pitkin of Richland, who is working on a master’s of business administration with a specialty in health care management through Phoenix University.

Soroptimists work through service projects to improve lives of women and girls in local communities and throughout the world.

Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.

PRESS RELEASE
March 8, 2010                                                            Contact:  Dawn Alford, 542-5524

The second event for the Columbia Basin College Reads series, making Pakistani–themed kites, will be Tuesday, March 9th at 12:40 p.m in the CBC Gjerde Center.

Thirty CBC students will be guided through the art of Pakistani kite making.  Although authentic Pakistani kites will not be made, as it requires a sewing machine and razor blade, they will learn the importance of the works of art in Pakistani and Indian culture and be encouraged to decorate their kites in this theme.

Each participant will receive a free copy of the book Kites for Everyone by Margaret Greger.  The late Margaret Greger is known worldwide for her love of making and flying kites, as well as being an inductee in the World Kite Flying Museum’s Hall of Fame.  Her widower Greg Greger continues her love of kite making by participating in events such as this and the Richland Kite Festival.  Greg will lead students through the kite making process.

This event is co-sponsored by the Associated Students of CBC and the CBC Reads committee.

NEWS RELEASE
March 8, 2010                                                             Contact: Frank Murray, 542-4835

The Columbia Basin College Board of Trustees tonight named its main entrance off Argent Road in honor of Senior Vice President for Administrative Services, Bill Saraceno.

Saraceno Way carries the name of the man who has been the driving force for capital projects at CBC since 1985.

President Richard Cummins says Saraceno’s efforts are evident throughout the CBC campus.

“Bill Saraceno has been a driving force in over $100-million in important construction projects since 1995.  Bill is renowned throughout the state system of community and technical colleges for his expertise and knowledge, which has been invaluable to CBC and the Benton-Franklin community.  I’m proud to announce that the College’s main entrance will now be called Saraceno Way,” said Cummins.

The entrance way was completed in 2000 following the opening of the new Hawk Union Building.  The latest facility, the 88,000 square foot Center for Career and Technical Education, is on Saraceno Way and is scheduled to open in 2011.

In April 2008, I talked about Boeing putting the first manned fuel cell powered aircraft into flight. And there have been many times in the past 4 years (yes, the blog is that old), that I’ve talked about hydrogen powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

A new liquid hydrogen-powered UAV which is also a high altitude long endurance (HALE) aircraft called the Boeing Phantom Eye is getting ready to be demonstrated. According to Boeing Phantom Works president Darryl Davis, “The essence of Phantom Eye is its propulsion system. After five years of technology development, we are now deploying rapid prototyping to bring together an unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV] with a breakthrough liquid-hydrogen propulsion system that will be ready to fly early next year.”

The important aspects of the Boeing Phantom Eye include its 150 ft. wingspan, 450 lb. payload capability, 65,000 top altitudes and the ability to stay aloft for 4 days. This makes the Phantom Eye a military aircraft that will be useful for surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance and communication.

But, wait, there’s more (as they say on those cheesy commercials on TV). Boeing is also working on a larger HALE called the Phantom Ray, which will be able to carry a 2,000 lb payload and stay in the air for 10 days. Both the Phantom Eye and Phantom Ray will be propelled by clean hydrogen fuel, fly higher than most typical UAVs and keep military personnel out of harm’s way, while recovering critical intelligence on the ground.

When one thinks of government agencies like NASA and the U. S. military, green energy rarely comes to mind. But, this is the direction both are moving towards and this lead by example philosophy is what we need more of in order to fully realize a hydrogen-based transportation system in the near future.

Taking baby steps, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has constantly kept web developers very excited regarding the cutting edge new standards for HTML 5 and CSS 3. While drafts have been constantly pouring from the organization, they were never more than bite-size pieces of the standard. A few days ago, the W3C released seven documents, six of… (read more)

The 510-hp V12 engine of the Aston Martin DBS is already a very impressive performer allowing the coupe to go from 0-62 mph in 4.3 seconds with a top speed of 191 mph. Well, there are a few out there that believe a little jump in the power of the V12 can make for a better DBS and those few are called edo Competition.

After some ECU modifications and software recalibration, the 6.0L V12 of the DBS pushes 550-hp with a maximum torque of 442 lb-ft. That allows the edo Competition Aston Martin DBS to go from 0-62 mph in 4.1 seconds with a top speed of 199 mph. Other performance enhancing features include a high-performance stainless steel exhaust system, a sports suspension system and much more.

Click here to get prices on the Aston Martin DBS.

Of course you can pick from a variety of exterior and interior modifications including edo Competition 21-inch black wheels wrapped in a set of Continental tires in the following dimensions: 255/ 30 ZR 21 (front), 295/ 25 ZR 21 (rear).

edo Competition Aston Martin DBS:

– By: Kap Shah

Filed under: Performance, Wagon, Ford, Design/Style

Many of us who sit around the Autoblog campfire every day are fans of station wagons. We love cars and love the idea of having some extra utility without giving up the generally superior driving dynamics of cars versus SUVs or crossovers. We also like the idea – if not necessarily the execution – of the Ford Taurus SHO.

Being aware of that fact, one of our readers put his Photoshop skills to work and created the rendering you see here of a SHO wagon. Ford, of course, has never officially built an official SHO wagon – either with the current model or with its predecessors. Naturally, there have been some aftermarket and homebuilt conversions over the years, and even at least one that we know of that was built inside Dearborn.

Of course, building a wagon off of previous models was substantially easier because Ford actually marketed a wagon bodystyle in the first couple of Taurus iterations. Not so with today’s massive-yet-handsome sedan. Judging by reader Josiah’s rendering above, that’s a real shame, because the 2010 Taurus could really put some of its continental bulk to good load-lugging effect with an estate variant. Unfortunately, we’ll likely never see anything like this slick wagon produced. The closest we figure to get is an Ecoboost Flex, which isn’t exactly a bad alternative. Thanks for the great rendering, Josiah!

[Source: JosiahLacolla.com]

Rendered Speculation: Ford Taurus SHO wagon is the apple of our eye originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was reported last week that the Department of Transportation is hearing back from Toyota owners who say they are still experiencing unintended acceleration issues after their recalled vehicles were fixed by Toyota dealerships.

During a press event yesterday, Toyota said that the fixes being made to correct the unintended acceleration in millions of recalled vehicles are sufficient and are working.

Officials said that they are willing to bring in as many independent researchers as needed to resolve the issue for once and for all.

“We don’t think there is a ghost issue out there,” said Kristen Tabar, general manager of electronic systems at the Toyota Technical Center. “We need to verify claims, facts and evidence. Until we do that, we can’t say there is nothing.”

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide to fix sticky pedal and floor mats that could trap the gas pedal and hold it down.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)