[VIDEO] REWIND: Green Police Audi Ad
Posted: October 29, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Activism, Advertising, Audi, Automobile, comedy, Environment, Extremism, Green Movement, Green Police, Parody, Progressivism, propaganda, satire, Stalinism, Superbowl 2010, TV Commercial, YouTube Leave a comment
‘Future Teardown’ of an Apple Car Shows Us Who Could be Making the Various Elements
Posted: October 27, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Apple Inc, Automobile, Automotive industry, California, Electric car, Elon Musk, Google, iPhone, Tesla Motors, The Wall Street Journal Leave a comment
Ben Lovejoy reports: While we can’t say for sure that an Apple Car will ever go on sale, it’s a certainty by this point that the company is devoting substantial development resources to the project. Tim Cook said recently that there would be “massive change” in the car industry, and that “autonomous driving becomes much more important.”
But as a recent opinion piece on sister site Electrek argued, and Elon Musk warned, actually manufacturing a car is massively more complex than making consumer electronics devices. Apple will therefore be looking for partners to pull together different elements of the car. Re/code has put together an interesting look at the most likely candidates …
None of the companies would comment on any conversations they have with the Cupertino giant about their own cars. None of them flat-out denied those conversations, either. Google, Tesla and Apple all declined to comment.
The list below is not exhaustive. Yet after conversations with nearly a dozen manufacturers, industry experts and tech companies involved in the world of self-driving cars, Re/code assembled a portrait of the leading, innovative companies and critical dynamics in the autonomous industry.
The exterior of the car could, it suggests, be made by five companies: Roush, Delphi, Edison2, Atieva and Renovo Motors. The first of those, Roush, is a Michigan-based “boutique automotive supplier” which already has one key claim to credibility in the field: it assembled the exterior for Google’s prototype self-driving cars.
[Read the full story here, at 9to5Mac]
Renovo recently teamed-up with engineers from Stanford University to create a self-driving electric DeLorean capable of donuts and drifting. While it was of course a PR stunt, you need some impressive tech to pull it off. Read the rest of this entry »
‘I need to get to the bottom of the mountain as fast as possible’
Posted: October 10, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Automobile, Crash, Driving, Sports, Stunt Driving, Uber Leave a comment
Nicholas Cage’s 1954 Bugatti Roadster For Sale
Posted: September 3, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Automobile, Automotive, Bugatti, Cars, Collectible, Gone in 60 Seconds, Motor Car, Nick Nolte, Nicolas Cage, The Hot Chick, vintage Leave a comment
Alanna Martinez reports: Actor Nicolas Cage is a known connoisseur of the finer things in life: mint-condition comic books, desirable real estate, and of course, bespoke cars. One of the rarest vehicles he’s owned, a 1954 Bugatti 101 is heading to auction in France September 5 in Bonhams’ upcoming Chantilly Sale, giving car enthusiasts and the actor’s biggest fans alike a chance to own a piece of automobile history.
After World War II and several deaths in the Bugatti family, its legendary Molsheim factory faced hard times. In 1951, it began planning a re-launch of updated, pre-war model road cars, but production stalled and only seven Type 101 cars were made.
Mr. Cage’s car, the 101504, is a two-seater, fixed-head coupé with body work done by Spanish chassis designer Jean Antem in 1954. It was originally painted green with a beige interior, now black and red.
According to Bonhams, Mr. Cage bought the car around the time he starred in the film Gone in 60 Seconds, in which, for the unfamiliar, he played former car thief Randall “Memphis” Raines who is forced back into a life of crime in order to save his brother’s life. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Who’s Up For Some High-Speed Crash Tests? Is 124 MPH Too Fast?
Posted: August 27, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Automobile, Cars, Crash Tests, video Leave a comment
[PHOTO] Automotive: Black is the New Black
Posted: August 5, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Automobile, Black, Car, Custom Car, Custom Paint, design, hot rod, Race Car, Racer Leave a comment
[VIDEO] OH YES HE DID: Entrepreneur Kevin Czinger’s First 3D-Printed SUPERCAR
Posted: June 28, 2015 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Science & Technology | Tags: 3D printing, Amsterdam, Automobile, Automotive industry, Bi-fuel vehicle, Chassis, Compressed natural gas, Environmentally friendly, Forbes, Manufacturing Leave a commentMeet Blade – a super-light sports car with a 3D printed chassis, designed as an alternative to traditional car manufacturing. Through 3D printing, entrepreneur Kevin Czinger has developed a radical new way to build cars with a much lighter footprint.
Holman W. Jenkins Jr: The Savior Elon Musk
Posted: May 31, 2015 Filed under: Science & Technology, Space & Aviation, Think Tank | Tags: Al Gore, America's Promise, Associated Press, Atlanta, Audi A4, Autoblog.com, Automobile, Barack Obama, BMW 3 Series, California, Carter Center, Electric car, Elon Musk, Guyana, Jimmy Carter, Model S, Tesla Model S, Tesla Motors, White House Leave a comment
Tesla’s impresario is right about one thing: Humanity’s preservation is a legitimate government interest
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes: There is often a large difference between what people imagine they are doing and what they are actually doing. Especially in politics, any relationship between the effect of policy, the goal of policy and the stated goal is often incidental to the point of randomness.
“He’s not the first to suggest that dramatically reducing the cost of earth orbit is a key to future space endeavors. He isn’t the only dot-com millionaire to turn his attention to space.”
Adding to the complexity, the doers themselves are often confused about the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
Which naturally brings us to a new biography of Elon Musk, whose entrepreneurial energy is a marvel; the world would be better off if there were more like him, even if a “nonstop horrible” childhood was a precursor to his adult achievements. That said, the “change the world” stuff, let alone the “save humanity” stuff, that fills Ashlee Vance’s admired “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” is a tad overdone.
“If he succeeds, though, in delivering his cheap, reusable heavy-lift vehicle, vast new possibilities will open up. Fifty years from now if there are hotels and factories in orbit, they may well be SpaceX hotels and factories.”
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof. GM rolled out its EV1 electric car in 1996. Mr. Musk has been selling back to affluent, middle-aged baby boomers their own youthful ideals in the shape of roof panels and plug-in cars.
[Read the full text here, at WSJ]
These items sell not because the moment is ripe to transition the world economy to solar but as vanity trinkets for the rich that even the rich wouldn’t buy without a large helping of taxpayer money.
Artist’s concept of the new SpaceX Dragon, which may one day fly from Brownsville, Texas (Image: SpaceX)
“If a human outpost materializes on Mars, it may well be a SpaceX outpost.”
Yes, Mr. Musk deserves credit for organizing his enterprises and getting them off the 
ground. The bureaucratic obstacles to starting a car business are especially daunting. And his Tesla Model S is a lovely object and wonderful machine.
[Order Ashlee Vance’s book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” from Amazon.com]
Nowhere in Mr. Vance’s book, though, does the figure $7,500 appear—the direct taxpayer rebate to each U.S. buyer of Mr. Musk’s car. You wouldn’t know that 10% of all Model S cars have been sold in Norway—though Tesla’s own 10-K lists the possible loss of generous Norwegian tax benefits as a substantial risk to the company. Read the rest of this entry »
Third Car of the Future: 1970
Posted: May 18, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Automobile, design, Engineering, Futurism, Illustration, Science fiction, vintage Leave a comment
Chinese Government to Put 3D Printers in All 400,000 Elementary Schools by Next Year
Posted: April 9, 2015 Filed under: Asia, China, Education, Robotics, Science & Technology | Tags: 3D printing, 3D scanner, Automobile, China, Chinese language, Local Motors, MakerBot Industries, Printer (computing), Sanya, United States 1 Comment
Brian Krassenstein reports: Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run. The problem though is getting the machines into the schools in the first place. With prices generally ranging from $400 to $3,000 for typical desktop 3D printers, they are not cheap, and with budgets 
within many school districts running dry, both in the United States and overseas, the unfortunate fact is that many schools simply can’t afford them, not to mention the materials and time it takes to train teachers to use them.
Speaking with former MakerBot CEO, Jenny Lawton, at CES this year, she told me that 3D printing will become mainstream and really begin to explode as far as adoption rates go, when a full cycle of education has been exposed to the technology. Just like many of us who were exposed in school to desktop computing back in the ’80s and ’90s can’t envision not having access to a computers now, the children of today may one day think the same about 3D printers.
The United States clearly understands the importance of this technology, particularly President Obama. In addition to investing heavily to bring manufacturing back to US soil, he has mentioned the importance of 3D 
printing on several occasions, visiting manufacturing facilities that are using 3D printers, and even going as far speaking about the technology in one of his State of the Union Addresses.
With that said, news coming out of Tapei, Taiwan today, from Simon Shen, the CEO of Kinpo Group (parent company of XYZprinting), suggests that China is about to one-up the United States in a big way.
According to Shen, the Chinese government has a new policy to install a 3D printer in each of its approximately 400,000 elementary schools over the next two years. This number caught me totally off guard for two reason. First of all, that’s a lot of elementary schools. For instance, in the United States we have approximately 70,000 elementary schools, and approximately 100,000 total public schools. As a nation we could easily match China’s ambitions. Read the rest of this entry »
Alyssa Abkowitz 沈丽莎: Sex Toys and ‘Er Nai’: Inside China’s Unfolding Sexual Revolution
Posted: March 16, 2015 Filed under: Asia, China, Entertainment, Global | Tags: 2012 Delhi gang rape case, Agency for French Teaching Abroad, Air Pollution, Automobile, Beijing, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mao Zedong, Premarital sex, Sexuality, The Wall Street Journal Leave a comment
Alyssa Abkowitz reports: In 1989, sexologist Li Yinhe conducted a famous survey that showed 15% of Chinese respondents said they had premarital sex. Today, that figure is about 71%, according to local figures. “China is becoming more adventurous in the bedroom,” said Zhang Lijia, author of the forthcoming novel “Lotus,” which looks at prostitution in modern China.
“China is becoming more adventurous in the bedroom.”
Ms. Zhang was speaking to a mostly younger crowd at Beijing’s Bookworm Literary Festival on Sunday. She was joined by Jemimah Steinfeld, author of “Little Emperors and Material Girls,” which focuses on China’s sex and youth culture, and Faramerz Dabhoiwala, who has been called the Stephen Hawking of sex for writing “The Origins of Sex,” which looks at the western sexual revolution of the 18th century.
“Chinese women gingerly began to unbutton Chairman Mao’s jacket. For a long time kissing on a bus was something we only saw in foreign films.”
— Zhang Lijia
Only several decades ago, “Chinese women gingerly began to unbutton Chairman Mao’s jacket,” Ms. Zhang said, referring to the 1980s, when women started to wear makeup and shorter skirts. “For a long time kissing on a bus was something we only saw in foreign films.”
“Er nai, as modern-day Chinese mistresses are called, are deeply entwined in business practices, because having multiple mistresses is a sign that a man has the pull to seal a deal.”
Today, sex is everywhere in China, from adult stores on nearly every corner in Beijing to young entrepreneurs, such as one interviewed by Ms. Steinfeld, who wants to import quality sex toys because he thinks Chinese sex toys are faulty. (This could be a tough road, as the majority of sex toys are made in China and exported around the world, Ms. Zhang said).
“There are women who have lovers just for fun too. Male prostitutes are far more expensive here because they have more work to do.”
Judging from the panel discussion, progress is mixed. As Beijing looks to pass its first domestic violence law, cleavage is being banned on television. One of the most popular items sold at roadside sex shops is hymen repair kits. Read the rest of this entry »
Investigation: Possible Clue, Motive? ‘My wife is a Cheater’ Seen Spray Painted on Colorado Home after Early Morning Explosion, Fire
Posted: March 10, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, U.S. News | Tags: Academy Award, Arvada, Automobile, Bill Feldman, Brooklyn, Colorado, Denver, KDVR, Pinterest, Spray painting 2 Comments
ARVADA, Colorado — The words ‘my wife is a cheater’ were clearly visible in spray paint on the outside wall of a home that exploded in a fireball early Tuesday outside Denver Colorado.
Investigators told KDVR-TV they were looking for a man in connection with the fire, but declined to comment further on who he is or whether the graffiti was connected to the explosion.
Officially the cause of the fire is under investigation. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Custom Vehicle Scene Thrives in Japan: The Streets of Tokyo
Posted: November 11, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Japan, Mediasphere | Tags: Autoblog.com, Automobile, Bōsōzoku, Cell Phone, GoPro, Japan, Lamborghini, Lamborghini Aventador, Porsche, Tokyo Leave a commentThis is admittedly a slick ad for Go Pro, it’s also irresistible escapist fun.
As the sun goes down, Tokyo transforms to a wild and exotic playground for those who like to pour on the speed. As a method of expression, the custom vehicle scene thrives in Japan. Youll meet some truly unique characters and get to ride along in some of the most exotic vehicles youve ever seen. Lamborghinis, Hayabusas, RWB Porsches, and some Kaido Racers make up a feast for the eyes on the streets of Tokyo at night.
[PHOTO] Ernst Haas: Route 66
Posted: November 3, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Americana, Automobile, Ernst Haas, Neon, Photography, Route 66, vintage Leave a comment
How the Feds Outlawed Beautiful Cars
Posted: April 14, 2014 Filed under: History, Law & Justice, U.S. News | Tags: Automobile, Congress, Corporate Average Fuel Economy, General Motors, Golden Rocket, Harley Earl, New York International Auto Show, Weekly Standard Leave a comment
Monotony Motors: Why today’s cars all look alike
For The Weekly Standard, Patrick Cooke writes: Anyone who’s ever misplaced the family car in a parking lot at the mall must surely sense that we are not living in a golden era of automobile design. Gazing in panic out across that vast tar pit, every car seems to look like every other car. Late-model midsize sedans and compacts, especially, appear nearly identical. It’s no help that there are only a handful of basic paint colors to offer clues: white, black, silver, and gray. The quest appears to be at an end when you climb behind the wheel and realize that you are . . . in somebody else’s car.
When doors open this week at the New York International Auto Show, the grumbling will continue, as it has for the past few years, that there isn’t much new and different to see. The public once flocked to auto shows to marvel at groundbreaking designs created by giants in the field like Harley Earl at General Motors who “styled” magnificent sculptures in the early to mid 20th century. They bore names like Firebird and Golden Rocket. Today, mileage standards and safety regulations largely determine what most cars rolling off assembly lines look like. Auto styling may not yet be a dead art, but the artists have certainly been thwarted. As standardization by governments has taken hold—there are more than 200 safety and environmental regulations that go into building a car—the challenge for designers is no longer to create something uniquely beautiful, but to turn out a product that’s in compliance—and hope people buy the result.
pundit from another planet 