Hasta La Gadget!

In-car GPS navigation systems are undeniably useful. But at $1,500 and above, they’re pretty overpriced to begin with–especially when compared with today’s $150 portable GPS units and $10-per-month cell phone GPS services. So it’s usually no fun to find out you need to shell out another few hundred dollars every time you want to update the maps in your car.

To take at least some of the pain out of the process, Volvo and Navteq have unveiled MapCare, a free map update program, for the automaker’s full lineup of cars. The program will offer two free map updates to buyers of any new 2010 Volvo C30, S40, V50, C70, V70, XC70, S80, XC60, or XC90 with a navigation system. The program is available to all North American buyers, as well as several countries overseas, beginning this month. Hey Volvo, while we’re at it, how about we drop the price of the navigation systems, too?

Harmonix and MTV Games announced today the list of songs being released in their new Country Track pack. It features 21 songs from artists including Shania Twain, Willie Nelson, and more. Rock Band Country Track Pack is available for the Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

The Rock Band Country Track Pack will hit stores in America on July 21,
2009 for $29.99. The disc will be available for a limited time only
before joining the Rock Band Music Store as downloadable content.

Track list after the jump.

FT.com: In recent years, some forward-thinking chefs, who believe that personal expression and creativity are more important than slavish devotion to symbolic luxury goods, have abandoned the antiquated approach of haute cuisine, a style of cooking traditionally based on a few select ingredients.

These forward-thinking chefs are seeking out the highest-quality ingredients, usually from their area, without regard to their place in the traditional fine dining canon. Combined with a deeply held belief in the transformative power of the cooking process, they are setting an example that, if it catches on, could change what we grow and eat, both in restaurants and at home.

Revaluing ingredients – starting with the assumption that a potato or a carrot can taste as exciting as foie gras – is difficult in a high end kitchen. It requires more labour, more imagination, and more carefully sourced ingredients – mediocre foie gras will always seem more “worth it” than a mediocre carrot. It’s riskier as well, going against diners’ deeply ingrained expectations. But as many modern restaurants, such as Noma, have shown, the rewards can be considerable, providing more vibrant, compelling food and a closer emotional connection with their customers.

Carrots are the new caviar [FT.com]

What a difference six months makes. Back before Christmas, one of the VPs at Western Digital was saying that the company only “enters markets that exist,” meaning, of course, that we had to take all the tales of SSDs that we heard (in product spec sheets and reviews) on faith alone. Since then the company’s acquired SiliconSystems and — a short trip down the road to Damascus later — it’s announcing the SiliconDrive III product range. SiliconSystems’ meat and potatoes were heavy hitters in such industries as communications, aerospace, and military, and it seems that WD’s new range will continue to target these markets. According to The Register, the range sports SiSMART (which keeps tabs on the drive’s status in real-time, notifying the user when it needs to be replaced) and includes 2.5-inch (SATA and PATA) and 1.8-inch Micro SATA devices, featuring native SATA 3Gb/s or ATA-7 interfaces with up to 100MB/s read speeds write speeds up to 80MB/s. Max available capacity is 120GB. No word yet on specific products or prices, but you’ll know as soon as we do.

Filed under: Storage

Western Digital recants, announces its SiliconDrive III range of SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we like the thinking behind the BaubBike, a bicycle both modular in design and also fairly easy to build from standard square-section steel tubes, in practice it looks both dangerous and rather uncomfortable.

There’s a reason bike frames have been triangular for so long: stiffness. A steel frame will flex a lot, and the triangle is an inherently stable shape. Stiffer modern materials mean that today designers can experiment more, but if you’re using off the shelf tubing, a square is going to crumple in a collision.

Of course, looking at the Bauhaus-inspired frame by designer Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen, we’re not thinking about damage to the bike. We’re thinking about damage to ourselves: Check the iteration with a second saddle and cojones-splitting handle. Ouch. In fact, all the sharp corners in general make this one of the scariest-looking rides we’ve seen. Far better is the slot-in carrying-rack, but that still leaves a lot of sharp corners.

Unlike many concepts, there is a “buy” button on Jakobsen’s site, although right now it leads only to an e-mail contact form. If he does put it into production, he might consider adding a “sue me” button alongside it. Either that or just only sell the BauBike to men who are already wearing tight jeans and taking very hot baths in order to deprive their baby-hungry wives of vital proteins.

Product page [BauBike via Design Boom]