Hasta La Gadget!

Russia will soon be getting its very own, homegrown hybrid car. Unveiled by billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov recently, a prototype of the as-of-now unnamed car is expected to be shown in December.

The hybrid, which is currently being referred to as the City Car, will be the subject of a naming contest, where people can suggest and vote on potential names. It’s expected to cost between $12,000-14000, and can achieve 65 miles per gallon and a top speed of 74 miles per hour. It also features a distinctive, two tone paint job.

The City Car will be available in both a coupe and hatchback model.

Via Wired.

It turns out that GPS units are good for more than just making sure you don’t get lost, they can also be used to help save endangered African rhinos from poachers.

In the North West province of South Africa, researchers have outfitted five different rhinos with GPS chips, which allow the researchers to follow the animals’ movements and the chip will also sound off alarms if the rhinos exhibit unusual movement or leave the park area. The chips were inserted into a small hole drilled into the inert part of the rhino’s horn.

“It’s basically a satellite system which connects with the cell phone system and we can monitor the animals on whatever time delay we want,” Rusty Hustler, head of security for North West Parks Board, told the BBC. “There are a number of alarms that can be programmed: one for excessive movement, so if the rhino starts running, and another that goes off if the rhino sleeps for longer than six hours, which is abnormal.”

In addition to saving the lives of rhinos, the chips could also potentially be used to track down poachers who slaughter animals and make off with their horns.

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If last night’s cameo showing off the official Twitter client for Windows Phone 7 wasn’t enough of a hint, yes, we’ve gotten our hands on LG’s Optimus 7. This 3.8-inch machine will serve as LG’s international WP7 ambassador while Americans get to grips with its QWERTY keyboard-equipped Quantum brother. As you’ll no doubt be aware by now, the internal equipment is standardized around Microsoft’s chassis spec, meaning a WVGA screen resolution, a 1GHz Snapdragon inside, and a 5 megapixel camera shooting 720p video at 24fps. You’d think, therefore, that it’d be a nondescript, middle-of-the-road option, but the Optimus 7 left us extremely impressed after our first hands-on and we’re eager to keep digging for more. Does it put up a righteous fight against the more ambitious HD7 from HTC and Omnia 7 from Samsung? Jump past the break to find out.

This review is primarily of the LG Optimus 7 hardware. Check out our full review of Windows Phone 7 for our thoughts on the OS.

Continue reading LG Optimus 7 review

LG Optimus 7 review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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