Hasta La Gadget!

Ford is dropping the price of their new 2014 Ford Focus Electric by a whopping 10%. In what appears to be an effort to stay competitive in the electric vehicle market, Ford dropped the price of its 2014 Focus EV down to $35,200. The car previously had a sticker price of $39,200, making that a $4,000 drop in price.

In a statement from Ford, the company said that “the new starting MSRP of $35,200 keeps us competitive in the marketplace and is an important part of our commitment to provide customers with a range of electrified vehicles to choose from.” Affordability is a huge factor when it comes to buying any new car, and electric vehicles certainly can’t be a part of the exception if companies want them to fly off dealer lots, but Ford says they’re “really committed” to electric vehicles, and making lower-cost EVs is a big goal of theirs.

Car companies are getting desperate and want to sell their electric vehicles before they end up making too many and have tons of inventory on the back burner. General Motors announced plans back in May to cut the price of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid by as much as $10,000. This is despite the fact that GM is actually losing money on every Volt that it sells.

Nissan also dropped the cost of its 2013 Leaf by a cool $6,000, bringing its price below the $30,000 price point, which Nissan says is the lowest-priced five-passenger electric vehicle sold in the US. It doesn’t take much convincing for drivers to pick electric vehicles over gas-guzzling ones, but the price is still a huge concern for most people.

Of course, Tesla Motors is doing a decent jobs at spreading awareness of electric vehicles. The Model S definitely isn’t a cheap car, but it has convinced drivers that electric vehicles don’t have to be tiny compact cars, but also mid-sized four-door sedans that can fit the entire family.

VIA: PC Mag

2014 Ford Focus Electric gets a 10% MSRP reduction is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With temperatures soaring above 127 degrees Fahrenheit, a Death Valley National Park employee literally cooks an egg on video.

(Credit: Screenshot by Christopher MacManus/CNET)

In Death Valley, Calif. — a desolate place that hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit a century ago — it’s usually so hot you can fry an egg. In a YouTube video posted earlier this month, one Death Valley National Park employee, equipped with a skillet, did just that.

However, the impressive act (with nearly 800,000 views on YouTube) inspired a rash of impromptu copycat chefs, and park employees have been cleaning up the mess ever since.

With the issue sizzling out of control, the official Death Valley National Park Facebook page posted a notice that advises visitors to clean up their egg-related trash.

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Chances are if you’re normal and sane and at least remotely responsible with your money, you’re not dropping $2,000 on a 3D printer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tinker with 3D printing. eBay just released an app called Exact, that lets you customize and purchase your own items.

Read more…

In a rather “revolutionary” move for the game with the same name, BNGames and Bandai Namco have let it be known that they’ll be putting the next Tekken character release to a vote, with some rather unorthodox characters on the docket. This game Tekken Revolution for PlayStation 3 will receive an update – eventually – with one of the characters here, be it a “Giant Praying Mantis” or what’s described as an “Average, run-of-the-mill Old Man.” Or will Syake, aka Salmon, be the one to make it to the final software update?

This voting process is rather strange in and of itself. Taking place through the Facebook page of the brand, users are encouraged to vote for the character they’re most attached to. Adding the Salmon character to the mix and making this an online vote will likely bring on the obvious – though perhaps not so obvious to the developers of the game – outcome. Is this the Magicarp of the PvP world, made real at last?

Tekken has in the past brought on some rather wild and crazy characters, Bandai being no stranger to fighters well outside the normal human realm of beings. Even the most recent release of Tekken Card Battle included Kuma, the giant panda.

The salmon is just one of several characters that are already hiding in the code of Tekken 3, this character still existing in a hacked version of the arcade board for said game. This wild beast of a character is described as follows:

“Originally planned for Tekken 3, punch buttons would cause the Salmon to flop around, and the kick buttons would make it release eggs, which was quite an idea at the time. However, arcades were still popular worldwide, and charging 100 yen (1 USD) per play with such a character was likely to be a problem. That, and the fact that character would be always be the target of Kuma lead to the concept being scrapped.”

The rest of the characters appearing on this list include such gems as Female Vampire (A young girl, long imprisoned by the Rochefort family), Female Paul, and GANMI-chan – a “teenage female Sumo wrestler who idolizes Ganyu.” The winning character, again, will appear in a future update of this free-to-play game for the PlayStation universe.

SOURCE: Tekken Revolution

Tekken creators set new characters to a vote: Salmon, Praying Mantis, Zombie Bride is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Every week, a new and interesting human being tackles our decidedly geeky take on the Proustian Q&A. This is the Engadget Questionnaire.

In this installment of our regular session of inquiry, B&O Play’s Corporate Vice President Henrik Taudof Lorensen discusses the focused Path and face-to-face connectivity. Meet us on the other side of the break to peruse the full lot of answers.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Distro Issue 98