Hasta La Gadget!

Toyota has whipped the wraps off of its FT-Open concept, a compact cabrio set to make its official debut in Geneva next week, and testing the waters for a potential topless GT86. The concept uses a soft-top, rather than the more fashionable folding metal roof, meaning it can keep its 2+2 layout, while the GT86′s two-liter, four cylinder “boxer” engine pushes out power through either a 6-speed manual or what Toyota claims is the world’s fastest paddle-shift auto, spitting through gears in 2/10ths of a second.

The production coupé’s MacPherson strut front and double wishbone rear suspension has also been carried over, along with a 13.1:1 power steering ratio for more rapid turns. At roughly 200bhp, the FT-One isn’t the most powerful drop-top we’ve seen, but Toyota argues that the car as a whole is more lively than rivals, with the compact engine low-slung to help keep the center of gravity down, closer to the road.

That’s not to say the FT-One is a finished product. Toyota says it’s using the concept as a test bed, not only to see how the public reacts – a big factor in whether a production version gets the green light – but to fettle things like how not having a solid roof affects chassis strength and other factors.

The company’s work will be made easier by the fact that the GT86 was designed with a cabrio version in mind from the outset: the coupé has frameless doors, for instance, which means Toyota won’t have to worry about fixing rigidity problems there, and the soft roof still gets a glass rear screen. Door lock reinforcements will be used to reduce torsional twist, and Toyota will be looking at how to preserve the GT86′s driving style given the FT-One drops the center of gravity even lower.

Inside, there’s a custom-finished cabin with perforated white leather and navy-blue seating, and golden yellow accent stitching. There’s also a rather fetching milled metal iPhone holder, though we’re not entirely convinced by what looks like an aftermarket-fit radio.

Toyota will bring the FT-One concept along to the Geneva motor show, kicking off on March 5.

Toyota FT-Open concept teases GT86 drop-top plans is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today, AkihabaraNews attended the 3rd International Smart Grid Expo at Tokyo Big Site. It was certainly exciting to see so many companies from around the world attending the event. Of course we saw solar panels and every kind of high-tech gadget to manage anything from a small array to an entire large-scale power grid. The show had a strong B2B focus and we found it quite difficult to find any consumer related products. But what we could not resist noticing were some of the sponsors of cool …

Sony and Evolution Studios have collaborated to bring you a new, beautiful, team-based driving game. The game has been in development for over 10 years. The game emphasisizes team-play and you’ll be a part of a driving club (that you can join or form with your friends) that competes with other driving clubs. The game allows you to drive beautiful cars that have been designed to look just like their real-life counterparts.

This game isn’t just your average racing game. Each track will be prepped with a variety of fun and engaging challenges. You can choose whatever weather you want and whatever time of day you want to race in. Every level is promised to be a new, and fun experience. Evolution Studios also emphasized that you will have 24/7 untethered access to your club. Races will be asynchronized and played in real-time.

There’s the first-person perspective that makes you feel like you’re actually driving the car. It shows “you” opening the car door, getting behind the wheel, fastening your seat belt, and taking off in your expensive, possibly foreign-engineered sports car. All of the cars are designed to look exactly like the real-life counterpart its supposed to resemble. The folks at Evolution Studios visited car manufacturers frequently just to make sure they have every detail right. While the cars may be digital, they’ll look very real and very much like they do in reality.

DRIVE CLUB will be one of the PlayStation 4 games that will fully emphasize social game play. Sony wants to make the PlayStation Network one of the most powerful social gaming networks around. This game will be a dream-come-true for car fanatics, and a great game to play with your friends. Check out the other games, and PlayStation 4 features, introduced today at Sony’s press event in the timeline below.

DRIVE CLUB revealed at Sony’s press event is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It would appear that the New York Times has decided to speak up in regards to their recent review of the Tesla Model S electric vehicle, having been the subject of some major scrutiny a the hands of no less than Elon Musk, the car company’s CEO. One of the larger stories of last week was that according to the Model S’ own in-vehicle logs, the editor responsible for the review of the vehicle didn’t follow the plans and suggestions made by the Tesla review crew – nor did he refrain from driving donuts through a parking lot. Now the New York Times is speaking up through editor Margaret Sullivan.

While it was New York Times reviewer John Broder that did the review of the vehicle, not Margaret Sullivan, it’s Sullivan who is tasked with a bit of cleanup here at the start of the second week of this PR massacre. In a rather lovely response to the situation made in the form of a Public Editor article on the web, Sullivan explains the lengths to which she (and the New York Times) went to figure out the best course of action in the situation. In other words: she speaks about what she did to figure out who was wrong, if someone was wrong, and what to do about it.

As it turns out, after having “read hundreds of emails and reader comments” on the situation, having talks with her brother (a “physician, car aficionado and Tesla fan”), Broder, Musk, two “key” Tesla employees, the tow-truck driver charged with picking up the vehicle after Broder’s review (and his dispatcher), other NYT journalists, and more, Sullivan found there to be a problem with precision and judgement. Sullivan notes specifically that Broder, in his review, didn’t use good judgement from start to finish.

It wasn’t that Broder “hoped the drive would end badly”, but instead that he didn’t precisely follow the rules, so to speak. Having not had a proper overnight charge the night before charging the vehicle in Norwich, Connecticut, for example, and keeping rather “casual and imprecise notes” through the drive, allowed Broder to be criticized heavily. Musk too, Sullivan found, made some rather “damaging (and sometimes quite misleading)” comments using these logs as they compared to the digitally recorded driving logs (as shown in the link earlier in this post).

The end result – or what could be expected to be the end result, if not final chapter in this particular saga – is Musk tweeting a simple acknowledgement of the article. “Appreciate thoughtful @Sullivew article” it stated, “Faith in @nytimes restored.” Sound alright to you? Have a peek at the timeline below regarding the extended saga to see more details throughout.

[via Engadget]

Tesla gets NYT apology for Model S review: Musk approves is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A team of scientists at Oxford University, led by Professor Paul Newman, has developed a new self-driving car system that that is supposedly much more advanced than the one being developed by Google. The self-driving car system will be able to be implemented into existing cars. The car that the team test drove was a Nissan Leaf electric car, and it was tested on the private roads of Oxford University.

The driverless car was able to navigate through difficult weather conditions, like snow and rain. It yielded for pedestrians, and navigated efficiently through traffic jams. The car was able to reach speeds of up to 40 MPH. The system uses 3D laser scanning linked with a computer storage that creates maps of its surroundings and saves them. The new system is accurate to a few centimeters, whereas GPS navigation systems are only accurate to a few meters. The car is then able to recognize where it is with a laser scanner on the front of the car combined with the data saved in its storage system. The Oxford team plans on working on an updating feature that allows these self-driving cars to be able to download information when they pass one another on the road. They also plan on implementing a feature that allows these cars to download data directly from the internet through a 3G or 4G data connection.

The system informs drivers when it’s going to take over. If the driver wants to allow it, all they have to do is press the green button on the display screen. However, if the car system believes that automatic driving may be a risk, like in conditions where it can’t verify its location, it will ask the driver to take over.

Dr. Martin Spring from Lancaster University, who also co-authored a paper about the potential of driverless cars, commented on the innovation this new system can bring. With this new technology, he believes that cars will look very different in the future. Cars may have an interior that is just a small room where drivers can do what they want until they reach their destination. Dr. Spring also commented on how things like streetlights could go obsolete. That’s something I have to disagree with him on. I believe he forgot that people still like to walk places, and they’re going to need those streetlights to find their way around.

Professor Newman said that there is “no obvious legal barrier to using it on the roads” as long as there is a licensed driver in the driver’s seat. The system currently costs around 5000 pounds, or $7760.50, but Newman says that his team is working on reducing that number to only 100 pounds ($155.21). Can you imagine having your car chauffeur you around town? It’s an exciting advancement in technology, one that Newman believes will be implemented in around 15 years.

[via The Guardian]

Oxford University tests out their new self-driving car system is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.