Hasta La Gadget!

Like talking on the phone while driving, but hate all of the crashing it sometimes entails? Parrot’s bringing its Minikit Neo to the states later this year, bringing a free Android / iPhone app along for the ride that helps you locate your car, set parking meter fill-up reminders, schedule driving breaks and set auto-replies like, “I’m driving and will call you later,” for those times when you’re driving and will call people later. The sun-visor-clipping car accessory can connect two Bluetooth-enabled devices simultaneously and features a vibration sensor that’ll turn it on and off as you enter and exit the vehicle. The Neo will arrive stateside in September for $100.

Continue reading Parrot Minikit Neo helps you focus on driving, making off-handed Matrix references

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Parrot Minikit Neo helps you focus on driving, making off-handed Matrix references originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 04:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sometimes I run across tech products that cross two different geek genres. That is certainly the case with this cool flash drive that merges car guy geekery with tech geek appeal. This official BMW flash drive has 8 GB of flash storage inside and looks like the actual M series carbon fiber key fob you get with factory hopped up BMW sports cars.

The flash drive has buttons that look like the ones for unlocking the door and the trunk, and has the official BMW logo and the M logo as well. The USB connector can be extended or retracted by pressing the trunk release button. The other buttons on the flash drive key fob surface do nothing but sit there looking authentic.

If you absolutely have to have one of these for yourself, you can order one direct from BMW for only $38. However, if you go full poser, attach it to your keychain, and pretend you actually own a BMW M vehicle, car guys will mock you.

[via EverythingUSB]

Mazda has been making its Miata or MX-5 since the 1990s, and the little sports car has been crazy popular. The car is set to get a refresh in 2014 and Car & Driver has some details, including a rendering that shows what the vehicle is expected to look like. As you can see in the picture, there’s still a lot of Miata/MX-5 family resemblance in the new rendering.

However, it does look as if Mazda decided to graft an RX-8 front end onto the MX-5. This will be the fourth generation of the MX-5, and it looks very nice. If the renderings and photos are accurate, it appears only the front end will change with most of the car remaining the same. The new 2014 model will retain the two-seater roadster formula with a folding roof and rear-wheel drive. One thing that’s interesting is that the 2014 model will lose a bit of weight.

The Miata/MX-5 has long counted lightness as one of its main assets and the 2014 version is said to lose 200 to 300 pounds bringing the car to a curb weight of about 2200 pounds. The car will ride on a new rear-wheel drive architecture that will also be shared between Mazda and Fiat as well as an Alpha Romeo roadster. The car is expected to get a small displacement four-cylinder engine of about 1.3-liters with a turbocharger to make in the area of 167 HP.

[via Car & Driver]

2014 Mazda MX-5 rendering surfaces is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon have developed a prototype smart headlight which blots out individual drops of rain or snow — improving vision by up to 90 percent. Made with an off-the-shelf Viewsonic DLP projector, a quad-core Intel Core-i7 PC and a GigE Point Grey Flea3 camera, the Rube Goldberg-esque process starts by first imaging raindrops arriving at the top of its view. After this, the signal goes to a processing unit, which uses a predictive theory developed by the team to guess the drops’ path to the road. Finally, the projector — found in the same place as the camera — uses a beamsplitter like modern digital 3D rigs. Used in tandem with calculations, it transmits a beam with light voids matching the predicted path. The result? It all stops light from hitting the falling particles, with the cumulative process resulting in the illusion of a nearly precipitation-free road view — at least in the lab. So far, the whole process takes about a hundredth of a second (13 ms) but scientists said that in an actual car and with many more drops, the speed would have to be about ten times quicker. That would allow 90 percent of the light located 13 feet in front of the headlights to pass through, but even at just triple the speed, it would give drivers a 70 percent better view. To see if this tech might have a snowflake’s chance of making it out of the lab, go past the break for all the videos.

Continue reading Carnegie Mellon smart headlight prototype blacks out raindrops for clearer view of the road

Carnegie Mellon smart headlight prototype blacks out raindrops for clearer view of the road originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I have read tragic stories in the papers as well as on the Internet before, where some absent minded parents suffered unspeakable heartache when they realized their toddler or baby was left in the car, only to return to a lifeless body afterwards. Sometimes, we are just too preoccupied with our work that we even forget the extension of ourselves, and for those who firmly believe that prevention is better than cure, how about a $30 device known as the ChildMinder car seat sensor?

This particular device is capable of alerting you just in case you happen to walk away while leaving your helpless little one all alone in the car. Developed by Baby Alert International, the ChildMinder Infant-Toddler Elite Pad System has been described to be “a passive safety seat monitoring system,” where the Elite Pad is placed under the child’s car seat. This Elite Pad will then “talk” to your Key Ring Alarm Unit, should you move 15 feet away from it, will take half a dozen seconds of lapse before the alarm goes off.

[ ChildMinder car seat sensor could help save lives copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]