Hasta La Gadget!

One of the coolest cars that Mercedes has produced in a long time was a digital concept car made specifically for the racing game Gran Turismo called the Vision Gran … Continue reading

I am quite sure that those of us who grew up on a steady diet of James Bond films would have seen the many kinds of amazing technical wizardry that the British superspy was endowed with, where we would have killed to be in such a position in real life. Imagine having suave good looks, fantastic gadgets to play with, and of course, a license to kill in the name of national security. It seems that what was once deemed to be fictional is now a reality in the form of the $135,000 Amphibious Car, which has been touted to be the fastest of its kind in the world.

The self-proclaimed “World’s Fastest Amphibious Car” is no slouch when it is in the water, where it is more than capable of speeding on such a surface at 44 mph. Should you still fail to shake your enemies from behind you and have already made your way to the asphalt, then fret not, as this ride will be able to hit a stride of 80 mph on the road. Underneath the hood of the Amphibious Car lies a 300-hp Honda engine, where the entire shebang works like a standard vehicle on land thanks to its four-speed manual transmission, four-wheel disc brakes, lights, turn indicators, and a folding windshield. Should you find a need to enter the water, an integrated hydraulic wheel retraction system will raise the wheels above the bottom of the hull. Sounds like a dream ride to many of us, no?
[ World’s Fastest Amphibious Car makes James Bond envious copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

This is the Renault KWID, a car that carries a quadcopter drone for terrain reconnoissance tucked inside a little hangar on its rooftop. It may seem like a silly James Bondigh invention, but it actually makes a lot of sense in certain situations.

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When my son was really small I probably pushed him 1000 miles in his red and yellow Little Tykes Cozy Coupe. I also flopped over the top of that little car a few times when the front wheels randomly stopped working at speed. If you have fond memories of these little toy cars, you might want to check out the street-legal version you can ride in now that you are grown up.

The car was made by a guy named John Bitmead. The builder says that he spent 1000 hours and about £4,000 (~$6m500 USD) on the project. The car started out as a Daewoo Matiz, has an 800cc engine inside of it and is street legal. It has a top speed of 70mph.

I don’t see how this thing can actually be street legal. I wouldn’t want to be in an accident in this thing, even though it has airbags. Check out the videos to see the car in action.

[via Daily Mail and Geekologie]

Driving a car has become second nature to many of us, and sometimes, it tends up as a reflex action that we do not pay too much attention to – which is a good thing most of the time, although there are moments when we take this particular moment for granted and start to focus on doing another thing such as checking out our e-mail, only to realize that we might have stepped on the brake a little too late shortly after, resulting in a fender bender afterwards. Well, I guess this is why a driverless car makes plenty of sense, although I am quite sure that it could prove rather disconcerting to some that you do not have full control over the vehicle in which you are traveling in. How about driving a car with your thoughts alone? Don’t you think that this would be cool beyond words?

This is what a bunch of engineering students over in India are working on. At Mount Zion College of Engineering and Technology, this particular project would involve converting a small van into a computer controlled vehicle, where the Emotiv EEG headset would function as a controller. We are talking about using off-the-shelf parts here, people, in order to get the job done – now how about that?

Of course, there are still plenty of questions which are left unanswered as at press time, as this particular concept would take years of refinement for it to become safe enough to drive. The thing is, how are we to know that our brain is able to tell the difference between switching gears and turning left while we are pre-occupied with the goings on at the office? What do you think of this proposition – does it sit down well with you? Do you think this is a better idea than a self-driving car?

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[ Fancy driving your car using your brain alone? copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]