Hasta La Gadget!

Ford Motor Co. and Canadian-based Magna International are working on an electric vehicle that Ford plans to bring to market in America by 2011, putting it in potential competition with GM’s Chevy Volt due around the same time, according to the Detroit News.

The report said that Magna surprised Ford back in September, following months of talks, by driving up one day in a Ford Focus that Magna had converted to battery power on their own in secret. “It was a phenomenal car,” said Lisa Drake, Ford’s chief engineer for hybrid programs, in the report. “We were highly, highly impressed.”

Fast forward four months: Executive chairman Bill Ford Jr. told the press gathered in Cobo Arena plans to bring a car based on that prototype to market in 2011. Ford has been racing plug-in hybrid versions of the Ford Escape on testing grounds, but is now pursuing this joint venture with Magna in a pure battery-powered vehicle in tandem.

The report said that the production vehicle being developed with Magna will be based on the new global Focus platform, due out in 2010. “The electric version will have no gasoline motor, but will be limited to a range of 100 miles on a single charge—enough, Ford says, because most motorists in America average less than 40 miles a day.”

Mars Rover mission managers over at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. reported that the Spirit rover blanked out and became disoriented, according to the New York Times.

On Sunday, Spirit’s 1,800th day on the Mars surface, the rover acknowledged receiving instructions from Earth but then didn’t move. Later that day, it appeared to completely forget what it had done earlier that morning; usually, the rover records everything in non-volatile memory. “It’s almost as if the rover had a bout of amnesia,” said John Callas, the project manager for the rovers, in the article.

Another system in the rover recorded that power was being drained from the batteries for about 90 minutes, so something was going on, although before and after photos showed that the rover went absolutely nowhere, the report said. On Monday, an order to photograph the sun came out different than expected; the rover took the photo out of position. The article said that one hypothesis is a cosmic ray hit the electronics and scrambled the rover’s memory, but just that one time.

Now, everything is back to normal; the rover is responding to commands and appears to be operating just fine. (Artwork credit: NASA)

Looking for a reason to get excited by Device Stage, the new visual interface Microsoft’s adding to Windows 7? Look no further than the Sony Walkman NWZ-S738F, a horribly named but really clever gizmo–at least when attached to the right computer, that is. Take a close look at the screen shot above (or click it for the larger version) and you’ll see that the device description banner at the top of the window gives you a quick status update–I’ve got 5.45 free GB of space and my battery is fully charged. In my eyes, that’s a pretty important bit of data, and a very convenient spot to learn that. Now take a look at what happens when you simply mouse over the Walkman’s taskbar icon:

Hovering your mouse over the music player’s icon yields an image of the device, with three icons in the lower window frame. I’ve hovered my mouse over the right one, which yields information about the device’s storage capacity. The middle one is battery life, and the left icon sets up sync. I’ve tested the Canon MP980 and the Nokia N95 8GB, and neither has added this level of interactivity to simple mouse gestures. Neat!

Yet more funky functionality, after the jump.

Plug a device into your Windows Vista computer and–poof! Nothing happens. Plug a device into a Windows 7 machine, on the other hand, and a photo realistic image of it appears in your taskbar, where it lives permanently, offering you easy access to some common tasks, services, and information. Microsoft calls it Device Stage; let’s walk through what it does for cell phones like the Nokia N95.

Getting the N95 working properly took some legwork, because different drivers install based on which mode you connect the phone in. First, install Nokia’s Ovi Suite–the Music app isn’t compatible with Windows 7, but everything else is. Restart, launch Ovi, and plug in the phone. Then Select PC Suite as the connection method from the N95’s screen, and wait for device to finish setting up in Ovi. You’ll see the N95 icon in Ovi when it’s through. Then unplug the phone and reconnect it, this time selecting Media Transfer as the connection method from the device screen. Next bask in the glory.

But what does Device Stage do for the phone? After the jump, a full run-down on features.

As part of Windows 7, Microsoft is polishing more than just the operating system itself; the company aims to ease interaction between you and your cell phone, printer, camera, and more, with a new feature called Device Stage. Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc describes the feature pretty well on the The Windows Experience Blog, as a “new visual interface that makes it easy to find the things you want to do with your devices on your Windows 7 PC.” With Device Stage, a photo-realistic picture of your gadget can live in your taskbar, providing one-click access to relevant apps, services, and information. The feature is barely finished (and there are only a handful of working devices), and I’ve already got it working with a couple devices.

In order for Device Stage to work, Windows 7 loads a custom XML file (and possibly custom drivers) when you first connect a printer, scanner, whatever. LeBlanc points out that Device Stage “not only works for devices connected to a Windows 7 PC via USB, but also Bluetooth and Wi-Fi as well. In many cases, software installation isn’t required for Device Stage – with any additional drivers that might be needed automatically retrieved from Windows Update.” Maybe in the final iteration things will work that smoothly, but it’s proved a challenge so far. I’ve gotten two devices working at present: a Canon MP980 (flawlessly) and a Nokia N95 8GB (laboriously).

I’ll post a wealth of screen shots and information soon, about how I did it, how well it works, and what to expect from your devices. In the meantime, feast on a few neat screen grabs that highlight some of the features, after the jump.