Hasta La Gadget!

From time to time, I wish I had one of those tiny city cars that could park almost anywhere, because it would make living in the city a lot easier. However, most of the time, these tiny cars are a bit boring to drive because of their lackluster performance. Renault sought to change this with their new concept car.

If you can believe it, the Twizy Sport F1 Electric concept borrows technology used in Formula 1 race cars. This single-seater race car comes with a front splitter, side pods, a rear wing, and a diffuser to give it a sporty look. It uses a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) to recover lost power, which is similar to the one used by Renault F1 cars. It allows this little car to push out almost 100hp, making it as fast as the Mégane Renault Sport 265 (which has 265 horses!).

The car even comes equipped with an F1-style steering wheel, which would provide access to the vehicle’s various functions.

I’m curious to see if or when they’ll use this technology in a production vehicle. I’m sure that many city dwellers would be interested in driving one.

[via designboom]

Geeks who are into fast cars and stereoscopic displays must think that watching F1 races in 3D is the bees-knees. However, FIA, the sport’s governing body, has often been resistant to new technology — only adopting HD a few years ago. That’s why when the FIA asked Sky to produce a test-broadcast of the practice testing laps in the run up to the Barcelona Grand Prix, the British broadcaster jumped at the chance. Naturally, BSkyB wanted to show off its technical marvel, and so invited us to come and see what it was like. Of course, like the good geeks that we are, our attention was focused on keeping Sky’s chief engineer Chris Johns in a corner and needling him with questions. Curious to find out what he said (apart from “please go away,” of course)? After the break is where all the cool kids are at.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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As we enjoy our first F1 action in the US since 2007 we’re glad that it’s in HD this time, however it still falling short in one area — in-car camera shots. Although the racing series belatedly made the jump to high definition broadcasts last year, protests from the teams over weight and space issues caused it to stick with standard-definition cameras for the on-board shots. Now that a couple of years have passed and presumably the technology has improved, that may be addressed next year, at the same time US broadcasts of the series move from Speed/Fox to NBC Sports. Formula One Supporters Association caught up to F1 journalist Christian Sylt who got a peek at future plans that include the possibility of HD in-car cameras, multi-channel formats offering different views of the track and an interactive 3D replay feature. We’ll have to wait and see how much — if any — of that is actually implemented any time soon, but if you’d like to check out the technology in use today, Speed TV has a live stream from several of the cars currently racing around the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Formula 1’s on-board cameras may switch to HD next season originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 14:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now it’s safe to assume that as depicted in the movies, Batman’s Tumbler vehicle is not only capable of withstanding massive amounts of abuse, but is pretty quick as well, so what happens if the Tumbler were taken and redesigned as an F1 vehicle? What sort of speeds could we be looking at here? Unfortunately we may never find out, but thanks to KnightVision3D, he has come up with a concept rendering of a Batman Tumbler vehicle in a formula one racing car design. As pictured above, it looks pretty darn good! Powered by jet turbines, it even comes with hydraulic flaps. Now we since we’re not car designers nor racers, we can’t really speak for its realism nor its aerodynamics, but as far as designed is concerned, we certainly love what we see, and given Bruce Wayne’s massive fortune (albeit fictional), we don’t see why he wouldn’t build himself one of these in the future!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Batmobile: now hydrogen-powered, Lego motorized Tumbler and The Bat vehicles will bring out the Batman in you,

BSkyB has been busy pushing updates to several of its apps, starting with the Sky Go player. On both iOS and Android, the big new addition is access to Anytime+ video on demand from the Movies and Entertainment category, covering Sky1, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts 1. On Android, v2.0 of Sky Go brings the ability to manage ones account directly via the app, move the app to the SD card and other bug fixes. What it does not do, yet, is expand the (short) list of compatible devices, although the listing promises Ice Cream Sandwich support later this month. Meanwhile, the Sky Sports app for iPad has a new update too, adding a guide, split screen view for F1 races and the ability to remotely set recordings and reminders from the tablet. All the updates are available at their respective app stores, the links can be found below.

Continue reading Sky Sports iPad app, Sky Go for iOS and Android refreshed with more content and features

Sky Sports iPad app, Sky Go for iOS and Android refreshed with more content and features originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 10:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Digital Lifestyle (1), (2)  |  Sky Go iOS, Sky Go Android, Sky Sports for iPad  | Email this | Comments