Hasta La Gadget!

While there are plenty of ways to add a remote-controlled starter to your car so you can let the engine warm up before you get in it, it’s not common to find a car that you can actually drive using the same remote. A newly released car in China is capable of being operated from outside of the car using its remote control.

The BYD Su Rui includes a palm-size remote control which lets its owner operate it from outside the vehicle. Now before you get any funny ideas about life-size R/C car races, you should know that the remote is limited to a distance of about 33 feet, and the car won’t go over 1.24MPH. The remote also doesn’t have analog controls or a remote camera – just a D-Pad. Have you ever tried playing a racing game with a D-Pad?

Presumably, this capability is designed to allow its owner to park the car in tight parking spaces and garages from outside of the car. It’s not a bad idea for those circumstances, I suppose, but I think I’d rather have some sort of parking assist feature for those times, like Ford’s automated parallel parking feature. They also say you can use the feature to bring the car to you when the weather is bad – though the distance limit might present some problems with that.

Given its speed and distance limitations, I wonder how quickly a hacker will get their hands on one of these and mod it so there’s no speed limiter, and they can operate it from a greater distance. That’s certainly the first thing I’d try and do if I had one.

Prices for the BYD Su Rui range from 65,900 to 99,000 Yuan (~$10228 to $15579 USD). Not too bad as car prices go – especially ones with a remote control.

[via Car News China via Gadget Review]

If you’ve been holding out on buying yourself a Kinect for your Xbox 360 because you thought the $150 price was too much, you may want to reach for your wallet now. Microsoft has announced a price cut for the Xbox 360 Kinect of $40. The price cut will apparently be permanent, so it sucks to be you if you just bought one at full price.

The new official price for the Kinect is $109.99(USD) in the United States. A price cut is also coming to the rest of North America and Asia-Pacific countries as well. In October, the price will drop in Australia and New Zealand. This will make European and Japanese fans of the Kinect angry. Apparently, there are no plans to cut the price in those countries.

This should spur adoption of the Kinect in the US for people who aren’t really are interested in the device for gaming. I’ll admit that Kinect games were interesting for about two days and then the motion controls lost their luster for me. However, with other Xbox 360 apps such as Netflix and the menus being navigable using the Kinect the device is becoming increasingly more useful outside of gaming, and is certainly the darling of the hacking and interactive community.

[via Neowin]

There’s something to be said about big-screen TVs: they can always get bigger. LG has announced the world’s first 84-inch Ultra Definition 3DTV. The mammoth UD 3DTV also comes with a couple of smart features and over 8 million pixels per frame.

The ultra-high-def UD 3DTV (model 84LM9600) has got four times the resolution (3840 × 2160) of a standard 1080p HDTV panel. The ‘magic’ remote allows access to about 1,400 LG apps and premium community services.

The UD 3DTV will be available in September in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. No price was announced, but it will probably be ridiculously expensive.

[via Ubergizmo]

I love the occasional cocktail or two, but I’ve always had to keep it at a minimum. I’ve got my reasons, with the main one being the fact that I turn beet red once I consume even a drop (okay, several drops) of alcohol-laced fluids into my system.

But I doubt I’d be able to contain myself if I came across this cosmic concoction.

As some people claim, the above is a result of Photoshop and a bit of tweaking. But you really can mix up your own glowing cocktails, with the right recipe and  a black light.

Maybe you can even achieve something similar the otherworldly looking mix in the image if you mix it slowly and shine the black light while you do. This is called the Aurora Jungle-Juice cocktail, and once everything settles down, you’ll end up with something that looks like this:

It’s basically a mix of either gin or vodka, tonic water, and Rose’s Mojito Passion or Pink Lemonade concentrate. Then add in some ice, bring your black light, and voila! Awesomeness.

You can check out the recipe here.

[via Incredible Things]

Not content with turning inanimate objects into touch sensitive interfaces, Disney Research is now developing a noninvasive technology they call Botanicus Interacticus, which turns plants into touch sensitive input devices.

In simple terms, an electrode is buried into the soil where a plant has taken root. This allows Disney’s researchers to apply a weak current to the plant at multiple frequencies. The use of multiple frequencies helps the researchers identify not just when but also where the plant is being touched. These signals can then be used in a variety of ways – the demo below shows plants being used to play music and video.

Imagine having just a couple of plants inside your room instead of switches. Or perhaps you can make it so your door will only unlock when you touch a nearby plant in a certain way. That sounded wrong, but you get what I mean.

[via BuzzFeed]