Hasta La Gadget!

At this year’s New York International Auto Show BMW is expanding its portfolio of connected apps — by four. The company announced iOS integration for Audible, Glympse, Rhapsody and TuneIn Radio and we couldn’t help but swing by to check them all out. This integration (which also will work on Connected Minis) entails an update to those existing iOS apps. In other words, you won’t need a dedicated BMW app nor second versions of these individual apps. You can use the ones you already know and love.

Join us below for a little more information on how that works, and a look at the company’s in-car LTE router that’s also on display.

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Normally, a trip from Earth to the ISS takes about two days. Thursday, a Soyuz capsule docked with the orbiting laboratory after less than six hours of flight time, setting a record. Accelerating the trip wasn’t an issue of newer technology or more powerful engines, necessarily, but of better math and planning. The Russian vehicle essentially took a shortcut that required precisely timed steering over the course of four orbits, putting three crew members (including one American astronaut) on the space station at 10:28pm ET — just five hours and 45 minutes after takeoff from Kazakhstan. Russian engineers are already looking at ways to trim more time off the trip, by cutting two more orbits from the route. Obviously the human cargo appreciates spending less time in the cramped quarters of the Soyuz. But getting equipment and materials for experiments to the ISS quicker should also yield better and more reliable scientific results. For a few clips of liftoff and the docking itself check out the NASA link in the source.

Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt

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Source: Discovery, NASA

If you are a soccer mom or want a ride that is more practical for the entire family instead of relying on a nice sports car to get around, then there is nothing quite like a MPV or a minivan as your family’s primary people mover. After all, it is spacious to carry a load of kids as well as your parents-in-law, in addition to having more than ample storage space – useful when you have tons of stuff to lug around on your road trips with the rest of the family. Well, the 2014 Honda Odyssey Minivan has something that all spic and span folks would love – a built-in vacuum to help clean up whatever mess the kids (and pets) leave behind, be it fur, bread crumbs, and other rubbish.

Known as the HondaVAC, it is touted to be the world’s first in-car vacuum, and was developed in conjunction with Shop-Vac. Basically, it is a vacuum hose that is located right behind a side panel in the rear cargo area. The hose itself is long enough to reach all the way to the front driver’s seat, which means it is highly practical and flexible. As long as your ride’s battery has juice, the HondaVAC will suck up all the mess in sight, and it can be used for up to 8 minutes on reserve power when parked.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Freeride E-Speed Electric Motorcycle, Torq Roadster Gains Batman’s Approval,

We’ve been tracking the sun-powered plane known as Solar Impulse for years as it roved hither and yon. Today, Solar Impulse’s pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, came to NASA’s Ames research center to announce their plan to fly across America. The cross-country tour will begin in the Bay Area and end in New York, with stops in Phoenix, Dallas and Washington DC in between. Solar Impulse will also land in either Atlanta, Nashville or St. Louis, with the plane and its pilots set to stay in each locale for about a week to ten days to talk about the project before moving on. For the next month, Piccard and Borschberg will perform test flights around the Bay Area in preparation, and the plan is for the journey to start on May 1st, with an estimated arrival in Gotham sometime in early July.

The point of this new flight is to inspire and educate the public in general of the benefits of renewable energy and efficiency, and to encourage school children and university students in particular to “think off the grid” and innovate and invent on their own. To that end, the pilots will be broadcasting live transmissions and allowing the public to speak with them as they fly, in addition to providing access to flight planning information on the Solar Impulse website. Read on to learn a bit more about the Solar Impulse project and it’s future plans.

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Fisker’s cash reserves have been in trouble ever since its Department of Energy loans were frozen, and now its putting its US workforce on furlough to keep money in the bank while it searches for a partner with deep pockets. “This is a common practice, particularly in the automotive industry, to manage costs and operations based on current activity levels and commercial requirements,” said Fisker, which has over 200 employees in America, in a statement concerning the unpaid leave. Considering that battery woes and other mishaps have contributed to keeping assembly lines quiet, current activity levels are indeed low. Reuters says the automaker hasn’t built a car since July, and it’s coming up against a federal loan payment in late April. According to the outlet, Fisker was aiming to partner with Chinese auto companies that could bolster its finances, but talks are said to have crawled to a stop. Regardless, the firm is still on the lookout for an investor to fuel the production of its Atlantic hybrid.

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Source: Reuters