Jeep’s Drive Your Track Lets you Plan World Road Trip from Your Music

I’ve been trying out Jeep’s Drive Your Track website for their Wrangler model’s Infinity Sound System. You start by uploading a song from your hard drive: I chose Gary Numan’s, “Cars” for reasons that should be readily apparent.
It takes a few minutes to load your song, and then the sound waves are somehow mapped to certain geographical features from around the world.
You end up with eight or so places, which for me included the Appalachian Mountains, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Ural Mountains and Colorado Rockies.

Google Goes Electric, Sets Up 70 Charging Stations at its California Headquarters

Internet-giant Google has just adopted the largest workplace charging installation for electric vehicles in the U.S. with the completion of 70 “ChargePoint” stations at its Mountain View, California headquarters.
The new charging infrastructure will support both employee-owned EVs and “GFleet” plug-in vehicles such as the Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF. And there are 250 more charging stations on the way, with the goal of making Google’s HQ parking facilities 5% EV-ready.

Our Automotive Future: Clever Tech Meets Clever Manufacturing

In a decade where green has become the new buzzword for almost every industry, automakers are facing two big problems: economy and emissions. The simplest way to achieve this is to reduce weight and reduce the size of the engine. With all the government mandated safety equipment and luxury features that today’s customers demand - power everything, air conditioning and the like - achieving the former is very difficult. And fitting a small engine into a heavy body is only going to stunt performance and make fuel economy all the more worse.
Fortunately, there are a few potential solutions. Carbon fibre is one. It’s said to be ten times stronger than steel and five times lighter. Unfortunately, it’s also four times as expensive, making it impractical for use in non-luxury vehicles. Now, engineers are looking to green energy and new manufacturing methods to make carbon fibre cheaper. Still, the results are yet to be seen.

ZF Launches World’s First 9-Speed Automatic Transmission

It was not a long time ago that 6-speed automatic gearboxes were a privilege largely enjoyed by top of the range models. However, in their quest for efficiency, manufacturers have quickly moved on to 7- and 8-speed boxes which trickle down the line to even the smallest models in the range (e.g. the new BMW 1-Series).
But ZF has outdone them all by launching the world’s first 9-speed automatic transmission for passenger cars in the VDI Conference “Transmissions in Vehicles 2011”. The new gearbox, code-named 9HP and designed for cars with front-transverse drive, is available in two model ranges, can handle torque between 280 and 480 Nm (206.5 – 331.9 lb-ft) and can be combined, according to each manufacturer’s requirements, with different stop-start systems, hybrid and all-wheel drive applications.

U.S. Government Focusing in on Web Gadgets

We are all living in an age of networked information. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, smartphones and public internet access are making the world smaller every day. Unfortunately, in some instances all this information can distract us from the important things, such as focusing on driving. And no one agrees with this more than U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood:
“We know people are hooked on cellphones and texting devices. But there's absolutely no reason for any person to download their Facebook into the car. It's not necessary. "

Forza Motorsport 4: Here’s how they Record Car Engine Sounds

Long gone are the days when video game developers used simple electronic instruments to emulate car engine sounds for their racing games. Now, thanks to a dramatic increase in video games sales, which of course resulted in huge budgets, developers can justify the costs of recording the actual sounds of each car featured in their games.
For those of you wondering how it’s done, the tech-savvy crew over at Electricpig were invited to Redmond, Seattle by the creator of the Forza Motorsport gaming series, Turn 10 Studios, to witness the recording of a previous generation Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

For The Man Who Has Everything: Ferrari Racing Helmet

You would think a company that sells US$200,000+ supercars would have no need to hawk merchandise, but apparently not. Along with the expected assortment of watches, polo shirts and key rings is this US$331.40 racing helmet. You’re sure to look dapper when cruising around in your dilapidated ’89 Mondial cabriolet 250 Testa Rossa in this fine helmet made of satin-finish aluminium, metalised thermoplastic and genuine leather.

Chick Flick: Barbie gets her own special Fiat 500 for her 50th Birthday

You knew it was coming - a pinked out Barbie version of Fiat's 500 mini. Created by a partnership between the Fiat Centro Stile and Mattel, the customized Barbie 500 is a show car dedicated to famous doll for her 50th birthday and it will appear in public for the first time on Monday 9 March, when it will race through the streets of Milan's fashion district with 'Barbie' on the passenger seat and Ken behind the steering wheel.

Aside from the bright pink paintwork, Barbie's 500 also gets pink seats, an LED-decked vanity mirror, glitzy crystals on interior bezels, hubcaps, outer window moldings and antenna, as well as a glossy cover featuring the distinctive Sixties version of the Fiat 500 and a Barbie autograph.

BMW's DesignworksUSA Presents Thermaltake PC Case for Gamers

They have designed yachts, trains, coffee makers, speakers even airplanes and now, BMW DesignworksUSA, an independently operated studio owned by the BMW Group, has joined forces with Thermaltake, a company known for its flashy eye-catching products to create a futuristic-looking PC case. Previewed in prototype form at the CEBIT in Hanover (March 3-8, 2009), the BMW-designed PC case is called "Level 10".

Aimed at gamers, the Level 10 actually looks more like a chassis than a traditional case as the computer's individual components are mounted in separate compartments that are attached onto a central base.