Cebit is the world's largest computer expo, it happens now in Hanover and then, sonner or later, we're gonna talk about it.

This year, German researchers have (finally!) developed a peer-to-peer network that vehicles could use to pass along information concerning road conditions.

Cars would be fitted with more and more sensors: GPS, TPEG, proximity,... Starting from there, detected information concerning traffic jam or an object on the road would travel from a car to another behind them and be displayed on a dashboard screen, a mobile device or played over headphones. If a car knew its tires were slipping, it could alert the vehicles around it to the presence of a slippery substance on a digital map.

Source: BBC News, saturday.
For those who do not know:
- CeBIT (Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik; German for "Centre of Office and Information technology") is held each spring on the fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology. With an exhibition area of roughly 450,000 m² and up to 700,000 visitors, it had more than 6,200 exhibitors from around 70 countries all over the world. The 2007 expo dates are 15 March to 21 March.
- A peer-to-peer system is a distributed system whose component nodes participate in similar roles, and are therefore peers to each other. Peer-to-peer can be viewed as decentralized network architecture. In contrast, a client-server architecture implies a sharp distinction between the clients which request and consume services, and servers which provide services. aEven though the nodes have similar roles, there may still be some structure to the peer-to-peer system, and it usually possesses some degree of self-organization where each node finds its peers and helps maintain the system structure. This makes a peer-to-peer network node more complex than a client in client-server system. The main benefits of peer-to-peer system are scalability, fault-tolerance, and the lack of resource bottlenecks in servers. Recently, the concept has achieved recognition in the general public in the context of peer-to-peer file sharing which is one application of peer-to-peer networks.

Since one year, Honda prints an instruction manual intended for the American drivers of cars Honda, Acura and some motorcycles. And during one year, Honda had time to print some: 1.2 million to be accurate.

And yet, this Monday only we learn this funny story: a toll-free number is mentioned in the small book, a service for safety and prevention on the public highway. This number is 1-888-327-4236. The problem is that the 888 was misprinted and transformed itself into 800.


And when calling 1-800-327-4236, you speak to Virginia, a sexy voice who invites you, on an old funky beat, to join her tonight. And then, it's obviously a surtaxed number, and no one speaks there about road safety ;)

automobile


The Toyota Prius is the first hybrid car sold in mass production on the world market. Initially in Japan in 1997 then everywhere in 2001. Two years later, nearly 160.000 cars were produced for Japan, Europe and North America.
Then a lifting in 2003 and here we go.

Hybrid vehicles use several systems of propulsion. Most of them being hybrid electric-gasoline (or diesel). Several models, like Prius, reload its batteries thanks to cynetic energy. Prius is even “full hybrid”, since it can use the combustion engine to generate electricity while running a generator (like a second electric motor). More details at this address.
In the same category, let's quote the Honda Civic IMA.

And here we come to the main subject. Some owners of Toyota Prius are not convinced by the functionalities of their car, and try to hack it, i.e. try to modify some characteristics!

First level: eliminating the beeeeeep from the reverse gear or the not-buckled belt. The procedure is not easy but is however almost explained in the handbook.

Next level: being able to use the board-computer while you're drinving. Originally, most of commands are not accessible over a certain speed. It's more difficult and a little less legal, since actions are sometimes broughts to car manufacturers when an accident occurs. Stupid but it works in some countries. Then the manufacturers protect themselves by implementing this limitation.

Next level: more complicated but more interesting: forcing the car to run on the electric power and thus reducing the petrol consumption. Note also that the Japanese or European models make it possible to remain in electric mode at low speed, but not the American model. The place for this button is empty. Thus, some American people are astonished by this failure, since the consumption and thus pollution are really reduced. There are also American companies (Coastal Electronics) that are selling modification-kits to add this functionality.

At this address, we can read that a team of fans have hacked a Prius, i.e. they added a power supply and modified the software (they call that a plug-in!) to drive a long trip only with electric power.

At this address, we can read that this guy exchanged his computer-board by an iMac. Why not.
At this address, you can buy a DeLorean but there's no relation.


source : news.com, middle of May.

automotive

Today, we propose this map schematizing the automotive market.

According to the key, manufacturer's lines (color lines) end by the Major. There aren't so much: Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, DaimlerChrysler, VolksWagen, BMW, Nissan, PSA et Fiat. Around ten.

And others trademarks are just parts of them. The arrows indicate that a mark is a shareholder of another one and the dotted lines mean that it's a joint-venture.

At the crossings, we discover technical links between manufacturers: E for Engine, M for Manufacturing and H for Hybrid partnership.


for those who do not know: A joint venture is a legal entity formed between two or more parties to undertake economic activity together. The parties agree to create a new entity by both contributing equity, and they then share in the revenues, expenses, and control of the enterprise.
Examples : Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu Siemens.

automotive


Infiniti is a car manufacturer that belongs to the Nissa group.

In November, Infinity will put on the market its new generation 2007 of G35 sedan, that has been introduced recently.

The infotainment system has a tactile screen and the sound is output by a high-quality BOSE audio system.

He also has a digital converter which will allow ripping audio CDs and storing on the hard drive disc.

The rumours say that the disc will be a Seagate, with possible capacities of 20, 30 or 40 Gbytes. Infinity and Seagates do not confirm anything at the moment.

Why that kind of news on hOwGee? Very geek, or very middle-class.

Because we like luxury;) And then it's the first time that a manufacturer will integrate a so large hard disk, only for multi-media purpose. The fashion is iPod-interface.


source : TG daily, mid of April.
for those who do not know : Ripping is the process of copying the audio or video data from one media form, such as DVD or CD, to a hard disk. While the original media is typically digital, the extraction of analog media such as VHS video or vinyl records to a digital format can also be referred to as "ripping". To conserve storage space, the copied data is often then encoded in a compressed format such as MP3, WMA or Ogg Vorbis for audio, or MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid or Ogg Theora for video.

automotive




This page lists up the cars whose CO2 emission does not exceed the 120 g/km per kilometer. (The cars which can be the subject of a tax cut -in Belgium- are reported by a green star (tax cut equal to 15% of the purchase price) and a white star (tax cut equal to 3% of the purchase price).
The paper was updated last month.

The consumption of the car (liters by 100 kilometers) is obtained after simulation of standardized course (downtown and on road). The average gasoline car consumes 7,3 l/100 km, the average diesel car 5,9 l/100 km.

The CO2 emission of the car is expressed in gram per kilometer (G CO2/km). The average gasoline car emits 173 G CO2/km, the average diesel car 158 G CO2/km.

The category of CO2 indicates the car's category of CO2 emission compared to the arithmetic mean (gasoline + diesel). You recognize it directly with the color:
- yellow corresponds to the mean
- green indicates emissions lower than the mean
- red indicates emissions higher than the mean.

Column "euro" : Europe imposes standards, fixing the maxima of emission of atmospheric contaminants. The more the index EURO is up, the more the contaminants are treated. The current standard is EURO 4.

Conclusion: even if it's true that the emission of CO2 is not the only criterion for pollution… stop buying large polluting motors, just because they're large motors (polluting).

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