Audi replaces rear-view mirror with mobile phone inspired camera

SYDNEY: Audi appears to be the first car maker that is prepared to jump across the digital divide, replacing the reflective glass of the rear-view mirror with a large and glowing mobile phone screen.

The technology comes straight off the racetrack, with large LCD screens featuring in Audi's R18 Hybrid and Ultra race cars that dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans race earlier this year.

In another digital first, the electronic rear-view mirror will feature in the R8 e-tron, the road-going, battery-powered version of the R8 two-seat sports car due to appear in its production form later this year - but this has not yet confirmed for Australia.

The German luxury brand says swapping the traditional mirror for the camera-fed digital version introduces a host of benefits for drivers.SYDNEY: Audi appears to be the first car maker that is prepared to jump across the digital divide, replacing the reflective glass of the rear-view mirror with a large and glowing mobile phone screen.

The technology comes straight off the racetrack, with large LCD screens featuring in Audi's R18 Hybrid and Ultra race cars that dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans race earlier this year.

In another digital first, the electronic rear-view mirror will feature in the R8 e-tron, the road-going, battery-powered version of the R8 two-seat sports car due to appear in its production form later this year - but this has not yet confirmed for Australia.

The German luxury brand says swapping the traditional mirror for the camera-fed digital version introduces a host of benefits for drivers.

"A control unit produces a consistent high-contrast, brilliant image," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the car maker as saying in a statement released overnight.

"During the hours of darkness the intelligent control system prevents dazzle from the headlights of other vehicles. The driver can dim or deactivate the display at any time.

"Audi is also working on incorporating additional information on the monitor in future," the car maker said.

The R8 e-tron will use the electronic mirror because unlike the conventionally-engined version, it has no rear window.

Instead, the battery-powered car has a big bank of aluminium cooling fins that help to cool the electronics and batteries that lie in the space occupied by the engine in the conventional sports car.

A rearward-facing camera will be mounted in a special housing at the rear of the car.

According to Audi, the organic materials used in the digital screen - adopted from mobile phones and much more advanced than a laptop screen - can glow at night under very low power, eliminating the need to provide a back-lit screen once darkness falls.

The car maker added that the system is also smart enough to be able to digitally filter out the bright headlights of following cars.

"A control unit produces a consistent high-contrast, brilliant image," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the car maker as saying in a statement released overnight.

"During the hours of darkness the intelligent control system prevents dazzle from the headlights of other vehicles. The driver can dim or deactivate the display at any time.

"Audi is also working on incorporating additional information on the monitor in future," the car maker said.

The R8 e-tron will use the electronic mirror because unlike the conventionally-engined version, it has no rear window.

Instead, the battery-powered car has a big bank of aluminium cooling fins that help to cool the electronics and batteries that lie in the space occupied by the engine in the conventional sports car.

A rearward-facing camera will be mounted in a special housing at the rear of the car.

According to Audi, the organic materials used in the digital screen - adopted from mobile phones and much more advanced than a laptop screen - can glow at night under very low power, eliminating the need to provide a back-lit screen once darkness falls.

The car maker added that the system is also smart enough to be able to digitally filter out the bright headlights of following cars.

Facebook Timeline

Facebook Timeline is a radical new profile page design that Facebook will launch around the end of September 2011. It was announced by Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's F8 conference following an introduction from SNL's Andy Samberg. (See pictures of Facebook Timeline here.)

Facebook Timeline changes the default profile from a list of your most recent updates to a complete summary of your entire life since birth. It includes photos, videos, status updates and locations you have visited. The new Facebook profile is divided into two main columns, with a line down the middle representing the passage of time. Users are encouraged to add life events which were not captured by Facebook, particularly those that occurred before the person joined Facebook.

Timeline uses an algorithm to assess the most important moments of your life, which can then be edited to your satisfaction. Unwanted updates can be hidden from the Timeline.

The new profile pages are thought to constitute one of Facebook's most extreme redesigns so far, completely reimagining what a social networking profile can be. Timeline also means that Facebook now bears fewer similarities to Google+, a social network from Google which currently uses the standard format of showing the most recent updates first.

GarageBand for iPad and iPhone

GarageBand already has a long history on the Mac, letting people use intuitive controls and a huge library of instruments and prerecorded loops to create songs. But for the iOS version, Apple needed to come up with creative ways to record music using only a touch-screen interface, and we think the company did an amazing job. The iPad version was released in March 2011, but the app has now gone universal in the latest version, letting you record and create songs on your iPhone and iPod Touch as well.

As a general overview, GarageBand offers several Touch Instruments, guitar amps and effects, eight-track recording and mixing, and more than 250 loops to play with. You can export AAC files of your projects through e-mail or add them to iTunes.

Immediately upon launch, GarageBand makes it easy to get started creating a song. Simply choose an instrument and start playing around with GarageBand's many options. GarageBand offers instruments you can play in real time like their real-world counterparts, but you also have the option to play Smart Instruments that do most of the heavy lifting for you. Every instrument has its own specific theme, giving all of them their own feel as you play. Some instruments even have added controls such as effects boxes you can turn on and off to fine-tune your sound.

Using the smart keyboard, for example, lays out all your chords in the chosen key. This means that just about whatever you press will probably go together in a song. You can change the key by touching the wrench in the upper-right corner of the screen. Using a combination of bass notes on the bottom and chords at the top, it's easy to create a nice-sounding song, even if you have very little experience playing the piano.

Similarly, the smart guitar offers a different layout that lets you play chords with a swipe of your finger. You also have the ability to switch to individual notes and actually bend guitar strings for your big rock solos. All of the Smart Instruments come with a few prerecorded segments so you can just tap a key and let the app play for you. Drums can be played manually on touch-screen drum kits or drum-machine-like layouts. But as with the other instruments, you can choose smart drums to make things easier. Simply drag and place drum set pieces onto a grid to experiment, or hit the dice icon in the lower left for a random layout. It's clear that Apple spent a lot of time on how to make music creation easy even for people with no musical experience.

Read more: GarageBand for iPad and iPhone - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com http://download.cnet.com/GarageBand-for-iPad-and-iPhone/3000-2133_4-75415495.html#ixzz1gWOjIG3V

Check out the world’s thinnest phone

Rumors have been flying for some time that Motorola would be launching its Droid RAZR today. The company made sure not to disappoint its fans and presented the device calling it an "impossibly thin" phone that features a stainless-steel core. Moreover, for those who are scared their screen may get scratched the Droid RAZR comes with a Gorilla Glass screen and a nanotechnology Splash-guard which managed to protect the electronic pieces inside the phone.

Motorola Mobility president Sanjay Jha declared their handset was the world’s thinnest phone, having a thickness of only 7.1mm. If you don’t care about the fact that it is thinner than all other 3G phones on the market, then you will most likely be interested by the fact that it runs on Verizon Wireless's 4G LTE network. Some countries will be calling the phone the Motorola RAZR. So far details on international carriers and network compatibility have not been released.

The phone has a 4.3-inch screen with qHD resolution. Like the Samsung Galaxy phones, its screen is not LCD, but Super AMOLED. As a result the device has a higher contrast and brighter colors. As far as the power department goes, the handset will feature a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. Moreover, it will be the first smartphone to “download HD movies from Netflix."

The device runs on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and also supports the webtop interface.

"You can stream content from your computer straight to your pocket (or purse) so your personal content is always within reach," said a press release about MotoCast, the phone’s syncing system. "And, because you don’t have to upload to a third-party site, you’re saving time while gaining peace of mind. That’s right — your files stay safe because they stay with you."

Oldest running car finds its owner

In the year 1884 this little car could be seen running on the streets. Its name was: De Dion Bouton Et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Runabout. On Friday, at the RM Auctions Hershey, the world’s oldest running car has finally found its owner. At the auction the car managed to sell for double the pre-sale estimated price. The car has a steam powered engine which works with a tank of water that needs to be refueled every 20 miles. The automobile can reach 38 miles per gallon and was used in the first motor car race that was held in 1887. At that time it reached 16 mph.

This car is considered the first family car considering the fact that it is able to accommodate four people while one drives. The car was sold for $4.2 million. A 10 percent fee was also added to the price, augmenting it with $420,000.

The car is also known as “Le Marquise” after the mother of its creator. At the auction another car was mentioned, the Grenville which also competes for the title of “oldest running car”. It was described as “basically a powered gun carriage.” However, a representative of the National Motor Museum explained that the description was incorrect and that, in fact, the car was a family car and not a gun carriage. It was used for personal transportation.

“Le Marquise” has now reached its fifth owner. So far it is unknown whether it will be added to a private collection or if it will be put on public display.

Google translate added 14 more languages

Google’s translation application for Android recently added more languages. The company is known to have offered text translations and speech-to-text translation for a long time. Still, in January, it took a new step and made an attempt at making speech-to-speech translations from English to Spanish.

With the new update that was released on Thursday, the application can now converse in 14 languages. Besides English and Spanish, it has added Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.

“Mobile technology and the web have made it easier for people around the world to access information and communicate with each other,” product manager Jeff Chin explained in a post on the company’s blog. “But there’s still a daunting obstacle: the language barrier. We’re trying to knock down that barrier so everyone can communicate and connect more easily.”

Chin pointed out that the application was still an early alpha. Due to the accents and background noise its accuracy is far from stellar.

“But since it depends on examples to learn, the quality will improve as people use it more,” Chin said. “We wanted to get this early version out to help start the conversation no matter where you are in the world.”

Google also added a feature that allows you to see what the application believes it heard. Therefore you can correct any mistakes.

In addition, the number of languages that are supported for the application’s text and text-to-speech translations keeps on growing. At the moment there are 63 languages supported for text, while speech-to-text has 17 languages and text-to-speech works in 24 languages.

NASA strikes deal with Virgin Galactic

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic has announced it has a deal with NASA worth approximately $4.5 million. Virgin Galactic officials announced today that they will provide their new private spaceliner SpaceShipTwo, in order to aid in research. Based on this deal, NASA will have to charter three flights on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo which is an air-launched spacecraft that may carry up to eight people on trips towards suborbital space. Two days ago officials from Virgin Galactic announced that Mike Moses, NASA's former deputy space shuttle program chief became the company’s vice president of operations.

"We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space,” said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, in a statement they sent to the press.

"An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive," Whitesides added. "At Virgin Galactic, we are fully dedicated to revolutionizing access to space, both for tourist astronauts and, through programs like this, for researchers."

Each of the ships that will be used by NASA may carry 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of scientific experiments. A flight test engineer will join every mission in order to monitor and conduct experiments.

"Bringing Mike in to lead the team represents a significant investment in our commitment to operational safety and success as we prepare to launch commercial operations," Whitesides said.

Until he was chosen as a director in 2005, Moses acted as a space shuttle flight controller for 10 years.

"I am extremely excited to be joining Virgin Galactic at this time, helping to forge the foundations that will enable routine commercial suborbital spaceflights," Moses added in a statement. "Virgin Galactic will expand the legacy of human spaceflight beyond traditional government programs into the world’s first privately funded commercial spaceline."