Phoenix Roadster- The world’s first biodegradable car (Special Cars)

phoenix-concept-car

Filipino product designer Kenneth Cobonpue and Albrecht Birkner have devised a truly unique solution, introducing the world's first biodegradable car, the Phoenix, billed as the world’s first bamboo and rattan biodegradable car, dubbed the Phoenix.
The Phoenix was built in 10 days, comprised of bamboo, rattan, steel, and nylon. The length of the biodegradable car measures 153 inches long and is a small solution to a big problem; the waste created  by old cars that outlive their purpose. 

According to Mr. Cobonpue, “this project attempts to unveil the future of green vehicles using woven skins from organic fibers mates to composite materials and powered by green technology.”
On average, a person keeps a car for 5 years in industrialized countries, 10-20 elsewhere, and with that in the mind the Phoenix’s biodegradable skin is designed to meet those needs while not outliving its purpose. Interestingly, the skin of the vehicle can be replaced inexpensively if the owner wishes to keep their car longer, and the frame of the Phoenix can be easily customized to meet the needs of its customers. As of now there is no word on exactly what will power the Phoenix, but an all-electric setup would seemingly be small enough to power this little work of art.

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Mimo Magic Touch(Special Gadgets)

Mimo Magic Touch

MimoMonitors.com has announced a new addition to its secondary monitors lineup. Billed as the world's first USB-powered capacitive touchscreen display, the Mimo Magic Touch features a 10.1-inch screen running at 1024 x 600 resolution. It can be used either with its dock/base, or simply held in the hand as a sort of tethered tablet.

While the brand is not particularly well-known, it's managed to create some buzz around its offerings that provide computer users with some extra workspace. These include the 7-inch USB-powered iMo Pivot Touchscreen Monitor, and the Mimo Mini 710 USB Monitor.

The Magic Touch can be used as a touch-operated extension of a home PC. The company also states it's suitable to be utilized in business, industrial and healthcare applications. The device requires no additional power source given it's connected via USB, but alas, it operates on the 2.0 standard, which is roughly ten times slower than USB 3.0. It comes with a brightness of 200cd/m2, contrast ratio of 300:1 and 16ms responsiveness. There's also the Deluxe version, which additionally features a USB hub with a couple of ports and an AC adapter, as external USB devices require some extra power.

One major constraint of the product, however, is that the touch-operated interface works with Windows 7 only. Mac OS and Win XP/Vista/2000 are supported, but without touch capabilities, which makes the upcoming Mimo arrival an ordinary and rather pricey secondary display on these systems.
The Mimo Magic Touch retails at US$299.99, or US$329.99 for the USB hub-equipped Deluxe version. Both units are now available for pre-order, with a shipping date "before Christmas."

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First known night-flowering orchid discovered

Botanists have discovered the first known species of orchid that flowers at night, London's Kew Gardens announced on Tuesday. Bulbophyllum nocturnum, found on the island of New Britain near Papua New Guinea, has flowers that consistently open after dark and close in the morning, the only orchid with those characteristics known to science, the Royal Botanic Gardens said.

Bulbophyllum nocturnum

Bulbophyllum nocturnum, found on the island of New Britain near Papua New Guinea, has flowers that consistently open after dark and close in the morning, the only one with those characteristics amongst the 25,000 orchid species known to science, the Royal Botanic Gardens said.
The flowers last for one night only, a habit which initially foxed researchers who could not understand why the buds all appeared to wither once they had seemingly reached the size at which they should open.
Wanting to get to the bottom of this, Dutch researcher Ed de Vogel took the plant home with him one evening in order to find out exactly what happened to the buds.
"To his surprise, the bud that was then present opened up at ten in the evening, long after dark, revealing the flower of an undescribed species," a Kew Gardens spokesman said.

The orchid initally foxed researchers who could not understand why the buds all appeared to wither once they had seemingly reached the size at which they should open.
Observations on subsequent buds confirmed that they all opened around 10pm, and closed the next morning around 10am. The flowers lasted only one night, which explained why the buds were seemingly about to open one day and withered the next.
Kew orchid specialist, Andre Schuiteman, and Bulbophyllum expert Jaap Vermeulenof the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis, then teamed up with de Vogel to investigate and describe the new species.
“This is another reminder that surprising discoveries can still be made," Schuiteman said.
"But it is a race against time to find species like this that only occur in primeval tropical forests. As we all know, such forests are disappearing fast. It is therefore increasingly important to obtain funding for the fieldwork required to make such discoveries.”
Why Bulbophyllum nocturnum has adopted a night flowering habit is unknown and requires further investigation. However, it may be speculated that its pollinators are midges that forage at night, the Kew sookesman said.
Flowers that open only at night are seen in a relatively small number of plant species, such as the queen of the night cactus, the midnight horror tree and night blooming jasmine, but never been documented amongst orchids.
Many orchids are pollinated by moths, but have flowers which remain open during the day even though they are mainly pollinated after dark.
The new species belongs to a group of plants which are known for their bizarre flowers, which variously resemble leggy insects, small hairy spiders to intricate sea creatures and often have thin filaments which make them move erratically in the breeze - possibly to attract insects.
Kew Gardens will stage an orchid festival from February 4 to March 4 next year.

(c) 2011 AFP
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Nvidia Unveils Tegra 3, World’s First Quad-Core Mobile Processor

Nvidia has unveiled its long-anticipated Tegra 3 processor, the world’s first quad-core chip designed specifically for mobile devices.

The Tegra 3 is the world’s first quad-core ARM A9-based processor, and features a 12-core GeForce graphics unit. Nvidia says the Tegra 3 offers three times the performance of its previous dual-core Tegra generation, and boasts improved multitasking, better web browsing, and smoother app performance.
The new chip will make its first appearance in the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime — basically a higher-end version of Asus’ Eee Pad Transformer tablet, but with better cameras (8 megapixels for the back, 1.2 megapixels for the front), much more storage care of 32GB and 64GB versions, and, of course, the brawnier Tegra 3 chip.

Naturally, with such a boost in power, our thoughts turn to battery life. After all, what good is a beefier processor if you have to plug your tablet in for recharging every few hours?
Well, Nvidia and Asus promise the Tegra 3 won’t suck down power as quickly as you think. In fact, Asus says we’ll be able to watch up to 12 hours of HD video with the Prime running on the Tegra 3.
So how do they do it? It’s all about Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing, or vSMP for short. Essentially, tucked inside the Tegra 3 is a fifth “companion” processor that’s designed to kick in during times of low processing loads. The four main processors are only used when peak performance is required, such as when you’re playing games, multitasking or actively browsing through Internet pages. But when you’re simply reading a static web page, or when your tablet is otherwise sitting idle, the Tegra 3’s four primary processing cores shut off completely so your battery life won’t be sapped.

Tegra 3 Quad-Core Mobile Processor

As we just shared in our coverage of leaked details concerning the HTC Edge, processor companies like Nvidia, Intel and AMD have long leveraged multi-core designs to mitigate diminishing gains in pure clock speed. So, for example, while it may be imprudent or technically infeasible to clock a mobile phone processor at, say, 2GHz for a variety of reasons, a company can roll out a multi-core chip at a much lower clock speed and still deliver faster performance (if not also improved power management, as vSMP shows us).
Mobile operating systems and apps should be coded for multiple cores to take maximum advantage of workload distribution, but once they are, they really begin to sing.
Previously referred to as code-name “Kal-El,” Rumors had pegged Amazon’s Kindle Fire to be the first to run on the Tegra 3. But, no, now we know this isn’t true.
By the end of the year, there should be about 40 games specifically tailored to leverage the Tegra 3’s processing power, with 15 available in Tegra Zone (Nvidia’s Android app that highlights Tegra-optimized applications).
Asus says the Prime is targeted at the premium end of the tablet market, with the 32GB version starting at $500, and an optional keyboard dock costing another $150. Although we haven’t yet been given a specific release date, expect to see the Transformer Prime in stores some time around the New Year.

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Japanese Defense Ministry shows world's first spherical flying machine

The Japanese Defense Ministry's flying sphere (Photos: DigInfo.tv)

Star Wars fans (like me) will get a vague sense of deja vu when they see this flying sphere in action. Weighing in at about 12 ounces (350 g), the 16-inch (42 mm) diameter flying ball can launch and return vertically, maintain a stationary hover and zip along at up to 37 mph (60 km/h). Coupled with the ball camera we reported on earlier this month, it could become a valuable reconnaissance platform. Who knows? In time, more advanced autonomous versions might actually be used to train would-be Jedi knights. Once again, life imitates art.
Announced last summer by the Technical Research and Development Institute at Japan's Ministry of Defense (JMD) and recently unveiled at Digital Content Expo 2011, the world's first spherical air vehicle will likely be deployed in search and rescue operations deemed unsuitable for traditional aircraft. As for other possible uses, the sky just may be the limit.
"Because the exterior is round, this machine can land in all kinds of attitudes, and move along the ground. It can also keep in contact with a wall while flying. Because it's round, it can just roll along the ground, but to move it in the desired direction, we've brought the control surfaces, which are at the rear in an ordinary airplane, to the front," said a JMD spokesperson.
For something that looks so ungainly, the rig exhibits surprising stability. Thanks to three onboard gyro sensors, the device effectively maintains its orientation and altitude, even after collisions. Numerous control surfaces also assist with attitude control. The current prototype, which cost about US$1,400 in parts, can maintain a hover for a respectable eight minutes. Now, if only someone would perfect that light saber we've all been waiting for.

DigInfo.tv

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OCZ releases world's first terabyte 2.5-inch SSD

 Having already released the world's first 3.5-inch 1 TB SSD in 2009, OCZ has now removed the capacity hurdle for laptops with the release of the world's first 2.5-inch SSD that is available in capacities up to 1 TB.
OCZ's new Octane SATA 3.0 and SATA 2.0 SSD series is based on the Indilinx Everest controller and feature a rapid boot feature that is claimed to reduce boot times by 50 percent over previous OCZ SSDs. The SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) Octane model offering 560 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write and up to 45,000 random read IOPS (Input/Output Per Second) using 4K blocks, while the Octane-S2 SATA 2.0 (3 Gbps) model offers 275 MB/s read and 265 MB/s write and up to 30,000 IOPS (Input/Output Per Second).
Compare this to the Intel 510 series SATA 3.0, 2.5-inch SSD that boasts read, write speeds of 500 MB/s and 315 MB/s respectively, random read IOPS of up to 20,000 and only comes in 120 GB and 250 GB capacities.

OCZ says technology from its Indilinx subsidiary also provides the new SATA 3.0 and SATA 2.0 drives with reduced latency, enabling read and write access times of 0.06 ms and 0.09 ms respectively. Meanwhile, Indilinx's proprietary NDurance technology is also onboard, which is claimed to increase the program/erase cycles of NAND flash memory by up to two times and minimize performance degradation of the drive even after the storage capacity has been highly utilized.
"Until now SSDs have been tailored for specific applications, forcing users into a product which maximizes performance for a narrow band of applications, but is significantly lacking in others," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "The Octane Series solves this problem by providing the highest level of performance across varied workloads including mixed file sizes and mixed compressible and uncompressible data, all while nearly doubling NAND flash endurance."
OCZ will offer its new SSDs from November 1st 2011 in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB capacities. The company hasn't released pricing details, but Computer World is reporting the new drives will be priced from US$1.10 to $1.30 per gigabyte. Looks like I'll be waiting for a little longer yet to make the switch.

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World's First Diamond-Dispensing ATM Launches in India

Oct. 22, 2011: An ATM that dispenses gold medallions, coins, diamonds, jewellery and more was opened for business by Bollywood star Raima Sen and Sanjeev Agarwal, CEO of manufacturer Gitanjali Export Corp.
MUMBAI –  Gold ATM vending machines have been popping up all over the world this year, so instead of following the trend, Mumbai became the first city in the world to launch a diamond-dispensing machine.
The Gitanjali Group, which claims to be the world's biggest integrated manufacturer of branded jewelry, opened the machine in a luxury shopping mall in the city Sunday and said that it already served a "substantial number of customers."
It hopes to roll out 75 more of the ATMs -- which also sell gold and silver coins -- in shopping malls, airports and at Hindu temples.
With prices ranging from 1,000 rupees ($20.17) to 30,000 rupees, customers can pay by cash or credit card for products ranging from gold coins etched with an image of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, to diamond-studded pendants in the shape of a swastika, which in India is an ancient religious symbol of unity.
Jammy Gagrat, a 47-year-old businessman, said, "This machine is going to be a problem for the gents. Ladies are going to keep on buying more and more every time they come here."

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Branson opens world's first 'spaceport' in US

    The new Spaceport America hangar backdrops the spacecraft White Knight Two, Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)

British billionaire Richard Branson opened the world's first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic.

The eccentric businessman, with usual flair, sported a black jacket and waves of hair flying as he inaugurated the building by breaking a champagne bottle against a hanger building, while rappelling down the side of it.

British billionaire Sir Richard Branson stands along side the spacecraft White Knight Two after a test flight outside the new Spaceport America hangar Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, NM. Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)

"Spaceport America," as the site is called, will serve "as the operating hub for Virgin Galactic and is expected to house up to two WhiteKnightTwos and five SpaceShipTwos, in addition to all of Virgin’s astronaut preparation facilities and mission control," said the company in a statement to the press.

About 150 people already booked for travel on the first flights to orbit attended the event, said the company.

Guests outside the new Spaceport America hangar Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Also attending were head of Virgin Galactic George Whitesides, commercial director Stephen Attenborough, and famed US astronaut -- and second human being to step on the moon -- Buzz Aldrin.
Branson last month said he hoped to launch a vessel into space within the next 12 months, which he said would kick off an era of commercial space travel.

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World's First Google Store Opens in London

When Google opened its first physical shop you might have expected a song and dance. Instead the arrival of Google’s “Chrome Zone” in central London has happened so quietly you almost wouldn’t notice it had happened.
The London Evening Standard reports: “The world’s first “Google store” opened not in California but in the less glamorous setting of PC World in Tottenham Court Road at 9 a.m. local-time.”
The 285 sq. ft. pop-up “shop within a shop”, which only sells Google’s Chromebook laptop and a few accessories such as headphones, will run for three months up to Christmas.
The report continues: “A second pop-up store will open at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex on Oct. 7 and more pilot shops are planned around the world in the coming months. A spokeswoman said: ‘We’ve put a lot of effort into making it feel welcoming, homely and, dare I say it, Googley.’”
The news has been picked up, perhaps not surprisingly given the publication’s proximity to Google’s worldwide headquarters, by the San Francisco Chronicle, which talks about Google’s retail plans being just an experiment, for now. But this is exactly how Microsoft got into the retail game a few years ago: by creating “Microsoft stores” within big outlets like Circuit City, Best Buy, and–yes–PC World in 2008. It learned what it needed to know.
A few months later, Microsoft opened its prototype Retail Experience Center to journalists. In February 2009, Microsoft announced it would open its own line of stores. Now, it’s approaching a dozen. It plans to build 75 of them by 2014.

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Travel News/Maldives Plans World’s First Floating Golf Course

If you build it – they will come. At least that’s what developers must be thinking as they launch plans for the World’s First Floating Golf Course in the Maldives. 

The extraordinary $500 million design boasts 27 holes, is set upon three linked islands and features around 200 villas, 45 private islands and a conservation center. An underwater tunnel leads golfers to different islands between shots, as well as to the clubhouse where a glass elevator goes to a main bar which doubles as an aquarium.
The course will be made up of a series of floating platforms containing two or three holes each, which will be linked together and to a series of surrounding hotels by underwater tunnels. Waterstudio.NL designed the project, which is being engineered by floating-architecture expert Dutch Docklands. Troon Golf is on hand to offer their expertise in the design of the course itself.
Unlike other floating islands and resorts guzzling energy off the coast of Dubai, course developers call their project a scarless development which will have a zero carbon footprint on the Maldives ecosystem. The project also has an environmentally aware side – it will be powered by solar energy with sustainable desalination and water cooling techniques, and will work in co-operation with the Maldives’ rising sea levels.

The Maldives, whose highest point is only 7.5 feet above sea level, has committed to becoming the world’s first carbon neutral country by 2020. The nation already includes one artificial island, Hulhumale, which was completed in 2004, and covers an area of 445 acres.  The President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed is a world famous advocate for active measures against climate change and even held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the risk of rising sea levels to his nation.
Nasheed has also announced that he’s looking to purchase new land in other countries to resettle Maldivian refugees potentially affected by climate change. To fund those efforts, the government is looking to further boost revenues from the nation’s largest economical contributor: tourism.
The $500 million floating golf course project anticipates doing just that: bringing a wealth of ecological tourism and investment to the Maldives. Development on the course is expected to begin later this year, and it should be ready for play by the end of 2013 ahead of the full launch in 2015.

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AMD Ships World's First 16-Core Server CPUs, New Fusion Chips

Yesterday what appeared on the surface to be good news for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) landed.  The company announced [press release] that it was shipping the world's first 16-core server CPUs to retailers and OEMs, with product expected to hit end users sometime in October.

I. Can You Handle 16 Cores of Power?

The new chips use a new 32 nm core design dubbed Bulldozer, which AMD hopes will do the trick in remedying slumping server-side revenue.  While Interlagos technically is a 16-core CPU, the term is a bit confusing as it lacks certain elements you would expect in a full 16-core implementation.

The chip is built on Bulldozer modules, which contain a pair of processing cores.  However, the module only has a single floating point processing unit (FPU) and fetch/decode/execute unit to share between the two processing cores.  

This is a bit different from Intel Corp. (INTC), who incorporates a full FPU and fetch/decode/execute unit with every core.  The net result is that performance may not be quite as high as you would expect out of a 16-core chip.

Each chip comes with a quad-channel memory controller.

The new cores will be branded the FX-6200 series.  AMD still hasn't updated their product page to include information on this new lineup, but we expect them to do so shortly.  The new cores are pin-compatible with AMD's Socket G34 (Magny-Cours/Opteron 6100) motherboards.

Information on pricing and clock speeds is still not generally available, nor are comprehensive third-party benchmarks.  However, one can expect a slightly lower clock speed due to the high core count, which would mean strong performance in highly multithreaded apps, but less spectacular performance in primarily serial apps.  Given the target, though -- business users -- this should be an acceptable compromise as most heavy corporate server loading is multi-threaded these days.  

AMD says that Interlagos will be compatible with dual- and quad-socket server motherboards, indicating that you may be able to pack up to 64 cores onto a single board.  If that's not enough, AMD's 2012 Terramar platform will include up to 20 cores per die.

Interlagos is expected to see strong pickup among supercomputer makers due to the high core-density per motherboard.  Cray, Inc. (CRAY), a top supercomputer maker, was the first company to receive a shipment of the new chips.

II. Zambezi, Wither Art Thou?

While Interlagos is nearing the market, AMD has grown decidedly quiet about Zambezi, the four, six, and eight core desktop processors that work supposed to launch in Q3 2011.  One problem may be clock speeds. 

Given the core count AMD may be able to get away with a lower clocked Interlagos offering, but it will face substantial criticism on the desktop end, if it fails to deliver its promised relatively high clock speeds, which were supposed to be 3.6 GHz (normal), 4.2 GHz (turbo) for the FX-8150 octacore chip.

At this point it’s all rumors, but the critical thing is that Zambezi is nowhere to be found even as Intel's Ivy Bridge platform -- its first to feature its new power-saving 3D transistor design -- races towards a 2012 launch.

III. New Fusion Chips Land

While AMD may be struggling on the high end of the PC market, it's certainly taken the low end by storm with its Fusion CPU+GPU chips.  Alongside the announcement of Interlagos availability, AMD quietly announced the availability of new Fusion Llano series advanced processing unit (APU) designs.

The first chip, the A4-3300 is priced at a sweet $70, includes dual 32 nm Stars (Phenom II architecture) cores clocked at 2.5 GHz and with 2 MB of L2 cache and a 160 unified shader GPU.  The chip draws 65 watts.

The second chip, the A4-3400 comes with an identical GPU, but bumps the clock speed to 2.7 GHz, and the price to $75.  Both chips fully support DDR3 1600 memory.

Given the price, you may see these chips ending up in designs priced as low as $200-$300.  At that price they should experience market traction.  Thus AMD continues to dominate the low to mid-market, while failing to deliver competitive high-end CPU product, on the PC side at least.

While AMD has stated that it intended Llano primarily as a budget desktop chip, the chips are currently available from Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) exclusively in OEM laptop builds.  Discrete offerings for do-it-yourself desktop builds should be available shortly.

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SPECIAL GADGETS/Razer Blade – The World’s First True Gaming Laptop

Gamers will get to make up their own minds at Penny Arcade Expo this weekend, where PC gaming manufacturer Razer is showing off its first gaming laptop. The Razer Blade is a high-powered, portable Windows 7-based laptop priced at $2,800 and targeted for the market later this year.

Borrowing a page from Apple’s minimalistic MacBook Pro laptops, Razer’s managed to make an all matte 17.3-inch laptop with a 1080p resolution that combines gorgeous design, portability and uber power in a chassis less than one inch thick and weighs under seven pounds. Based on an Intel Core i7-2640M CPUs (clocked at 2.8 GHz), the notebook measures 17.3 inches and has an LCD with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels (Full HD). 8 GB of RAM are present, as is an NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M discrete graphics card, whose own dedicated memory is 2 GB. It also sports a 320-gigabyte hard drive, wireless connectivity and built-in webcam. The sleek computer’s top is emblazoned with the company’s snake logo.

And then there’s the rest of the Razer Blade’s unique design, like its Switchblade User Interface. According to Razer, it’s composed of 10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys for easier access of in-game commands, and an LCD capable of two modes: one mode that displays in-game information when a mouse is in use; and another mode that functions as an ultra-sensitive, multi-touch panel designed for gaming on the go. But it can also be used to display whatever else you’d like. Want to watch a hint video on YouTube while you’re still playing the game? Chat with friends on Twitter? You can do it on the small screen, without having to multitask on the monitor.

We designed a product for ourselves — for gamers, by gamers. Compared with current gaming laptops, the Razer Blade is thinner and lighter: The key for us was to have something that was so portable, that you could pull it out of your bag with a single hand and be something you could bring along with you. And not only is this thinner than the Alienware (laptops), but by the time we were done (designing) it, it is thinner than a MacBook Pro and more powerful. It’s the most powerful and thinnest 17-inch laptop today, said Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan at a preview event.

In short, the Razer Blade is a powerful, lightweight, portable gaming machine with a unique keyboard and layout. Is it enough to shake up the PC gaming landscape?

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World's first luxury city car by Aston Martin featuring Toyota

Aston Martin partners with Japanese automaker for the Cygnet, a city car that boasts the Toyota iQ's economy with a luxury trim.

Luxury carmaker Aston Martin has forged an innovative alliance with Toyota to develop what could be the world's first luxury city car. Aston Martin on Monday released a photo of the Cygnet, which is a Toyota iQ with restyled front sheetmetal.

Although officially billed a concept, reports in Britain say that Aston Martin will put the Cygnet on sale next year. At first, it will be offered to current Aston owners or those who have a car on order. But it will be offered to the public later.

The price? The equivalent of $33,000, or £20,000. That's a bit of a step up from the iQ's base price, which checks in at the equivalent of $17,800. Aston says a key part of the Cygnet is a new grille design for the automaker. There also are slight changes to the shape of the headlamps, and the addition ofAston's signature vents on the hood and front quarter panels.

Aston won't make mechanical changes to the iQ. Toyota will build the cars and ship them to Aston's assembly plant in Gaydon. There, Aston will trim out the car's interior with leather.

Reports say that Aston will build up to 2,000 copies of the Cygnet a year.

One important note: The addition of the Cygnet to Aston's vehicle fleet will improve the automaker's emissions ratings.

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Special Gadgets/First 3D Full HD Screen - Beo Vision 4-85 by Bang & Olufsen

Bang & Olufsen has dipped a well-designed toe into the world of 3D, with the company’s latest TV offering well-heeled buyers the third dimension. Danish luxury audio-visual equipment manufacturer has launched its first 3D TV display. The BeoVision 4-85 is a ginormous screen measuring 85 inches in size, reserved only for footballers and investment bankers with the wealth and floor space to spare.

A typical B&O aluminum frame houses a 85-inch plasma screen that’s designed to give you a superior home cinema experience with the help of a sophisticated automatic colour management, anti-reflection coating, dedicated centre loudspeaker BeoLab 10 utilising Acoustic Lens Technology and a unique motorized stand that elevates, turns and tilts the screen at a touch of a button to ensure the best possible viewing position.

The 85-inch plasma HDTV sports a full HD native screen resolution of 1920 x 1080. The 3D technology at play here is the alternate frame sequencing (ASF) variant, which means that viewers will have to wear active-shutter 3D glasses to enjoy tri-dimensional content on the television. B&O has also implemented an innovation dubbed Automatic Colour Managementon the BeoVision 4-85, which is intended to counter the effects of ageing. The Automatic Color Management system checks the screen after every 100hrs of use with a built-in camera, tweaking settings as appropriate.

The Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 4-85 is available either with a motorised stand, or as a screen-only wall-mounted solution. While the pricing has not yet been announced, some European sources are quoting a price of €70,000 (around $102,000) for the TV plus motorised stand, or €51,000 (around $74,500) for the wall-mounted version.

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The World’s First Hubless Skate

Skatecycle – The World’s First Hubless Skate

Now you can drive yourself at the park, down a hill and your neighbor’s street without spending anything or scratching your shoes with this uniquely designed hubless skate, the first of its kind self-propelled skatecycle.

Ideal for skateboard and rollerblade fanatic who wants to try another ways to get around the streets, and parks all without ever taking their feet off the ground and plate because once you step your feet into its slip resistant footboards, you’ll be amazed on how you got yourself at your target area.

Skatecycle is very handy, you can easily fold and store anywhere you want plus moving it and bringing it everywhere you go is easy just don’t forget to master it first before you start showing your friends how extremely fun it is to propel yourself along indefinitely.

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