Welcome NASCAR race fans to my review of the finishers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. As you'll recall, #83 Brian Vickers finished 12th, #99 Carl Edwards finished 11th and #9 Kasey Kahne finished 10th. Finishing in 9th, is #39 Ryan ...
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The car's come a long way since Ford started mass production 100 years ago, but science fiction takes transportation even further. Here are six scenarios for the future of driving, and the real-life developments that could make them happen.

The Fiction: The Motorway

In Martha's second trip on the TARDIS in the new Doctor Who, the Doctor takes her to New New York. Much like its present-day namesake, this city is trapped by traffic.

In fact, the only living residents of the city have been stuck in a quagmire called "the Motorway" for decades, all trying to get to a better place. Some even resort to kidnapping so that they can drive in the HOV lanes, which they've heard can cut years off their travel time. Once Martha is kidnapped she finds out they'll make it the ten miles to their destination in a short six years.

The Reality: Traffic and congestion.

It's been said that Americans spend an average of over 100 hours a year commuting, so it's no wonder that scientists are constantly trying to find ways to improve the driving experience. Writers are always imagining new ways for their heroes to get from point A to point B. But how many of those writer's dreams are coming true? Read on.

The fiction: Computer driven cars

Seen in: I, Robot
Pros: You can read, nap, or solve crimes while you're traveling. Accident cleanup is a snap.
Cons: Should the computer system decide to become murderous, you're in a lot of trouble.

The Reality: The Darpa Challenge

(image courtesy of the Team VictorTango website)

DARPA presents prizes to teams creating cars that drive on their own using "various sensors and positioning systems." Their 2007 challenge asked the vehicles to navigate an urban environment and "executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles." Three and a half million dollars in prizes were awarded and six teams finished the course.

The Fiction: Mag-Lev Cars

Seen In: Minority Report
Pros: You can pave everything and make it a road, giving D.C. residents as many lanes than they could ever want. Pull right up to your 200th floor apartment.
Cons: Imagine an accident at those speeds, on the side of a skyscraper. Makes car chase a lot more dangerous.

The Reality: Mag-Lev trains.

While we haven't started putting mag-lev systems in cars yet, we have put them into trains. Japan has the most famous trains using the technology, where magnets are used to both levitate and propel the train. Using magnetic levitation for travel has a lot of advantages, including speed. Not to mention the potential benefits to the environment, and the noise reduction. As we pointed out earlier, the future of rail transport in the U.S. might very well lie with mag-lev technology.

The Fiction: Flying Cars

Seen In: The Fifth Element, many many others
Pros: No need for roads anymore, the sky is open to everybody.
Cons: The sky is open to everybody. The view becomes nothing but cars, and traffic is a nightmare still.

The Reality: Hovercraft

Vehicles that float on a cushion of air are actually more popular and widely used than most people think. They're good for going over any terrain, and they're used by militaries around the world. It also is the technology on this list that you are most likely to make in your own garage, if all the YouTube videos are any indication. It is unlikely that the flying cars in science fiction are powered by jets of air, but so far it's the closest thing we've got.

The Fiction: Vehicle A.I. that talks to you

Seen in: Knight Rider
Pros: Can let you know when it needs maintenance, keep you entertained on long drives, drive for you if you need to beat up some bad guys.
Cons: Can get a little snippy. Might lock you out.

The Reality: turn by turn GPS, cars that talk to each other

While we're not quite to the point where our vehicles are having conversations, we do have plenty of robotic female voices telling us to "turn left" and after we make a wrong turn, they scold us with a "recalculating." But GPS systems have become commonplace. What's the next frontier of the technology? Cars that converse with each other.

In this video from cNet, we see that systems are being designed where two vehicles will send signals back and forth in order to keep track of their distance from each other, their speeds, and other relevant information. The same system can also get information from stop lights to relay to the driver, letting you know if you really should try to gun through that yellow light, or maybe you should try to stop.

Does it seem like these innovations are too far outside our grasp? Well there are two famous fictional cars that science has managed to replicate, at least to some degree:

The Fiction: The Batmobile

The Reality: Voice recognition software, OnStar, and "the Tumbler."

The Batmobile's features change from model to model, in fact there is even a website devoted solely to tracking the changes in the vehicle. There have been numerous defensive innovations, as well as offensive weaponry installed over the years. While most cars aren't driving around with side-mounted spherical bombs, the Batmobile has long had voice recognition software. Now the Ford Sync system comes standard in many of their models, one of the many ways our cars are starting to obey our vocal commands.

In a set of ads using the Batman/Batman Returns style Batmobile, audiences discovered one feature that they could have installed in their own cars: OnStar. Of course, Batman has had hands free calling to his support network (namely Alfred) for years.

The most important thing to note is that when Christopher Nolan brought his own spin to the Batmobile in Batman Begins, the "Tumbler" was actually a functional vehicle. According to The History of the Batmobile:

"Their primary focus was to make this Batmobile as real as possible: at 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the car weighed in at 2.5 tons but was still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet."

One of the best car shows in the world, Top Gear, was able to actually have the car in the studio for a segment where they talk about its actual working features. There's a rumor that The Stig even took it on a lap around the track:

The Fiction: James Bond's Scuba Car from "The Spy Who Loved Me."

The Reality: The sQuba Submarine Car

James Bond was able to tool around underwater in a modified Lotus Espirit without getting his impeccable suit damp. The sQuba Submarine Car is not quite so watertight, but it still is a car that handily swims around underwater, just like the vehicle in the film. As Jalopnik reports:

"Though you're not going to stay dry if you want to go diving, because theres no airtight canopy to enclose you. To breathe, you'll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car's integrated compressed-air tank. But who cares?! This is a car that goes underwater!"

You can read a complete write up of the car here.

See the car in action and learn about all its other features:

Since the sQuba is just a concept car at the moment, if you want a car that will travel land and water, you might have to settle for an amphibious car. In one of their most infamous segments, the gentlemen at Top Gear were challenged to make their own amphibious cars, and then cross the English Channel. You might be surprised at the results:

What's next in the future of transportation? The best place to find out is probably the science-fiction section of Netflix.

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It's official, Nic Cage is no longer a homeowner in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reports on the foreclosure auction which saw Cage losing both his French Quarter and Garden District homes. Cage's lender, Regions Bank, bought both homes back for a total of $4.5 million, which is two-thirds of the value that appraisers hired by the bank had determined they were worth. There were no other bids for the property. Cage did not attend the auction. The city will collect $151,729 in unpaid property taxes. Cage owed approximately $5.5 million on the homes. The bank is free to go after Hancock Park Real Estate Company, Cage's real estate holding company, for the other $1 million and can also try to sell the homes at market value to raise the money.

Cage bought his six-bedroom Garden District home in 2005 for $3.45 million and listed it for sale for $3.7 million. Cage's New Orleans other home, the haunted LaLaurie mansion was bought by Cage in 2006 for $3.45 million. He listed it for $3.9 million. He has blamed his former business manager, Sam Levin, for his recent financial woes including a $6 million IRS bill. He still has homes in Las Vegas, England, Rhode Island and the Bahamas either on the market or about to be sold.

Filed under: Estates, Celebrity Shopping

Nicolas Cage's New Orleans Homes Go Back To The Bank originally appeared on Luxist on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sources: Petty shakeup claims team president http://bit.ly/8mWjp4 | #NASCAR0 comments Source: msn.foxsports.com Sources: Petty shakeup claims team president.
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We recently got a chance to check out NVIDIA's 3D Blu-ray ecosystem, and while we're sure we'll be all 3D Blu-ray'd out by the time CES is over, it was our first chance to see the new tech in action, and it seems pretty raring to go. Specifically we got to check out a movie film (we can't say which for legal reasons) on a fancy new upcoming Acer LCD (the 24-inch G245, pictured above) that does 120Hz and can be synced with NVIDIA's 3D shutter-based glasses. The 3D looked just fine, on par with other movies we've seen from NVIDIA in the past, and close to what we've seen in theaters, with the exception being that this is being delivered on a backwards-compatible, consumer-friendly Blu-ray disc. 3D Blu-ray is encoded in a new MVC-AVC format, which passes through a regular 1080p video for incompatible hardware, but provides a 3D image for the software and decode hardware capable of sussing it out. Right now NVIDIA's 3D Blu-ray capable on existing GeForce GT 220 and GT 240 GPUs, along with its upcoming Fermi cards due next year. Software is even more plentiful, with Arcsoft, Core, Cyberlink and Sonic all promising to by ready for 3D Blu-ray titles when they start shipping next year. Once the 3D Blu-ray spec is formally announced we're sure the floodgate will open even wider, but for now it seems NVIDIA has a nice jump on the tech, and we're sure they wouldn't mind pocketing a few of your gaming dollars in the meantime.

NVIDIA shows its 3D Blu-ray readiness in run-up to CES, Acer demos 120Hz LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Hydrogen

Reducing the weight and cost of hydrogen storage tanks remains one of the technological issues that engineers must overcome to make fuel cell vehicles more practical. Aside from the large metal cylinders currently used in most applications, one of the primary options has been various types of solid state storage that absorbs and then releases the hydrogen.

A possible breakthrough may have emerged out of the Russian space program. Hydrogen and fuel cells have been used in the space program since the 1960s. This new approach, being adapted by Israeli researchers, uses tiny glass tubes to store the hydrogen. The tubes, known as capillaries, are bundled together in an array and reports say they are both strong and efficient.

Testing in Germany is claimed to have validated safety protocols, however, it remains to be seen if the capillary arrays can actually be produced cost effectively. No indication is given of the actual size of the tubes or storage density.

Swiss startup C.En is planning to license the technology to companies that will produce energy storage systems beginning in 2010. They claim the idea can be scaled from smaller consumer electronics-sized devices up to tanks that could be used in automobile.

[Source: Businessweek]

Hydrogen storage breakthrough could come from Russian space program originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's great that Busch will help a series which needs all the help it can get but it is also kind of a bummer that the move will lock him into NASCAR for the � Kyle Busch says Danica Patrick will do fine in NASCARLos Angeles Times (blog) ...
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After Mass Effect 2 lead gameplay designer Christina Norman walked us through the Engineer class and it's sanguinary droid last week, we were wondering how BioWare could possibly appeal to our inner tactician any more. It appears that the developer sought to do just that with this week's introduction to the Sentinel.

Skilled in both biotic skills (thats space magic, folks) and tech abilities, Norman says the Sentinel is "the only class that can blast through any enemy's defenses ... with or without your squad backing you up." With only a handful of weeks left before the game's January 26 release date, it won't be long before we get to find out exactly how adept the Sentinel is for ourselves.

Mass Effect 2 dev profiles Sentinel class, the 'Jack of All Trades' originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As Mariah Carey's song goes: "all I want for Christmas is a loyal house-cleaning robot." Okay, not quite, but we did become hopeful when we saw this photo taken inside Dyson's first London pop-up shop. Sadly, it turns out that the sole purpose of this prototype-testing robot arm is to constantly twist a DC24 vacuum cleaner -- presumably to show off just how great a dance partner your rug cleaner can be. If you've just had your wildest dreams shattered (trust us, we're right there with ya), feel free to pass on a petition to the Dyson engineers staffing that temporary shop -- you'll get to play with nine of their vacs and the Air Multiplier bladeless fan while you're there. You have until January 25th. Chop-chop!

[Image courtesy of Mark Hattersley]

Industrial robot arm pretends to do chores in Dyson's London pop-up shop originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Sci-fi, Screenshots, Star Wars Galaxies, One Shots

Quite possibly one of the stranger screenshots we've gotten from Star Wars Galaxies is today's image sent in to us by Obraik. While at first glance you may think "oh, a lovely town image" it occurs to you, something isn't quite right -- you just can't help but notice the enormous mechanical monstrosity stomping its way across the scene. We'll turn it over to Obraik to explain: [This] screenshot is of a recent event that was held over a weekend or two in Star Wars Galaxies. The story was that a rogue AT-AT were attempting an escape and they'd show up in random locations around the Galaxy. The screenshot shows one making an appearance outside the Theed palace on Naboo on the Chilastra galaxy. We wonder -- did the AT-AT manage to escape for good?

If you've found something strange in your favorite land, we'd love to see screenshots of it. Just email those in to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game it's from, and a quick note about what we're seeing! We'll post it here and give you the credit for sending it in.

One Shots: One of these things is not like the others originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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