Chevy Launches MyLink Infotainment System in Response to Ford"s SYNC

The 2012 Chevrolet Volt and Equinox models will be the first to offer Chevy MyLink, an in-car infotainment equipment that integrates internet radio, hands-free, voice and touch-screen controls, all of which can be accessed via Bluetooth connectivity.

Three years ago, Ford introduced a similar system, called SYNC, whose aim was to reunite in a friendly and efficient way the various in-car controls that a driver can access while driving. Now Chevy is ready with its own technology, developed together with GM"s subsidiary OnStar.

MyLink provides drivers with stereo audio streaming, wireless control of smartphones, voice-activated commands and a full-color 7-inch touch screen display that centralizes media sources. For example, the driver can initiate phone calls, select radio stations or stored media only by using his voice.

Other features are Pandora internet radio, which allows users to personalize their radio experience, or Gracenote, which identifies the user"s music collection and presents information such as artist name, genres and album cover art on the MyLink screen.

Basically, MyLink does everything that SYNC does, plus the future integration of the Powermat wireless cell-phone charging system that eliminates cords. The MyLink infotainment system will expand to other Chevrolet models in the next 18 months.

Swiss Researchers Show how Easy it is to Hack Cars with Keyless Entry

For many of us, the thought of having our car stolen is too great a burden to bear. We assure ourselves by investing in alarm systems, secure parking and cars fitted with keyless entry and start. These cars, we think, would be harder for criminals to steal. How wrong we are.

At the upcoming Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, researchers from ETH Zurich?s system security group will present evidence on how they successfully hacked ten cars from eight manufacturers, using the sort of equipment you can buy at your local electronics? store.

The small team of computer science researchers ? Assistant Professor Srdjan Capkun, Aur?lien Fancillon and Boris Danev ? were able to gain access and drive away in all ten vehicles simply by exploiting the way keyless entry systems work.

The theory is very simple. Your car and your key fob are linked together. The fob emits a unique electronic signal, and your car listens out for this. When the fob is near your car, the doors unlock and the push button start is enabled. Once you move more than a few feet away, your car can no longer pick up the signal and the doors remained locked. However, this doesn?t mean the key fob isn?t still transmitting its signal.

In one scenario presented by the researchers, a mark locks his car and walks away. One thief tails the mark, carrying with him a concealed antenna, while another waits by the car. The first thief can afford to keep his distance; this ploy will work from eight metres (26 feet) away. Once in range of the key fob, the signal from the concealed antenna is relayed back to another antenna that?s held by the thief near the car. The car deduces that the key fob is near and the doors unlock. Hey presto, your car is gone.

This particular method of attack can cost as little as US$100 (?74) and works regardless of the cryptography and protocols (i.e. the electronic security) integrated into your key fob.

But don?t stress too much. Capkun and others, including Assistant Professor Tadayoshi Kohno at the University of Washington, are working on ways to make these sorts of attacks impossible ? or at least very difficult ? in the future. Aside from that, David Wagner at the University of California at Berkeley is certain that this method of theft is too involved for most car thieves.

?There are probably easier ways to steal cars.? he says.

Still, automakers, police and insurance companies should be aware of the risks and collectively work towards making such thefts and thing of the past.

Source: Technology Review

VIDEO: Two Chinese Guys Build a Remote Control BMW 1-Series

If this video is to be believed, An Jiaxuan is an inventor par excellence and an electronics genius to boot. We see him playing around with various (and presumably) self-developed Smartphone apps, including ones that switch the lights and air conditioning on and off and can take a picture from a tripod-mounted camera.

That?s not all, though. Jiaxuan?s next big project is equipping and controlling a full-sized car via remote control. What?s the timeframe for this endeavour? Just twenty days.

With little more than some software development knowhow, a borrowed BMW 1-series hatchback, a Nokia C7 Smartphone and a whole lot of electronic and mechanical components, Jiaxuan makes the impossible a reality. Sure, it could all be a hoax or a viral ad for the C7, but that?s not really the point; this video has some funny moments.

Like when Jiaxuan?s friend asks, ?How?s the control? Is it just as good??

And Jiaxuan replies, ?Of course man, it?s gotta be otherwise we?re not gonna be able to get the car to drift.?

It?s that sort of balls-to-the-wall car lover insanity that we at Carscoop adore. Or the final scene in the video, where Jiaxuan?s friend points at an overflying aircraft and says:

?Think you can control that plane up there??

Looking up at the sky, Jiaxuan answers, ?We could try, yah...I think it?ll work.?

Click through for the full video and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

VIDEO: Two Chinese Guys Build a Remote Control BMW 1-Series

If this video is to be believed, An Jiaxuan is an inventor par excellence and an electronics genius to boot. We see him playing around with various (and presumably) self-developed Smartphone apps, including ones that switch the lights and air conditioning on and off and can take a picture from a tripod-mounted camera.

That?s not all, though. Jiaxuan?s next big project is equipping and controlling a full-sized car via remote control. What?s the timeframe for this endeavour? Just twenty days.

With little more than some software development knowhow, a borrowed BMW 1-series hatchback, a Nokia C7 Smartphone and a whole lot of electronic and mechanical components, Jiaxuan makes the impossible a reality. Sure, it could all be a hoax or a viral ad for the C7, but that?s not really the point; this video has some funny moments.

Like when Jiaxuan?s friend asks, ?How?s the control? Is it just as good??

And Jiaxuan replies, ?Of course man, it?s gotta be otherwise we?re not gonna be able to get the car to drift.?

It?s that sort of balls-to-the-wall car lover insanity that we at Carscoop adore. Or the final scene in the video, where Jiaxuan?s friend points at an overflying aircraft and says:

?Think you can control that plane up there??

Looking up at the sky, Jiaxuan answers, ?We could try, yah...I think it?ll work.?

Click through for the full video and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

By Tristan Hankins

Via: Motofilm

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Swiss Researchers Show how Easy it is to Hack Cars with Keyless Entry

For many of us, the thought of having our car stolen is too great a burden to bear. We assure ourselves by investing in alarm systems, secure parking and cars fitted with keyless entry and start. These cars, we think, would be harder for criminals to steal. How wrong we are.

At the upcoming Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, researchers from ETH Zurich?s system security group will present evidence on how they successfully hacked ten cars from eight manufacturers, using the sort of equipment you can buy at your local electronics? store.

The small team of computer science researchers ? Assistant Professor Srdjan Capkun, Aur?lien Fancillon and Boris Danev ? were able to gain access and drive away in all ten vehicles simply by exploiting the way keyless entry systems work.

The theory is very simple. Your car and your key fob are linked together. The fob emits a unique electronic signal, and your car listens out for this. When the fob is near your car, the doors unlock and the push button start is enabled. Once you move more than a few feet away, your car can no longer pick up the signal and the doors remained locked. However, this doesn?t mean the key fob isn?t still transmitting its signal.

In one scenario presented by the researchers, a mark locks his car and walks away. One thief tails the mark, carrying with him a concealed antenna, while another waits by the car. The first thief can afford to keep his distance; this ploy will work from eight metres (26 feet) away. Once in range of the key fob, the signal from the concealed antenna is relayed back to another antenna that?s held by the thief near the car. The car deduces that the key fob is near and the doors unlock. Hey presto, your car is gone.

This particular method of attack can cost as little as US$100 (?74) and works regardless of the cryptography and protocols (i.e. the electronic security) integrated into your key fob.

But don?t stress too much. Capkun and others, including Assistant Professor Tadayoshi Kohno at the University of Washington, are working on ways to make these sorts of attacks impossible ? or at least very difficult ? in the future. Aside from that, David Wagner at the University of California at Berkeley is certain that this method of theft is too involved for most car thieves.

?There are probably easier ways to steal cars.? he says.

Still, automakers, police and insurance companies should be aware of the risks and collectively work towards making such thefts and thing of the past.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: Technology Review

Goodwood Celebrates Audi"s Centenary by Suspending Cars over Massive Sculpture

This year"s featured marque at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (3-5 July) is Audi as the Ingolstadt-based automaker is celebrating its 100th birthday. To commemorate the anniversary, Lord March, who hosts the festival at his back-yard 12,000-acre West Sussex estate, commissioned the creation of massive sculpture that features two cars from Audi"s history, the iconic 1937 Auto Union streamliner and the just launched R8 V10 sports car suspended in the air, at either end of the "swoosh" of tire tracks.

Designed by the Gerry Judah, Lord March"s creative collaborator, the sculpture weighs in at a total of 40 tonnes or the equivalent of 40 small family cars and it took two 100-tonne cranes to raise the monument and about four weeks for 12 men to fabricate, build and install it in front of the Goodwood house.

"I drew about 20 ideas and some had elaborate bridges with vaulted arches but somehow they didn"t have quite the right style," said Judah. I then had a flash of inspiration and designed this "swoosh" with a car at either end to represent Audi"s 100-year history.

"It"s made entirely of steel and although the design looks simple, it"s actually extremely complex, because the structure has to be rigid and completely balanced without the need for hundreds of supporting props."

Offbeat: Vauxhall Corsa Roller Skates

Following in the... footsteps of its sister company Opel and its Agila high-heel shoes that were shown at an event in Amsterdam last year, Vauxhall unit has presented its own take on the car-theme shoe thingy with the release of the specially commissioned, Corsa roller boots. If you"re wondering why, GM"s UK division is planning some sort of promotional event at London"s Shoreditch area that is said to "transport" visitors to a late 20th Century vision of the future, in a 70"s disco meets Knight Rider on roller skates kind of way, whatever that means.

Audi Presents Updated Navigation System Plus for A3, TT and R8

Just like any other electronic product, navigation systems are continuously upgrade with better software and hardware. Audi"s updated navigation system plus with MMI (Multi Media Interface) for the A3, TT and R8 models promises to offer improved route calculation speeds thanks to a latest-generation processor clocked at 600 MHz while another significant enhancement is are the 800 x 480 pixel, high-resolution graphics displayed on the 6.5-inch screen.

On the back of the display, which can be folded away at the push of a button, are two slots for SD and SDHC cards with capacities of up to 32 GB, enough to store about 14,000 songs or 700 hours of music.

Also new on Audi"s updated navigation system plus is the optical parking assistant which can be combined in the Audi R8 with the rearview camera. Aside from the acoustic warning signals, the distance to the front and to the rear is now displayed optically on the high-resolution display.

The new system is available for order now with prices ranging between ?2,270 and ?2,565, depending on the model.

Audi Presents High-Tech Auto Union Type C e-tron Toy Car Study with All-Electric Drive

At this year?s International Toy Fair in Nuremberg (February 3-8), Audi will showcase a selection of model cars and other products, including the Auto Union Type C e-tron, a concept study with a fully-electric drive based on the firm"s limited edition pedal car, which is sold through is quattro GmbH subsidiary.

The one-of-a-kind Auto Union Type C e-tron boasts a hand-finished body made of aluminum and carbon-look material. Measuring 2.32 meters (91.34 inches) in length and 97 centimeters (38.2 inches) in width, the 1:2 scale model is suitable for children as well as adults up to 1.8 meters (5?11?) tall.

The high-tech toy car is powered by an electric motor delivering 1.5HP (1.12kW) and up to 60 Nm (44.25 lb-ft) of torque, fed by a lithium-ion battery. Power is sent to the rear wheels and the study is also equipped with a reverse gear.

The top speed is a very respectable 30 km/h (18.64 mph) and, depending on the driving style, the electrified Type C can travel as far as 25 kilometers (15.53 miles). Charging takes about two hours at most, using any standard 230-volt household socket.

Audi did not say if it has any plans to introduce a production model of the study in the future.

By Csaba Daradics

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BMW X3 Buyers will be able to see their Vehicles Being Built through an Online Video Portal

BMW wants to turn an ordinary sale into an emotional experience that drives brand loyalty and retention by offerings U.S. buyers of the 2011MY X3 a unique access to the creation of their crossover through an online video portal that will show them footage of their customized X3 being produced at the company?s plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

?Customization is essential to the new BMW X3. With more than 10 million distinct configurations available, we wanted to get customers excited about the birth of their unique vehicle,? said Trudy Hardy, Manager, BMW Marketing Communications and Consumer Events, BMW of North America. ?This production footage of the BMW X3 vehicles from our Spartanburg plant enhances the overall customer experience that is part of the BMW brand.?

BMW makes use of a total of seven cameras which track the X3 through the various stages of final assembly. The company added that the videos do not have an expiration date and can also be downloaded and shared.

To watch or download the footage, customers will have to create a My BMW account on bmwusa.com website and entering their X3 order number or VIN. The BMW X3 Customer Video Portal program kicks off today, January 20th.

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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.

There?s also the burgeoning belief that ultracapacitors are set to replace lithium ion batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles, though this is far from certain. Like carbon fibre, ultracapacitors are very expensive and unlike today?s lithium ion batteries are quite bulky and heavy. Think of the first generation of phone batteries for a worthy comparison. Fortunately, costs are coming down. According to Mike Sund, VP of investor relations at Maxwell Technologies, ?[Ultracapacitor] costs have been reduced by two-thirds over the past three years.?

Even in this post-GFC world, the price of oil is also becoming an increasing concern for consumers and big business alike. Products, like Ethanol E10 and E85, are decent stopgap measures though aren?t solving the bigger problem. Now, companies are looking to manufacture synthetic gasoline from biomass such as woodchips and other waste materials. .

The technology still isn?t at the stage where it can compete with the major oil refineries, meeting only 1/8th of their capacity. Another hurdle is the raw biomass itself, which is too heavy to transport long distances. Still, new advances and investment in the industry are sure to produce some interesting results in the near future.

Lastly, the Scuderi Group has developed an experimental split-cycle engine that causes combustion to occur after the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, which it claims is 50% more fuel efficient than contemporary petrol engines. How about a 1L engine that offers the same performance as a 1.8, with better fuel economy than a contemporary 1L? By using some clever trickery that allows the spark to come later, along with a turbocharger and small air-tank, the Scuderi engine could reinvigorate faith in the internal combustion engine ? if it ever reaches production.

So, the future of the automobile is looking bright. Now all that?s left is the wait to see if these technologies will reach production status.

By Tristan Hankins

Source: WSJ , Video: Scuderi Group

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The McLaren MP4-12C of Chronograph Watches

McLaren and TAG Heuer are celebrating their 26-year long partnership as well as the 20th anniversary of the original McLaren F1 with the launch of the limited edition TAG Heuer MP4-12C Chronograph watch. Taking inspiration from the upcoming MP4-12C supercar, the watch boasts a matching color scheme and is built from exotic materials such as carbon fiber.

The lightweight composite material was used for the dial, which features sapphire inserts that reveal the mechanism. The latter is protected by a highly durable titanium case, also minimizing weight. Other highlights include the alcantara leather strap evoking the MP4-12C?s interior, and orange luminescent markers on the hands, complemented by orange stitching.

Pilots and track drivers will appreciate the Flyback function, which allows the chronograph to be reset to zero and instantly restarted by pressing only once on the push button. There?s also a tachymeter at hand, indicating what distance is travelled, while the chronograph can record time intervals between two locations.

?I love watches and have always wanted to design one myself. The TAG Heuer MP4-12C Chronograph was a particularly interesting project as we have combined our passion for precision technology, engineering and performance and included some of the most outstanding design features and materials that can be found in the MP4-12C?, said Frank Stephenson, Design Director McLaren Automotive.

The TAG Heuer MP4-12C Chronograph will be produced in a limited run of 1,000 units. Those interested can purchase the watch through McLaren later this year.

As for the car that inspired the creation of the chronograph, the MP4-12C is powered by a 600HP mid-mounted 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V8, developed in-house by McLaren. Capable of reaching 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than 3 seconds and a top speed of 320+ km/h (200+ mph), the MP4-12C will hit the European market in spring 2011, at a base price of ?200,000 in Germany and ?168,500 in the UK. U.S. pricing will be released at a later date.

By Csaba Daradics

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