Published on July 6, 2008
Reuters is reporting that Toyota is going to add solar panels, produced by Kyocera Corp, to the roof of their Prius Hybrid cars. The panels will be on the top of the line models, and will work toward powering the air conditioner. While it’s not powering the whole car, I do imagine that it could contribute quite a bit of power to the system as a whole. It’s the first time, that I know of, that solar panels have been commercially integrated into a production vehicle by the manufacturer. I’d love to see them add the ability to switch the power over to charging outlets for cell phones and other devices when the A/C isn’t in use, or to have it contribute to the main power cells.
Read the whole story here at nytimes.com
I’ve been on the look out for some reasonably priced solar panels that I could use to charge a device. I’d like to try taking a device like my phone or laptop completely off the grid, only charging it with solar power. If you know of any good solar units for something like that, I’d appreciate any help there.
Via: Don (aka: Beebowallace) through Google Reader Shared Items
Published on April 8, 2008
Simkom.com has a page full of amazing car/transportation sketches and hand renderings. These completely blow me away, and should be a great reference resource for anyone sketching cars.
http://www.simkom.com/sketchsite/
Via: Brigid O’Kane
Published on April 8, 2008
Right now, if you go to mymilemarker.com to update your fuel mileage info, you’ll be greeted by a ad-filled spam page (Thanks to NightOwl for the heads up.) I was crushed, cause I’ve switched my mileage tracking over to M3 completely. Thankfully, I did some digging and found this post on the M3 Twitter account, mymm.
Gah, domain issues!! Use http://m3.sidebarcreative.com/ until they’re resolved, which should be soon.
Published on November 19, 2007
I recently posted about MyMileMarker.com, and how it filled a big void in my mobile life ever since I quit using the PalmOS with jMileage. Today I was filling up, logged onto MyMileMarker’s mobile site with my iPhone, and found a new Mobile Safari specific interface. The older mobile interface worked fine, but I had been hoping that they’d make this update. I’ll get some screenshots of this new interface and post them as soon as I can.
They have also updated the normal mobile version of the site, expanding compatibility to more phones. I love the site so far. I have a few datapoints in it now, so I can get line graphs of my mileage and miles driven, as well as forecasts of miles driven and cost to drive. If you have a car, you should give MyMileMarker.com a try! You don’t really need a data enabled mobile device either. It’s easy enough to jot down your stats at the pump on your receipt, stick it in your wallet/purse, and enter the information in at home.
Read the official post about the updates.
Published on October 20, 2007
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Autoblog has a post about Nissan’s in-development Around View Monitor technology. The system uses 4 cameras positioned around the car. The feed from each camera is corrected and composited by a computer to produce a bird’s eye view of the space around the car.
I can’t help it, but I instantly think of the first generation Grand Theft Auto game, viewing your vehicle from top-down. I wonder if the system will be active while driving at speed… and if it is, I imagine it could lead to some EXTREMELY aggressive lane changes on the interstate.
I’m completely in love with the concept of creating a new view point by compositing several other viewpoints. Using the controlled distortion of specifically designed lenses, you could create some very dramatic views from a system of cameras. I think Nissan is just touching the surface of what’s possible with current technology, and I expect that we will see some amazing things in the near future, whether they are in the automotive industry or not.
Continue reading ‘Nissan’s Around View Monitor’
Reuters is reporting that Toyota is going to add solar panels, produced by Kyocera Corp, to the roof of their Prius Hybrid cars. The panels will be on the top of the line models, and will work toward powering the air conditioner. While it’s not powering the whole car, I do imagine that it could contribute quite a bit of power to the system as a whole. It’s the first time, that I know of, that solar panels have been commercially integrated into a production vehicle by the manufacturer. I’d love to see them add the ability to switch the power over to charging outlets for cell phones and other devices when the A/C isn’t in use, or to have it contribute to the main power cells.