Recently in Planes Trains Autos Category

American Airlines first flight equipped with WiFi took off this morning from New York JFK bound for Los Angeles LAX.

The WiFi service (called "Gogo") has been installed on 15 American Airlines 767-200 planes so far and allows passengers to go online using their laptops and wifi enabled smartphones (such as blackberries and iphones).

The service offers free access to American's website, to Frommer's travel guides, and to some news headlines. Access to all other sites and services (such as downloading email) will cost $9.95 (for flights shorter than 3 hours) or $12.95 (for longer flights).

source

Kaleidescape has announced two new DVD players that integrate with their video/music servers and offer 1080p upconverting DVD playback as well as importing DVD to a networked Kaleidescape server.

The Kaleidescape 1080p Player is a 1U rack-mountable solution that matches the look and feel of the rest of the Kaleidescape product line, and the Kaleidescape 1080p mini Player is a smaller product designed for more visible use.

The Kaleidescape system isn;t for the average home user, but is very popular for distributed storage and playback of video and music in large houses and high-end boats.

via klunker

GM has announced that their Chevrolet volt electric car is on track for a 2010 launch.

The difference between the Chevy Volt and current hybrid cars is that the volt is powered predominantly from it's batteries and can be plugged into a standard electrical outlet to charge. The volt has a range of 40 miles on battery power and for longer journeys it uses a small (1 liter) gas engine to power a 53KW generator that keeps the batteries topped up once battery level gets down to 30%.

The volt seats 4, has a top speed of 120mph, and is expected to cost between $30,000 and $40,000.

via reuters

Sanyo has announced a couple of new in-car GPS navigation systems for Japan that replace the usual hard drive or DVD based storage with a SSD.

Both have 7" screens and a 4GB SSD and the more expensive version ($1750 instead of $1500) adds a DVD player and a 4GB SD card.

The main benefits of using the SSD are that maps should be displayed quicker and the systems will be more stable and heat/shock resistant.

I expect to see manufacturers of boat electronics following suit over the coming years as a major problem with boat electronics is failure due to the constant wave motion.

Sanyo GPS Navigation Systems with SSD via akihabaranews

The legions of Toyota Prius fans will be disappointed to hear there is a car in the US that is greener than their own little eco-statement hybrid.

According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) who put out a list each year of the 12 greenest cars the Prius only comes in second!.

The winner: The Honda Civic GX which although it only gets 24mpg in the city is rated #1 due to being fueled by natural gas.

How many more years must we wait until the greenest car is one that is powered by a renewable resource instead of just swapping the juice from one kind of hole in the ground for another?

12 greenest cars at CNet

Now is this cool or what? Yves "FusionMan" Rossy has built a $285,000 jet powered flying wing.

How does it work? he jumps out of a plane and starts the 4 jet engines that provide 200lb of thrust. He can then soar through the air at up to 186mph for up to six and a half minutes performing turns and 360 degree loops before deploying a parachute to land.

He recently crossed Lake Geneva and his next plan is a 22 mile crossing of the English Channel.

Via Yahoo News
FusionMan's web site

Singapore Airlines has announced that their "all business class" flights from Newark to Singapore now have iPod/iPhone docks at every seats, and that they will be available on Los Angeles to Singapore flights in August.

We don't just mean the charge your phone type of docks, we means the type of docks that integrate your iPod or iPhone into the planes entertainment system so you can view your movies and photos and listen to your music via the planes 15.4" widescreen LCDs and active noise-canceling headlines.

Very cool! I know what airline I want to fly next..... all I need is a good excuse to go to Singapore.

iPod Docks on Singapore Airlines (press release)

Volkswagon CEO Martin Winterkorn has confirmed that their L1 concept car will be turned into a production car that will be available for purchase in 2010.

The L1 is designed to go 100 kilometers on 1 liter of gas (which equates to 235 miles per gallon) but are they sacrificing too much in search of fuel economy?

The car is a two seater but not side by side - the passenger sits behind the driver, max speed is 75mph, there is no storage space, and there is no information about the safety of this tiny vehicle that could be crushed like a bug by 75% of the vehicles on the typical US highway.

Realistically this will only be usable for trips in cities and on the back roads, and for those kind of trips why not just forego the car and ride a bicycle instead, not only is it green but it's healthy for you too.

source

This ladies and gentlemen is the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle. The Reaper is currently deployed over the skies of Afghanistan (and occasionally Pakistan).

Not content with just spying on the bad guys like it's older brother the Predator, the Reaper is used to actively hunt down Taliban insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists with it's 4 hellfire air-to-ground missiles and 2 laser-guided bombs.

The Reaper is 36ft long, has a wingspan of 20ft, normally flies up to 25,000 ft high at speeds of up to 250mph, and can stay in the air for up to 28 hours. Unit cost is around $8m.

High-tech American gadgetry keeping the terrorists cowering in caves instead of planning attacks on civilians around the world. I love it!

Gizmag has taken a new look at the Rinspeed sQuba amphibious zero emission concept car that turned up at last year's Geneva Motor Show.

The sQuba is designed to go 75mph on land and about 2mph in the water, it is powered by a single 54 kW motor plus a four additional engines for underwater:2 x 800W units drive the twin stern propellers and up front, 2 x 3.6kW Seabob jet drives for steering.

The open top combined with going underwater is a bit strange though: do you wear a wetsuit all day in case you need to go underwater or do you just get your clothes wet and keep some spare clothes in the truck?

(more at gizmag)

CNET has reviewed the $330 Belltronics RX35 radar detector.

Here's what they thought:

"The good: The Beltronics Pro RX65 offers a nice set of programmable features and its tested performance ranks with the best.

The bottom line: The Beltronics Pro RX65 works well for novice to advanced users, giving long distance warning about radar monitoring. Although we had some interface issues, the device works very well overall."

Personally we don't bother with a radar detector, everyone drives 20 over the limit and as long as you stay with the flow of traffic you never get ticketed.

(more at cnet)

Munich-based truck maker F.X. Meiller GmbH & Co KG has seen the future of construction hauling, and it is a sleek all-wheel drive tipper capable of dumping on all four directions.

Chinese transportation designer Haishan Deng created a series of concept drawings depicting what Meiller's new "super tipper" truck in action that won him a 2007 red dot award for product design from Germany's Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, an institution formed in 1955 to promote industrial design aesthetics. Inspired by the movement of quadruped animals, Deng designed the super tipper with independent suspension arms that absorb uneven terrain better than conventional dump trucks.

(more at scientificamerican)

Next week the Tesla Roadster electric car will move from development to market with the opening of their first showroom in Los Angeles.

The Tesla is no souped-up gold cart, it is a $109,000 electric powered sports car that does 0-60mph in under 4 seconds, has a top speed of 125mph, and a range of 225mph. Once the battery runs out of oomph you just plug it in and it recharges in 3.5hrs.

This takes a lot of battery power: the lithium-ion batteries account for 1,000lb of the Tesla's 2,700lb weight and they have an expected lifespan of 100,000 miles.

Don;t expect to walk into the showroom and buy one though - there is a current wait of 15 months to get one, but if you see one driving down the street take a look at the driver - Arnold Schwartenegger, George Clooney, and Kelsey Grammer have all ordered one.

The British Royal Navy's new Astute class of attack submarines are doing away with the traditional periscope and instead will be fitted with an optronic mast designed by Thales UK.

The mast (SHU: Sensor Head Unit) will pop-up, capture a 360-degree scan of the surrounding area, and disappear back beneath the waves before enemy ships have a chance to detect it. It is pressure-proof, can operate in a wide range of temperatures, is blast hardened, and contains stabilized high-performance cameras and optics as well as environmental sensors.

(via gizmag)

DARPA has announced two test flights of it's Hypersonic Technology Vehicles next year in May and October.

Both will be launched by Minotaur solid-fuel rockets from Vandenberg Air Force Base and will impact near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific.

If these flights are successful the next flight demonstrator may be the reusable Blackswift plane and we will be a step closer to getting anywhere on the planet in just a few hours.

(via flightinternational)

Now this is a smart idea for those people who feel that their hybrid car lifestyle just isn't good enough for the environment.

The SEV solar module for 2004-2006 Toyota Prius cars generates 215 watts of power which the makers claim provides up to an extra 20 miles of gas-free travel a day and a 29% better fuel economy overall.

They claim it will pay for itself in 2 to 3 years, but only if you take liberties with a Federal energy tax credit by buying it at the same time as a residential solar system and conveniently include the price in with your residential system.

(via redferret)

TomTom has revamped their entry level one and XL products to make them lighter and more portable.

Each also has an S version (for $50 more) that adds text-to-speech reading of directions.

The new TomToms should ship in may and will cost $200/$250 for the TomTom One and $350/$300 for the TomTom XL (with larger screen)

(via crave)

Falx Air Vehicles are preparing a prototype of a single or twin-seat hybrid-electric VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft that uses a combination of a 100hp engine and solar panels to achieve fuel economy of about 2.5 gallons per hour of flying.

They hope to have the prototype up by this summer but I expect they have a long way to go to achieve anything more than a simple mock-up.

(more at gizmag)

The Truth About Cars has posted some rumors about the next generation Toyota Prius that is likely to debut at the 2009 Detriot Motor Show.

The next-gen hybrid is likely to be 3 to 4 inches longer, boast 50 more horses under the hood, and get better fuel economy than the current prius.

(autoobserver via thetruthaboutcars)

We love in-car GPS navigation systems, we've used then for at least 7 years now, and we would be completely lost (literally) without them.

Suzuki apparently feels the same way as they are making the Garmin T.R.I.P flip-up GPS nav system a standard feature in all 2009 SX4 sport and SX4 crossover vehicles.

(press release after the jump)

(via autoblog)