My first piece for Motor Trend!
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iOnRoad: Collision Alerts? There's an App for That – Motor Trend
The iOnRoad app — it's called an augmented reality app, not a safety system — is designed to provide alerts that enable drivers to focus on operating the car safely. Read on to learn more on the iOn…
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Venture capital investing is never for the faint of heart, it's often really more about gambling than actual investing, especially for early rounds.
The risks inherent in this sort of investing in the technology field are multiplied by several orders of magnitude when you are getting mixed up with a startup in the auto industry.
Building cars in any significant volume is one of most capital intensive business in the world. And that's after you've spent hundreds of millions of dollars just to develop a product.
One of the standard bits of boiler plate in any investment prospective is something to the effect that "past performance is no guarantee of future success."
In the car business it should probably be something along the lines of "past performance of other automakers means that this venture will more than likely fail." Thousands of auto brands have come and gone over the last 125 years, and anyone putting money into a startup with big performance promises based on amazing new technology should probably be prepared up front to say goodbye to their cash.
#venturecapital #fiskerkarma #fiskerautomotive
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Irate Investor Sues Fisker: A Little Lesson In Venture Capital
This is the week when driving impressions of the 2012 Fisker Karma have started to appear, as Fisker invites in waves of automotive journalists for a half-day of driving in and around Los Angeles. (We…
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The sign speaks for itself
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This Is The Worst School Zone Sign In History
School zones serve an obvious and important role in pedestrian safety because no one wants to hit a kid. Zone enforcement usually lasts a few hundred feet over a large chunk of time in the morning and…
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Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor
I've started working on new book/web project on freedom in technology and communications — a user's guide on how to have it, and why you need it.
I'm doing this because of my alarm at a long-running trend, capped by Apple's announcement today about its next operating system, which it will start selling in mid-2012. By naming a key feature of the new OS "Gatekeeper," Apple has done everyone a favor by being totally transparent about where it's taking its users: into a controlled environment like the iOS.
This only confirms my earlier decision that OS X 10.6.x is my last Apple operating system, which means that my current Mac laptop is my last Mac, since Apple configures new hardware to only run with its latest operating systems.
I don't want to be controlled. And I suspect there are enough other people who will be interested in knowing how they can move out of the proprietary systems (Web-based as well as personal device) orbit.
I'll be creating a new site for this project, and will post it soon.
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My friend +Alex Nunez went to the New York Toy Fair earlier this week and one of the items he stumbled across was the Soda Geyser Car. It's an evolution of the concept behind mentos and pop fountains to create a toy for kids. Just don't let them play with it indoors. It could get expensive pretty quickly too.
#cars #toys
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I was one of the first handful of journalists to get to drive the Roadster back in January 2008 http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/28/abg-first-drive-hitting-the-road-in-the-tesla-roadster/
While the car was a blast to drive, it exhibited a number of flaws which in combination with the economic collapse later that year, no doubt caused to fall well short of its sales targets.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long had a contentious relationship with the media and it looks like he doesn't want to risk any bad reviews ahead of delivering cars to customers. Hopefully the Model S will live up to expectations, but I have a feeling a lot of people will be surprised at their actual out the door cost and range once they hit the streets.
#teslamotors #ev #electricvehicles
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Tesla not to let journalists test Model S before start of deliveries
Tesla Motors held its fourth quarter and full-year financial results conference call, as well as an extensive Q&A session last night with investors and journalists – revealing an aspect of the Mod…
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I can only hope that Google will in fact take a more hands-on approach to Motorola than they have indicated so far. If not my current Droid 3 may well be my last Moto phone.
One thing is certain though. As soon as there is an ICS rom for the D3 that has a working camera, I'll be flashing because this is just ridiculous.
#android #motorola
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Motorola Android 4.0 upgrade schedule released, many have a long wait ahead
Motorola has just updated its large chart with its Android 4.0 upgrade plans, including specifics on what part of the upgrade process each phone is at and rough availability dates by region….
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Over the years I was fortunate enough to get to drive several different Dodge Vipers in various guises. The first came in 1995 when I was an engineer at Kelsey-Hayes and we had one in the garage for some testing. Kelsey-Hayes supplied some of the brake components including the booster and master cylinder to those original Vipers.
It was more than a decade before I got into another Viper at the Chrysler Proving Grounds when I sampled the club-racer ACR model on an autocross course.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/27/chryslers-whats-new-2008-autocrossing-the-dodge-challenger-an/
Several months later I got to drive a Viper for several days on the street for a full review and my last major Viper encounter came during a 2010 visit to the Walter P Chrysler museum where they had put on a retrospective of the car's first 20 years.
http://www.examiner.com/automotive-in-detroit/dodge-viper-born-to-race-a-retrospectivepre
While the Viper was never particularly sophisticated, it was huge fun to drive and more than almost any other car embodied my philosophy of "There is no such thing as too much torque!"
#viper #dodgeviper #srtviper #chrysler
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Review: 2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 [w/VIDEO]
2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10 Next January's Detroit Auto Show will mark the 20th anniversary of the Viper's
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At the New York Auto Show in April Chrysler will finally reveal the third generation Viper sports car after a two year production hiatus. In the run up to the reveal, Chrysler has begun to tease the new model with the new logo making its debut yesterday. Each of the three generations has had its own unique take on the snake head design getting more sophisticated as the car evolved.
The Viper has always had an interesting relationship with Chrysler with each generation appearing at a time of rebirth for the company. The original 1989 concept arrived as Chrysler suffered through a recession with an aging product line. Francois Castaing, Bob Lutz and Carrol Shelby conceived a new interpretation of Shelby's original 1960s Cobra with a massive 8.0-liter V10 engine. Like the Cobra, the Viper was very basic, with four wheels, two seats, lots of power and not much else.
The production model arrived two and a half years later in 1992 at more or less the same time a new generation of Chrysler vehicles (the LH models) were coming to market. While it never was a big seller, it quickly became an icon and achieved huge successes on the track over the next decade.
http://www.examiner.com/automotive-in-detroit/dodge-viper-born-to-race-a-retrospectivepre
A decade after the original, a followup arrived at around the same time that the Chrysler 300 revived the classic American big sedan idea. Production of the Viper was wound down in 2010 as sales dropped during the recession and Chrysler put its focus on new mainstream models post-bankruptcy.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/11/in-the-autoblog-garage-2008-dodge-viper-srt-10/
I can't wait to see what the team has done with the new Viper. It will apparently retain the V10 configuration and the classic muscle roadster proportions but little else is known at this time.
#viper #dodgeviper #srtviper #chrysler
In album Viper logos (3 photos)
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