Category: News

General News Events of interest

  • China’s New Little Car

    This is not a joke and they do sell for $600.00.
    They won’t be able to make them fast enough–good just to run around town.
    Here’s a car that will get you back and forth to work on the cheap…
    $600 for the car. 258 miles per gallon…

    Only a one seater however – Talk about cheap transportation….
    Volkswagen’s $600 car gets 258 mpg–

    It looks like Ford, Chrysler and GM missed the boat again!

    20140303_Chinas New Little Car_001

    China launches $600 car that will get 258mpg

    This $600 car is no toy and is ready to be released in China next year.

    The single seater aero car totes VW (Volkswagen) branding.

    Volkswagen did a lot of very highly protected testing of this car in Germany,
    but it was not announced until now where the car would make its first appearance

    The car was introduced at the VW stockholders meeting as the most economical car in the world is presented. The initial objective of the prototype was to prove that 1 liter of fuel could deliver 100 kilometers of travel.

    20140303_Chinas New Little Car_002

    Spartan interior doesn’t sacrifice safety

    The aero design proved essential to getting the desired result.
    The body is 3.47 meters long and just 1.25 meters wide, and a little over a meter high. The prototype was made completely of carbon fiber and is not painted to save weight.

    The power plant is a one cylinder diesel, positioned ahead of the rear axle and combined with an automatic shift controlled by a knob in the interior.

    Safety was not compromised as the impact and roll-over protection is comparable to the GT racing cars.

    20140303_Chinas New Little Car_003

    The Most Economic Car in the World will be on sale next year:

    Better than Electric Car – 258 miles/gallon: IPO 2010 in Shanghai
    This is a single-seat car
    From conception to production: 3 years and the company is headquartered in Hamburg , Germany . Will be selling for 4000 Yuan, equivalent to US $600..

    Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons
    Speed = 62 – 74.6 Miles/hour
    Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon
    Travel distance with a full tank = 404 miles

  • Apple Maps not fully at fault over Australian Mildura confusion

    Apple Maps not fully at fault over Australian Mildura confusion

    Australian government’s official gazeteer includes area called ‘Mildura Rural City’ at location previously shown on iPhones.

    Features of the District
    Location: Mildura District is a rural electorate located north-west of Melbourne.
    Area: 27,162 square kilometres.
    Features: The city of Mildura is the largest town in Mildura District and is situated on the Murray River. Mildura is the centre of an irrigation area known as Sunraysia, which is known for its dried fruits, citrus and vegetable industries. Other industries in the District include crop farming, fruit, vegetable and wine growing and tourism. Natural features include the northern part of the Big Desert, the Sunset Country and the Hattah Lakes.

    The following article by Charles Arthur is taken from a posting by the Guardian, London:

    Mildura Rural City
    The Australian government marker for ‘Mildura Rural City’, which may have contributed to the Apple Map confusion which led drivers astray

    Apple wasn’t completely wrong in directing Australians who searched for “Mildura” to the midst of the Murray-Sunset National Park – at least according to the Australian government’s official gazetteer, which includes a location called “Mildura Rural City” at the place where Mildura was previously marked on iPhone maps.

     

    As first noted by The Register news website, the official gazetteer – which is the authoritative reference for the names and locations of 384,104 places, objects and towns in the continent – contains an entry at the precise place to which Apple was directing hapless drivers until making a hurried correction on Monday.

     

    Police in Mildura had warned that using Apple’s iOS 6 maps could lead drivers astray and leave them stranded in the Murray-Sunset park, which at this time of year sees temperatures of up to 47C and has no water and poor phone reception. One man was stranded for 24 hours last week after navigating to the location, which is 44 miles (70km) from the actual town of 30,000.

     

    However Apple’s source for its misleading data is unimpeachable: the gazetteer is the official reference. It contains 36 entries for “Mildura”, including the fateful one for Mildura Rural City – which has “official” status and is listed as a “district” (comprising an “agricultural area, county, district, local government area, parish or region”).

     

    According to Wikipedia, Mildura Rural City is in fact an area of over 22,000 sq km in the northwestern part of Victoria state – but a gazetteer has to locate every entry at a point, and Geoscience Australia chose one in the middle of the park, rather than in the town.

     

    Apple’s mistake though was to ignore another entry for Mildura, which the gazetteer records as having the class of “POPL” – that is, a population centre, even though the gazetter’s explanatory index doesn’t explain that.

     

    The problem highlights an observation made by Ed Parsons, one of the chief geoscientists at Google, and formerly chief technology officer at the UK’s Ordnance Survey. Writing on his personal blog after Apple dropped Google from providing its maps product in September, but before the problems in Australia, Parsons wrote: “Making maps work well on a phone is not actually a cartography problem … yes you can use poor maps or conflate content from various sources without care producing a poor map, and people might get lost … but the reason we all use maps on out phones is that they help us find stuff – maps on smartphones are interfaces to local search … To be fair to our friends in Cupertino the maps are not that bad, all maps have some mistakes, but the bigger issue is the lack of a true geocoded search index of places and the search algorithms that sit around it.”

  • An incredible story of luck

    If this does not touch your heart, then you just don’t have one…..

    An incredible story of luck and inspiration!

     

    Can you believe it? This guy wins $181 million in the lottery last Wednesday, and then finds the love of his life just 2 days later.

     

    Talk about LUCK!

  • Are We Too Old to Drive thisCar?

    This will make you stop and think…..  The future is coming toooo fast.

    Too Old to Drive this Car?

    2012 Mercedes

     Are we GETTING TOO old to DRIVE this Car?   Not just me, YOU too!

    No joke!  Scary!  But true?

    Scroll down 

    Presenting 

      the New Mercedes Benz SCL 600

    Pretty, isn’t it?

    So? 

    What’s different about this car?

     

    Not this….

     

    OR even this… 

    Here is the real difference

    WHOA ! 

    NoSteering Wheel

    No Pedals either 

    You drive this car with a joystick 

    Do you think that you can drive with a joystick? 

    Your kids and  grand kids sure can. The influence of video games in our lives has really arrived, wouldn’t you say? 

     

    But there is more! The SCARY THOUGHT is: NOW a 3-YEAR-OLD can STEAL your car AND DRIVE IT BETTER THAN YOU CAN

     

    Yep

    – Start checking the senior bus schedule!!!

  • World’s Largest Helicopter…..Thought you might want to see this ——-

    The Hotelicopter is modeled on the Soviet made Mil V-12, of which there were only two prototypes ever made.  The Hotelicopter Company purchased one of these prototypes from the Mikhail Leontyevich Mil   Heliicopter plant in Panki-Tomilino , Russia in 2004  and have been engineering the world’s first flying hotel ever since.

    “The Hotelicopter features 18 luxuriously-appointed rooms for adrenaline junkies  seeking a truly unique and memorable travel experience.  Each soundproofed room is equipped with a queen-sized bed, fine linens, a mini-bar, coffee machine, wireless internet access, and all the luxurious appointments you’d expect from a flying five star hotel.Room service is available one hour after liftoff and prior to landing.”   The Hotelicopter is due to fly maiden journey this summer (June 26th) with an undisclosed price.

    Dimensions Length:………………………….   42 m ( 137 ft )

    Height:…………………………………….             28m ( 91 ft )

    Maximum Takeoff Weight……….      105850 kg ( 232,870 lb )

    Maximum speed:………………….       255 km/h (137 kt) (158 miles/h)

    Cruising speed:……………………..      237 km/h (127 kt) (147 miles/h)

    Original Mi Range:……………….                515 km ( 320 mi )

    Our augmented Mi Range -……               1,296 km ( 700 mi )