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PopSci Cars |
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Popular Science - Cars
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Digital Mapmaking
1. Shooting
The Netherlands-based Tele Atlas is one of two companies that build and update street maps to feed to GPS-device makers and Web sites such as Google Maps. Its raw data: photographs captured by more than 300 drivers, who collectively covered 350,000 miles last year.
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Return of the Bodacious 'Bots
It's the ultimate geek fantasy: a metal-and-plastic woman of your own, brought alive by technology (the geek's own stock-in-trade), who somehow becomes hopelessly devoted to you. In both science and science fiction, the creation of female robots has tended to revolve around a housekeeper-whore dichotomy: the fembot is either a docile domestic helper, or a sexually uncontrolled, well, sex machine. Historically, she has simultaneously embodied men?s deep desire for idealized domestic companionship and their fears of being destroyed by unbridled female sexuality.
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More Than Skin Deep
Look through the 2009 Carrera S's familiar skin, and you'll find the biggest redesign in years. The change starts with a dual-clutch transmission, taken straight from Porsche's racecars, that shifts gears in milliseconds. It's bolted to a redesigned six-cylinder engine that uses direct fuel injection (a first for Porsche) to churn out higher horsepower while actually getting more miles per gallon.
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Charging Ahead
If there's a gene for entrepreneurship, Elon Musk has it. From his first project at age 12 creating and selling a videogame called Blastar for $500, to his $1-billion-plus sale of PayPal to eBay in 2002, the 37-year-old South African is every bit the born mogul. These days he's chairman of Solar City, the largest residential solar-power provider in California. He's also the founder and CEO of Space X, a space-exploration company that made headlines last September when it launched the first privately developed rocket into orbit. But lately it's Musk's newly minted role as CEO of the San Carlos, California-based start-up Tesla Motors that is drawing the most attention.
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Mercedes-Benz Splitview: Clever LCD Screen Keeps Driver Informed, Passenger Entertained
Picture this: You're motoring down the highway, following route guidance on the navigation screen, when the guy in the passenger seat decides he wants to watch Raising Arizona on DVD. Mercedes-Benz and Bosch jointly devised a novel gizmo can satisfy both viewing requests, without a sword and the smarts of Solomon. It's a dual-view LCD monitor system called, elegantly enough, Splitview.
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