15 Super Coupes ( TheMrBeng motorshow 2006 )

Bloody motoshow2006 entrance fee $10 so ex. i'll have my own mini motorshow.

so people, heres it is:
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In the 105 years since cars went into mass production, coupes have been the sonnets of the auto industry--the medium in which the great designers and engineers use their best stuff, their most artful and heartfelt ideas. When you hear the words "beautiful car," chances are the image that pops into your head is not that of a minivan or pickup truck, but rather that of the classic car form, a coupe.

Lamborghini

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Best Coupe For under US$50,000

Porsche Cayman

Base Price: US$49,400

Engine: 2.7-liter, 245-horsepower 6-cylinder

Top speed: 160 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 5.8s

Beautiful and not in a love-it-or-hate-it way like BMW's Z4 M Coupe. We settled this category by erring on the racy, sporty side, not the side of luxury family cars--hence Cayman over BMW 3 Series or Infiniti G35.

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Best Psychotically Fast Coupe

SSC Ultimate Aero

Base Price: US$655,000

Engine: Turbocharged, 6.3-liter, 1,180-hp V-8

Top speed: 273 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 2.8 seconds

What's more fun than 1,180 horsepower? Stuffing 1,180 horsepower into a car that weighs as much as a Dodge Neon. The Aero's brakes had better be forged in Mordor.

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Best American Supercar (tie)

Chevrolet Corvette Z06

Base Price: US$70,000

Engine: 7.0-liter, 505-hp V-8

Top speed: 198 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: n/a

The champion of the hottest-performance-for-the-bucks category. Permanent winner. Category retired.

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Best American Supercar (tie)

Dodge Viper SRT-10

Base Price: US$86,995

Engine: 8.3-liter, 510-hp V-10

Top speed: 190 miles per hour (estimated)

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: Under four seconds

Dodge recently started selling a Viper coupe too, apparently because the convertible wasn't hardcore enough.

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Coupe That Goes Beyond Beyond

Bugatti Veyron 16.4

Base Price: US$1.2 million

Engine: 8.0-liter, 1,001-hp 16-cylinder
Top speed: 253 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: Under 2.5 seconds

No car has ever been so famously over the top.

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Best German Supercar

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

Base Price: US$452,750

Engine: Supercharged, 5.4-liter, 671-hp V-8

Top speed: 207 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 3.8 seconds

So civilized--literally the Mercedes-Benz of race cars.
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Best British Supercar (tie)

Aston Martin DB9

Base Price: US$165,000

Engine: 5.9-liter, 450-hp V-12

Top speed: 186 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 4.7 seconds

Monstrous torque, the world's most authoritative exhaust note, gorgeous interior leather and wood, world-beating handling and as high-class a brand name as there is. What more do you want from a car?

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Best British Supercar (tie)

Bentley Continental GT

Base Price: US$165,000

Engine: Turbocharged, 6.0-liter 12-cylinder

Top speed: 198 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 4.7 seconds

As potent as a freight train, as stately as a wood-paneled club room and as fast as a race car. Has already become an icon for success, taste and happiness.

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Best Italian Supercar (tie)

Ferrari F430

Base Price: $168,000

Engine: 4.3-liter, 483-hp V-8

Top speed: Over 195 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 3.9 seconds

Unbelievable acceleration. High-revving engine emits banshee wail. World's most engaging steering? World's most engaging car? Spend more for Ferrari's 599 or 612 if you like; a car can't make you happier than an F430 can.

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Best Italian Supercar (tie)

Lamborghini Murciélago LP640

Base Price: US$320,000

Engine: 6.5-liter, 632-hp V-12

Top speed: 211 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: Under 3.4 seconds

All you have to do is look at the Murciélago to know what it's capable of.

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Best New Arrival (tie)

Aston Martin V-8 Vantage

Base Price: US$110,000

Engine: 4.3-liter, 380-hp V-8

Top speed: 175 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 4.9 seconds

A sexy, fast and relatively affordable Aston. Not many cars scare Porsche. This one should.

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Best New Arrival (tie)

BMW M6

Base Price: US$98,600

Engine: 5.0-liter, 500-hp V-10

Top speed: 155 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 4.5 seconds

Just awesome. A ten-cylinder, racing-style engine in a gorgeous coupe. For the moment, this is the ultimate BMW--and that's not a minor distinction.

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Best New Arrival (tie)

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

Base Price: n/a

Engine: 6.0-liter, 620-hp V-12

Top speed: Over 205 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: Under 3.7 seconds

Missed out on the US$650,000 Enzo Ferrari supercar? The newest Ferrari has an Enzo-based engine. The 599 is made from Formula 1 technology, like all other Ferraris.

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Best New Arrival (tie)

Porsche 911 Turbo

Base Price: US$122,900

Engine: Turbocharged, 3.6-liter, 480-hp six-cylinder

Top speed: 193 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 3.7 seconds

With a revolutionary, turbocharged engine, the 911 Turbo has blistering acceleration but can also be a steady family car for an hour or two if that's what you need.

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Best New Luxury Coupe

Mercedes-Benz CL600

Base Price: n/a

Engine: 5.5-liter, 510-hp V-12

Top speed: 130 miles per hour

Zero-to-60 mph acceleration: 4.5 seconds (preliminary figure)

Mercedes' great, low-volume flagship coupe is back for a new generation. Among coupes, perhaps only Bentley's Continental GT rivals the CL for opulence.

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25 Great Moments In Robotics History

1400 BC

Babylonians develop the clepsydra, a clock that measures time using the flow of water. It's considered one of the first "robotic" devices in history. For centuries, inventors will refine the design. Around 270 BC, the Greek inventor Ctesibius becomes famous for a water clock with moving figures on it.

322 BC

The Greek philosopher Aristotle imagines the great utility of robots, writing,
"If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it … then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords."

1495

Leonardo da Vinci designs a clockwork knight that will sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw. It's not certain whether the robot was ever built, but the design may constitute the first humanoid robot.

1737

French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson builds a clockwork duck capable of flapping its wings, quacking, eating and digesting food.

1769
Hungarian author and inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen builds "The Turk," a maplewood box with a mannequin, dressed in cloak and turban, protruding from the back. The device gains great fame as an automaton capable of playing chess against skilled opponents--until it is discovered that a human operator hides inside the box.

1801
French silk weaver and inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard invents an automated loom that is controlled by punch cards. Within a decade it is being mass-produced, and thousands are in use across Europe.


1881
Italian author Carlo Collodi writes Pinocchio, a children's book about a marionette who turns into a real boy. The literary theme of mechanical men who come to life will flourish along with the technological evolution of robots--most recently, in movies like Steven Spielberg's A.I. and in TV characters like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

1900
L. Frank Baum invents one of the literary world's most beloved robots in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: the Tin Woodsman, a mechanical man in search of a heart. The character is seen as a symbol for the soullessness of mechanized industry.


1921
Czech playwright Karl Capek popularizes the term "robot" in a play called "R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robot)." The word comes from the Czech robota, which means drudgery or forced work. The play ends with robots taking over the earth and destroying their makers.

1926

Film director Fritz Lang releases Metropolis, a silent film set in a futuristic urban dystopia. It features a female robot--the first to appear on the silver screen--who takes the shape of a human woman in order to destroy a labor movement.

1942

American science fiction author Isaac Asimov publishes a short story, "Runaround," that introduces the "Three Laws of Robotics"--rules that every robot is programmed to obey:

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

1954

Industrial robotics pioneer George Devol files a patent (pictured) for the first programmable robot and coins the term "universal automaton."

1956

George Devol and Joseph Engelberger (pictured) form the world's first robotics company, Unimation. In the 1960s, it is purchased by Condec, which later is bought, in part, by industrial manufacturing giant Eaton.

1959

The Servomechanisms Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrates computer-assisted manufacturing. A robotic milling machine creates a commemorative ashtray for each attendee.

1961

Unimate, the world's first industrial robot, goes to work on a General Motors assembly line.

1962

Rosie the robot appears on The Jetsons, an animated TV program about a family from the future. The iconic house maid becomes one of the best-known robot characters in recent history.

1966

The Artificial Intelligence Center at the Stanford Research Center begins development of Shakey, the first mobile robot. It is endowed with a limited ability to see and model its environment and is controlled by a computer that fills an entire room.

1968

HAL 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) appears in the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, written by Arthur C. Clarke. The artificially intelligent computer runs the spaceship Discovery--and eventually goes berserk. The character reflects concern about the increasing power of intelligent machines over man.

1977

R2-D2 and C-3PO appear in George Lucas' Star Wars films. The plucky androids are arguably the best-known robots in modern culture.

1993

An eight-legged robot named Dante attempts to explore Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano. It is remotely controlled from the U.S. and collects a small amount of data before mechanical difficulties end the experiment. But the landmark effort ushers in a new era of robotic exploration of hazardous environments.

1998

A fuzzy, batlike robot called Furby becomes the must-have toy of the holiday season. The US$30 toys "evolve" over time, first speaking in gibberish but soon developing the use of preprogrammed English phrases. More than 27 million of the toys sell in a 12-month period.

1999

Gadget lovers develop a serious case of puppy love for Sony's robot dog AIBO. The US$2,000 mechanical mutt can navigate around a room and respond to a set of limited commands.

2000

Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO steps onto the stage. Standing 1.3 meters tall, it can walk and run with a near-human gait.

2002

The Roomba robotic vacuum from the iRobot Corp. is released. The Frisbee-shaped device has sold over 2 million units to date, making it the most commercially successful domestic robot in history.

2004

The robotics business hits the big time, becoming a US$1.06 billion business in North America. Pictured is the humanoid robot Speecys SPC-003.

Mitsubishi to Release Air Conditioners with Human Location Sensing Capability

Nov 07, 2006 16:36
Motonobu Kawai, Nikkei Electronics & Chikara Nakayama, Nikkei Monozukuri

Mitsubishi's air conditioner able to sense human location

From mid December 2006, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. will launch seven models in series from its "ZW series" air conditioner lineup for home use. The series enhanced energy saving efficiency and user's comfort based on a system that controls air conditioning in light of human location in the room. The company introduced its first "Kirigamine" air conditioner product in 1967. As "products integrating 40 years' history of our Kirigamine" (Mitsubishi), the new lineup features auto cleaning capability for filters and outlet fans and compact size with the width of an indoor unit reduced to less than 800 mm.

The air conditioners detect human location with an infrared sensor unit called "Human Sensor Move Eye." This unit is attached downward in the middle of an indoor unit's bottom face and automatically moves between left and right. It takes about one minute for the sensor unit to go back and forth between a range of 160 degrees wide. Through this move, the sensor unit measures temperature of the room's floor and wall.

The company's previous products also featured similar sensors to measure temperature of the floor, but they only could analyze the room's temperature distribution by a total of six areas using two infrared sensors, each of which watches over three areas. With the new Human Sensor Move Eye system, a row of seven infrared sensors scans inside the room and each sensor acquires temperature data by dividing its coverage area into 66 segments. In other words, the system can acquire temperature data from about 500 segments.
Infrared sensor unit. It screens the room horizontally and measures temperature distribution by dividing the whole room into 500 areas.

Given the capability to divide the room into small pieces and measure temperature in detail, the new system can precisely sense the size and move of heat sources. "The unit recognizes a human with its high temperature as well as its move of more than 30 cm" (Mitsubishi). Therefore, the sensor does not consider kitchen and other fixed heat sources as humans. However, Mitsubishi said the sensor can maintain its recognition of a human as long as its temperature remains high, even if the object stops moving after being sensed.

In this manner, the new air conditioners locate humans, centralize the area of air conditioning to the location of a man and automatically switch to economic mode when no one is sensed inside the room, for example. The system can save up to 50% of power, combining 10% by integrating air conditioning area to the human location and 10% by switching to economic mode when nobody is in the room, along with existing energy saving effect (about 30%) by weakening air conditioning in line with floor temperature.

The lineup can cope with the situation where there are two people at a time inside the room by moving each of upper, lower, left and right flaps at its air outlet using four separate motors. On the other hand, the lineup can also control air not to directly hit people in the room. It also features a capability to analyze trends of human location in each family, based on results of its survey for about half a month. The current model only controls the direction of air when starting operation based on past data saved by the company. Mitsubishi intends to "further boost the precision of human location sensing in the future, using data we have accumulated."

thanks ah

ya. vote vote vote. vote for the best party.
and what u get? Transport fare hikes. blah blah blah..
and even better news. GST increases nxt yr!
yeah vote for the best party. pay the price for it.
come on. its 'worth' every cent. u r paying for 'world-class' gahmen.
get it?

lets wait and see what else they'll up in future. dammnit!

Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story!

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person...

PS. The response to this video has been nothing short of overwhelming and touching. Hugs to every single one of you who messaged. There has been thousands of emails from all over the world by people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs campaign and asking for permission. You do not need permission. This is the peoples movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you can make THE difference.

Imagine all the people.

http://www.freehugscampaign