AIRPod, The Car That Runs On Air

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An AIRPod is a prototype of an alternative fuel vehicle produced by Motor Development International in cooperation with Tata Motors, that is powered by compressed air. The AIRPod comes in three models that vary the number of seats and amount of cargo storage while keeping the same basic chassis.

It is designed as an zero-emission urban vehicle. Prototypes have been tested by KLM/AirFrance for use as emission-free vehicles in airports. MDI has been promising production of the AirPod since 2000 but as of 2012 none have gone on sale. Most experts agree that compressed air cars are inefficient and impractical.

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Smart Fortwo Facelift Commercial

Weird and creepy commercial from Smart to introduce the facelift they gave their Smart fortwo model.



YouTube link

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Gyrobike: A Better Way To Learn To Ride

Learning to ride a bike can be tough. But now there's Gyrobike's Gyrowheel. Gyrowheel is a revolutionary front wheel for children's bikes and is a better solution than traditional training wheels. Powered-on, Gyrowheel delivers high stability at low speed to help keep the rider upright. The rider learns correct riding technique and enjoys a safer, easier and faster learning experience.



YouTube link

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Plane Finder

Want to know what planes are flying overhead? Wonder where they are going? Plane Finder is a near real time 'virtual radar' air traffic radar map. Plane Finder works by picking up ADS-B plane feeds used by commercial and private planes to transmit their name, position, callsign, status and lots more. Click on a plane to see all the info.

Want to see ships? Use Ship Finder.

(thanks Cora)

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Lamborghini Aventador

Introducing Lamborghini's new super sports car Aventador with its 700 HP bull power - powerful and classy just like his namesake, Spanish bull legend Aventador - relentlessly fighting the forces of nature in a 3-minute special effect thunderstorm, shot in the Californian desert Coyote Dry Lakebed and directed by Ole Peters.



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The BikeCharge Dynamo Lets You Juice Up Your Devices While You Cycle

This is definitely one of the greenest ways to get around the neighborhood, where you not only save money as you do not burn precious fossil fuel, you also get to enjoy a decent workout in the process.

With the BikeCharge Dynamo installed onto your bicycle, this mounted DC generator is said to be compatible with majority of the smartphone brands out there, and a full charge would more or less require approximately 2 to 3 hours of pedaling.

(thanks Cora)

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The Airship Postcard Albums Of Lord Ventry

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The golden age of the passenger airship came to an abrupt halt on May 6, 1937 when the Hindenburg scorched the night sky over Lakehurst, New Jersey. The public understandably lost faith in the zeppelin as a secure mode of transport.

But for the first three decades of the 20th century, an extraordinary variety of lighter-than-air craft shared the airways with early airplanes and gliders. These photographs and postcards illustrate the history of these curious aerostatic vehicles, both before and after the Hindenburg. Although there's no definite information about the owner of the postcards, it may have been Arthur Frederick Daubeney Olav Eveleigh-de-Moleyns, better known to the public as Lord Ventry.

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The Bicycle Rearview Camera

This is the camera system that mounts to a bicycle for providing a clear view of the road behind. The camera mounts to a bicycle's seat post, provides a rear-facing 75º field of view ideal for seeing approaching vehicles or other cyclists.

A circular pattern of red LEDs flash when the camera's built-in sensor detects low-light conditions for visibility to traffic. The camera system's rechargeable battery provides up to 10 hours of operation from a two-hour charge using the included AC adapter.

(thanks Cora)

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Research For Making Engine Sounds Pleasant

Sound Design Lab LLC and the Takeshi Toi Laboratory at Chuo University in Japan are advancing with a project to make engine sounds more comfortable. Until now, engine sound was perceived as noise, but this research team has discovered that engine sound actually resembles the tonal characteristics of stringed instruments.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

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Jumbo Jet Junkyard: The Scrapping Of A Boeing 747

There comes a time in every commercial airliner's life where it's just too old to keep flying. Boeing's famous 747 jumbo jet, the workhorse of the aviation industry, has been transporting passengers around the world since its first commercial flight in 1970.

A recent BBC documentary called Engineering Giants took a close look at the process of a 747 refit, and also at what happens when one of these jumbos reaches the end of its working life, which could be after 25 years or so.

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Virgil Exner's Unusual 1960 Chrysler Concept

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In the late 1950s, Chrysler sought an answer to the popular Corvette, which was eating U.S. auto manufacturers' high-end sports car breakfast. The task for designing the Corvette-killer fell to Virgil Exner, the industrial designer who would eventually become Chrysler's first Vice President of Styling. What Exner came up with was unconventional, to say the least.

His XNR concept resembled an assymetrical shark and took tailfins in an unexpected direction.
The lopsided car seemed designed for the driver to belittle his passenger, with a tiny vestige of a passenger-side window and even a hatch you could close over that side altogether, reminding your shotgun-rider which of you was literally in the driver's seat.

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Remembering The Great California Cycleway

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Over a hundred years ago bicycles ruled the day, and highways were being built just for them. The California Cycleway, opened in 1900, was an elevated tollway built specially for bicycle traffic through the Arroyo Seco, intended to connect the cities of Pasadena and Los Angeles, in California, United States.

The inventor and promotor of the cycleway was Pasadena resident Horace Dobbins, who attracted ex-California governor Henry Harrison Markham to join him in the scheme. The toll was 10 cents one-way, or 15 cents round trip. Due to the end of the bicycle craze of the 1890s and the existing Pacific Electric Railway lines connecting Pasadena to Los Angeles, the cycleway never made a profit. In the first decade of the 20th century, the structure was dismantled, and the wood sold for lumber.

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The Bahnradbahnrad

Hamburg, Germany-based art collective 'We Are Visual' have come up with something new - the 'Bahnradbahnrad,' or 'Rail Bike.' The Bahnradbahnrad is a combination between a bicycle and a tram and allows bike enthusiast to cycle to predestined locations.

You don't want to slip into tram rails when you're cycling. This cycling innovation changes the tram tracks of the city of Kassel, Germany into a new kind of bike lane.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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The History Of Hydrofoils

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The term 'hydrofoil' is commonly used for the wing-like structure mounted on struts below the hull of a variety of boats, which lifts the boat out of the water during forward motion, in order to reduce hull drag. An overview of hydrofoil development - with some truly interesting historic vessels that you might not have seen before.

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Cars With Propellers

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Why attach a propeller to a perfectly normal car? Because you can! Because you can rid the car of transmission, clutch and brakes. Because you can utilize air power and powerful aircraft engines, gain lots of traction and never have to worry about wheelspins or getting stuck in snow or mud.

Some of these cars are even today seen running at the shows. Most models feature sluggish low-speed acceleration, great maximum speed, bad fuel economy and a ridiculous noise from propellers. All this does not take away from awesomeness of owing one.

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Motor Life Blog

Motor Life Blog is Charlie Beesly's fun collection of mostly found photos celebrating cars and their owners.

(via MetaFilter)

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Sergio Pininfarina, Former Ferrari Design Chief, Dead At 85

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Famous designer Sergio Pininfarina died yesterday. During his career he oversaw many of the designs for which Carrozzeria Pininfarina is famous. In 1965 it was Sergio Pininfarina who personally persuaded Enzo Ferrari to adopt a 'mid-engined' engine configuration for a new line of road cars, with the engine positioned behind the driver, but ahead of the rear wheels.

The resulting Ferrari Dino Berlinette Speciale was presented at the Paris Motor Show in October, although it would be another two years before the cars were offered for sale. Sergio Pininfarina also designed the 1966 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 Duetto, the 1984 Ferrari Testarossa, the 2002 Enzo Ferrari, and the 2009 Ferrari 458 Italia.

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Ten Ways To Keep Your Car Clean Even If You're Lazy

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You may think of your car as a means to get from point A to point B. But it's more. It's a little bit like your house with everything in it. Kids, dogs and cats, food etc. And no matter what you do, your car always ends up a mess.

Here are ten simple ways to keep your car from becoming a rolling trashbag.

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New York City Subway Stairs

The exit at 36th Street subway station near Sunset Park in Brooklyn, New York, has something very peculiar about it. Something that makes it unique from any other subway station in the city. One of the stairs is a fraction of an inch higher than all the others. Making it just high enough so that nearly everyone trips on it.

The New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority are now investigating. Crews were sent to the station to block off the staircase in preparation for repairs.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

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History Of The Tailsitter Airplanes

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A tailsitter is a type of VTOL aircraft that launches and lands on its tail. They are truly remarkable pieces of aviation history: mainly designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they were essentially an early attempt to eliminate the necessity of runways.

The downfall of the tailsitter configuration was the lack of ability to transition the pilot to a comfortable position from which to control his descent. This inability led to the concept being abandoned as soon as the experiments that led to the development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier in the 1960s began to bear fruit.

(via Neatorama)

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