Every time you drive by a semi and feel your car get pushed away from the rig, it reinforces the reality that tractor trailers punch a big, ragged hole in the atmosphere. It takes a lot of power to force those big boxes through the wind, and Mercedes Benz is working to please both fleet operators and the environmentally conscious by taking some of these heavy haulers for a spin in the wind tunnel for a much-needed aerodynamic tuneup.

The result is a trailer that features a front airdam, side trim panels rear diffuser, and a tapered rear design that adds up to an 18 percent reduction in wind resistance when paired with the Mercedes Actros tractor. Mercedes projects that a truck averaging 150,000 kilometers per year (93,205 miles) will save 2000 liters of diesel (528 gallons) while releasing five fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The wind-cheating changes leave the cargo box completely unaffected, though the aero trailer is going to need special legislative dispensation to allow its extra length on the road. The tail extension makes the trailer a half-meter too long than the current law allows, though other specialty trailers, like those with forklifts, have been given such consideration, paving the way for the more-efficient Mercedes trailers.

If Toyota has its way, paint jobs could become a thing of the past, because it’s unveiled a car that can change its whole look in an instant.

The Fun-Vii, which stands for ‘vehicle interactive internet’, is a concept car with a bodyshell made of touch-screen panels that not only allow the driver to change the pattern on display but also connect the car to the dealership’s website for a check-up. It even greets its driver with a message that flashes up on the door. Toyota showed off the unique car ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show today, with company president Akio Toyoda saying: ‘A car must appeal to our emotions. If it’s not fun, it’s not a car.’

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Everyone and their mother has an Android development kit nowadays. So, it’s only natural, being that its chips power the vast majority of Android devices that ARM wants in on the action too. With the release of Development Studio 5 Community Edition, the company has expanded its dev kit’s repertoire to include not just Linux, but Google’s Linux-based mobile OS. (Really showing its versatility there) What makes DS-5 special is its focus on optimizing apps, not just for performance, but for energy efficiency — provided you’re running on ARM chips, of course. It also claims to produce code that is up to four times faster than Java, but we’ll have to take the company’s word on that one for now. DS-5 even integrates with the standard Android SDK as well as Eclipse IDE.

SOURCE via Slashgear

Don’t you wish every component in your computer were made by the same company? That’s AMD’s thinking behind a range of desktop DRAM — leaping into the game with VisionTek and Patriot Memory who will build the branded modules to Sunnyvale’s specifications, tweaked for speed with OverDrive tuning tools. We’ve already known about AMD’s venture into the DRAM game few months ago, but this time it is official.

The reason for AMD’s entry into the memory market comes from two areas. First, AMD’s APUs are now shipping in large volumes and can definitely benefit from higher bandwidth memory modules. Many people buy A-series APUs as part of a prebuilt system, and right now lots of OEMs are still cutting corners on the RAM and using DDR3-1333. That’s the second aspect of the move: AMD wants to enable a [buzzword alert!] “holistic customer platform experience”, and they may be able to help drive down costs for AMD platforms. A final element AMD mentions is a desire to drive and enable future memory product developments.

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RIM continues its bolstering the ranks of the BlackBerry OS 7 phones with the announcement of the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 phones. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is a beautiful addition to the Bold family, a new svelte frame in combination with BlackBerry 7 OS, 1GHz processor as well as 8GB onboard memory and touch display make the 9790 a very good alternative between the non-touch bold and the larger 9900.

The Curve 9380 is the first of the Curve family to receive a touch display and do away with the physical keyboard. If you’re a fan of the all touch torch, you will love the new Curve. The 3.2inch high resolution display is almost a perfect size for touch screen phones (IMO of course) and compliments the rest of the Curve family.

Nick Horton, Vice President, Indochina at RIM said: “We are excited to launch these two new BlackBerry 7 smartphones in Malaysia. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 offer impressively slim and stylish designs with enhanced communications, multimedia, productivity and social connectivity features.”

Both the Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 will be available in Malaysia come early December with prices yet to be announced. No prices from our local telcos at the moment though.

News that Ubisoft’s latest game “I Am Alive” won’t be making it to the PC may be sad for some, but what’s even sadder is Ubisoft’s reasoning behind the decision to leave the game on the PS and Xbox platform.

According to an interview conducted by IncGamers with I Am Alive’s Creative Director Stanislas Mettra, it seems that the company has little interest in porting the game over to the PC platform due to piracy issues.

From the interview:
“We’ve heard loud and clear that PC gamers are bitching about there being no version for them. But are these people just making noise just because there’s no version or because it’s a game they actually want to play? Would they buy it if we made it? It’s hard because there’s so much piracy and so few people are paying for PC games that we have to precisely weigh it up against the cost of making it. Perhaps it will only take 12 guys three months to port the game to PC, it’s not a massive cost but it’s still a cost. If only 50,000 people buy the game then it’s not worth it,” he said.” — Stanislas Mettra

Besides his obvious lack of tact in approaching the question, and seemingly non-existent sense of respect towards legit PC based gamers, Mettra’s statement comes as a little hypocritical since Ubisoft has been caught with their pants down in the past when it comes to issues pertaining to piracy. TorrentFreak.com points out two instances where Ubisoft have been caught passing off pirated music (Assassin’s Creed) and cracks (Rainbow 6: Vegas 2) to their customers as legit.

SteelSeries are well-known for their gaming mice, keyboards, headsets and mouse pads but now, they have ventured into the world of racing with the release of the new Simraceway SRW-S1 Steering Wheel. The new steering wheel is the result of their collaboration with the developer of Simraceway – an online simulation racing game – Ignite Game Technologies.

The SRW-S1 is rather an unusual release though compared to the usual racing wheel that are available in the market as the SRW-S1’s doesn’t actually floor pedals but instead, its throttle and brake paddle system are integrated directly to the steering wheel. In addition to that, the SRW-S1 also uses motion-sensor technology which means there is no need to mount the steering wheel on a table as per norm.

Other than that, the SRW-S1 is also equipped with more than 20 on-wheel buttons and dials for easy access to race settings together as well as a shift indicator LED. Even though the wheel is developed for Simraceway, the plug-and-play SRW-S1 is compatible with most racing games out there.

The exact availability of the new Simraceway SRW-S1 Steering Wheel in Malaysia is not known for now but one can expect the price to be around RM 384 (USD 119.99). For further information, head on to www.steelseries.com or their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/SteelSeriesMalaysia.