If Fido can distinguish people and other pooches by their backsides, why not a seat? When students at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology in Tokyo, Japan asked that question, they came up with a car seat fitted with 360 sensors that makes a map of the pressure applied by your posterior. Among the six rumps tested, the seat was 98 percent accurate at sorting one from another.

The ultimate aim is to work with automakers to develop an anti-theft solution that would be available in the next few years. With such a small testing pool, it’s too early to start asking the difficult questions about real-world viability (especially when you start to factor in things like different articles of clothing, Costanza wallets, and so on), but we have a feeling this kind of technology will find an application somewhere.

SOURCE via TechCrunch

Pretty much every time Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson opens his mouth these days, someone takes offense, which does make it hard to tell whether Clarkson is actually offensive.

The latest complaints have come after the Top Gear Christmas special, in which Clarkson and his posse go to India on a “trade mission.” According to The Telegraph, the BBC has received 23 complaints about the show, in which Clarkson is charged with making insensitive remarks about Indian clothing, trains, food and history.

Clarkson’s “funny” bits on the show included dropping his pants in front of Indian dignitaries and outfitting a Jaguar XJS with a toilet seat and then driving around Indian slums, according to the report. Clarkson reportedly described the Jag as “perfect for India because everyone who comes here gets the trots.”

While we haven’t seen the episode, we do know that the XJS has a reputation for crapping out with some frequency. Before you fire up the torrents, check out the episode trailer after the jump.

Read more…

Automakers are being pinched to increase safety and improve fuel efficiency, but those two goals often work against each other. That could change thanks to a material that is 99.99-percent air.

Ward’s Automotive reports that the California Institute of Technology, HRL Laboratories and the University of California-Irvine have combined to develop a micro-lattice material that is said to be 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and strong like steel. We’d call this material paper-thin, but the truth is even more impressive: the material is comprised of tiny woven tubes that are 1,000 times thinner than a human hair.

The U.S. Department of Defense is obviously interested in this material for top-secret projects like next-generation aircraft, but the micro-lattice is also of great interest to the auto industry. The material could greatly reduce weight and drag, which would in turn significantly increase efficiency. At the same time, the material can reportedly almost completely recover after stress of up to 50 percent and has impressive energy absorbing characteristics. That means the material could also be a safety asset, which is good news for automakers and consumers.

Cal Tech Professor Julia Greer adds that the material could ultimately replace any non heavy-steel component that isn’t already light in weight. A material with less air would reportedly be the next step in the evolution of lightweight metals, and the scientists are working on a nano-lattice that can do just that.

We don’t know much about these micro and nano materials, but we’re guessing it will be a while before the materials are inexpensive enough for automotive applications. But if the U.S. government and airplane manufactures can jump aboard and bring down the manufacturing costs, we could see this type of material helping automakers achieve those 50+ mile per gallon fuel economy standards. For more information and a demonstration of the micro-lattice’s properties, check out the videos after the jump. Read more…

Various reports are pointing to an Asus netbook that proves the company still has plans for the allegedly dying form factor in 2012. Simply labeled as the Eee PC 1225B, the upcoming device refreshes the specs listed for the previous Eee PC 1215B and is based on AMD’s Brazos chipset.

According to the specs, the Asus Eee PC 1225B will arrive in two flavors: a dual-core AMD E450 APU clocked at 1.65 GHz and a dual-core AMD C60 APU clocked at 1.0 GHz. It will also feature one slot for memory, offering 2 GB or 4 GB of DDR3, depending on your wallet. Graphics will be handled by a Radeon HD 6320 or Radeon HD 6290 discrete core.

“With the embedded ATI Radeon HD 6320/6290 graphics, the Asus 1225B provides users the best portable multimedia enjoyment for its size. DirectX 11 support – exceptional 3D performance allows users to play games and video smoother than ever before,” the product description read. “Also, users can enjoy smooth, Full HD 1080p content through the HDMI port to an HD display without any latency. Connect it to a home theater system to enjoy true 7.1 Surround sound playback alongside the Full HD content for the ultimate viewing experience.”

As for other features, the new netbook will sport an 11.6-inch LED-backlit WXGA screen (1366 x 768), HDD capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB or 750 GB, 802.11 b/g/n connectivity @ 2.4 GHz, optional Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, a 0.3MP camera, and a 6-cell 56Wh Li-ion battery promising up to 7 hours. Ports include one USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, one Ethernet, one HDMI output, an SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC card reader, VGA and more.

While the product page is up for viewing, actual availability in 2012 and pricing is unknown, so stay tuned

With the paper launch of the Radeon HD 7970 last week, we are starting to get more leaked information about the other models hitting the market under the new “Tahiti” platform. In the information leaked by xtreview, The HD 7950 will have 1792 stream processors, 28 GCN compute units, which is down 256 stream processors from the HD 7970. It will utilize a 384-bit memory bus and 3GB GDDR5 just like the HD 7970. The HD 7950 looks to utilize 112 texture units and 32 full color ROPs. It has support for a maximum of 6 displays. What is still unknown at this time is the core clock speed, memory clock speed and price point. With the HD 7970 set to release around $550, I would expect the HD 7950 to fall closer to the $400 price mark at release.

AMD is expected to release its flagship dual-GPU graphics card based on the “Tahiti” platform in 2012. We are learning under the codename “New Zealand”, AMD is working on the monster HD 7990, which will utilize two HD 7970′s and 6GB of total graphics memory (3 GB per GPU system). If AMD will indeed go for the HD 7970, this could mean that the card will include 62 compute units for a total of 4096 stream processors, 256 texture units and 64 full color ROPs.

One thing that will benefit the HD 7990 is AMD’s new ZeroCore technology. ZeroCore technology completely powers down other GPUs, other than the primary one, to zero state, when the system is not running graphics-heavy applications. This means at idle, desktop or video playback state, the HD 7990′s power draw will be nearly equal to that of the HD 7970, which through early testing was impressive.

SOURCE via TechPowerUp

It seems we’re not the only ones indulging in a little bit of holiday shopping. Sony has announced that it is selling its share of the joint LCD-production venture it signed into with Samsung seven years ago.

In a deal worth $600 million, Samsung will acquire Sony’s portion of the venture, which the two parties signed into in 2004. The deal will see Samsung pay 1.08 trillion Korean won, or $935 million, to Sony and S-LCD will become a wholly-owned Samsung subsidiary.

Additionally, the two companies have entered into a new agreement for the supply and purchase of LCD panels that Sony says will ensure a ‘flexible and steady’ supply of LCDs from Samsung without the costs of operating the manufacturing facility. In exchange, Samsung expects to benefit from more flexibility, speed and efficiency in both production and business operations.

Sony says that as a result of the transaction, it is now expecting a non-cash impairment loss of roughly 66 billion yen, or $847 million, for the next fiscal quarter (ending March 2012). However, the company also said in its statement that this one-time loss will be canceled out by the annual savings made from off-loading its half of S-LCD. The current estimate of the yearly savings is 50 billion yen, or $642 million.

SOURCE via Sony