Disney is looking to give younger children an excuse other than Angry Birds to play with their parents’ Apple iPad. The company’s new AppMates toys feature small Cars 2 characters with unique sensors inside them. Download a free application, place the toys on the screen, and kids can drive around a virtual interpretation of Radiator Springs. There are even games and missions to complete for older tikes. Each set comes with two characters for $19.99, and with the potential for endless updates to the Radiator Springs universe, chances are good that kids won’t get bored of the game too quickly.

Of course, the only question is, who wants to hand over their tablet to their child aged four to nine? Fortunately, Disney has thought of that, too, and will release a well-padded Cars 2-themed iPad case later down the line. That little piece of kit will set you back a heady $49, but that’s considerably less than the cost of a brand-new iPad. Hit the jump to take a look at a video of the AppMates in action.

One downside of owning an electric car is that you can’t simply stop and recharge like how conventional cars go to petrol stations and refuel once you run out of juice. If electric cars are ever going to replace their gas-guzzling ancestors, we’ll inevitably need a few more places to plug in and charge up. Google started using Prius as their driverless car for their Google Street View, and now they’ve added a new database of EV, and that is Google Maps with locations of all the charging stations in US. This will easily enable drivers of EV to locate places to get their juice replenished while on longer trips or when out of town. Now it seemed more ‘fun’ to own an EV, though it won’t be fun if you run out of juice or the battery crack the hell out of you.

SOURCE via Google

Now this is what I call unplug! Driving a super environment friendly electric car, and don’t have to worry about insufficient electric for your new EV. Drive home, flip the switch, and you’re ready for dinner. That’s a very cool invention from WiTriCity, a pioneer in wireless energy transfer technology, and Delphi Automotive. That’s the result of the collaboration between the two companies that are working on developing a range of automatic wireless charging products for electric vehicles.

No additional plugs or charging cords are needed in the wireless charging system. All the driver need to do is to simply park their electric vehicles over a wireless energy source that sits on the garage floor or embedded in a paved parking spot, and the system will automatically charge up your car once you activate it.

This patented wireless energy transfer technology is invented by Nikola Tesla, and improved by a team of MIT physicists since four years ago to make it feasible. The technology makes use of highly resonant magnetic coupling, offering a transfer of over 3,300 watts – enough to fully charge an electric car at the same rate as most residential plug-in chargers. The system can efficiently transfer power over significantly larger distances and allow more parking-related vehicle misalignment than inductive systems. Ask any E&E Engineering student, and they should be able to explain better to you than me, what resonant cavity is. Despite the gap, no power would be lost as power is transferred through induction within the resonant cavity, not electrical conduction.

However, wireless charging technology will of course need to co-exist with plug-in charging solutions, the company states, so that electric vehicle drivers have the ability to charge their vehicle with something like Delphi’s portable electric charger – which fits into any standard AC outlet – when they’re away from their wireless charging source. This is actually a much refined package, by offering the wireless energy transfer package as an add-on instead of a standalone device. Sometimes we just can’t park properly. Well, now you have a better reason to buy an EV!

The most advanced technology at the most exotic location on earth, performing the most dangerous missions, your vroom vroom spies are back! Mater and Lightning McQueen will once again hold hands (or wheels) as the world’s latest secret agent! Damn, I always love Pixar’s creations. But where’s my Incredible 2?

Tata, the famous Indian company that manufactures the budget mini hatchback Nano in India, is invading Europe next year with two new EVs. Not to follow their low-budget hatchback, Tata will be going somewhat upmarket in the designs and packages, by launching the better looking Indica Vista for green-conscious Englishmen and Scandinavians by early next year, alongside the Ace, which is a commercial electric mini-truck. It’s good to see that more car manufacturers will be stepping into the EV cycle. Mother Nature might be pleased by this, as the Toyota Prius is getting rather dull. Over here at 2dayblog, we all love EVs as it’ll save Mother Nature (*besides saving my sky high petrol bills) so we hope there’s more affordable EVs out there.

SOURCE via Oh!Gizmo]

This is one of the funky ideas going around, and I actually like it. The prototype vibrating warning system for cars will actually vibrate and ‘hopefully’ wake you up from dozing off and flying out of your car while you’re asleep. Hopefully this new system can keep you awake from those wild rides.

From the Yales School of Engineering, this vibrating project joins flashing side mirrors (Audi) and “stay awake, have a coffee break” (Mercedes) as the latest in driver safety systems, protects drivers by vibrating cellphone-sized motors in the seat.

There are twenty motors arranged in a rectangle, to be precise, and they vibrate in different ways and configurations depending on what’s happening outside the vehicle. Say a car is approaching from the left-hand side, for example, and then the left array of motors, on your left cheek, would vibrate angrily, warning you of danger.

[via Gizmag]

iPod being integrated into cars is a common thing, as done by many car manufacturers. But still, we can only select the songs through our small iPod’s screen. BMW has decided to change that, and is the first automobile maker to integrate the iPod Out functionality of the iOS 4. This means that you’ll be able to view your iPod’s screens and menus right on your car’s built-in display. This seemed to be a nice feature, as we no longer have to fiddle with the small menu when we can control our iPod using the bigger display screen in the car.

[via Cnet]

Audi R8 Light Graffiti

Take a look at this incredible photo series by Marc Cameron and Mark Brown. They came out with the outlines of iconic luxury cars using light graffiti.

“Using an original technique of light painting I aimed to create simplified graphic versions of each of these classic shapes. The timeless, current and forward thinking design of each model has made creating these representations a massively inspiring experience,” says Mark Brown

More pictures after the break.

DB7 Light Graffiti

Bugatti Veyron Light Graffiti

TVR Tuscan Light Graffiti

Ferrari F430 Light Graffiti

Morgan Aero Light Graffiti

[via Toxel]

In this episode of Fifth Gear, Jonny Smith is testing out the Smart Car, Volvo C30, and Skoda Superb to find out if they attain the manufacturers claimed fuel economy figures. Video after the break.

[via Techeblog]

Best Motoring is showing the Super Sports Tuned Battle this time. Featuring Advance Auto ZO6, Shadow Sports R35 GT-R, TiRacing Exige, RSD 360, and Porsche GT3 RS on track. Videos after the break.

[via Techeblog]