You used to know where you were with BMW. It made dependable, fun-to-drive sedans, with the occasional foray into GT cars like the 6 and 8 Series. But then the car buying public went mad, and everyone decided they really wanted a wagon. But they wouldn't buy actual wagons, apparently because of the association with mom's station wagon from the '70s. And they wouldn't buy hatchbacks, either, because those were only for college kids. So the marketers took those form factors and jacked them up in the air, adding some styling tweaks meant to suggest the utilitarianism of military surplus.
Because BMW wants to keep selling cars, it joined in on the fun with its range of X vehicles: SUVs, crossovers, and the increasingly odd Sports Activity Coupes. It's to the latter category that its newest vehicle belongs—meet the BMW X2.
Honda has shown another plan for a dedicated electric vehicle that serves as an indicator that the Japanese automaker is serious about EVs and AI, all while embracing some of its heritage when it comes to design.
The Honda Sports EV Concept shown Tuesday at the Tokyo Motor Show is a companion to the Urban EV Concept shown in September at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt. While that Frankfurt show car recalled some of the earliest Honda hatchbacks from the 1970s, the Sports EV is meant to go back even further to the first cars Honda produced, including the S600 and S800 coupes that competed with MGs and Triumph sports cars of the 1960s.
Yet, under the sports car body, the Honda Sports EV Concept hides some of the...
For many western countries, doorstep milk delivery is a thing of the past, but in Japan, millions of people still rely on the milkman for fresh milk everyday. Many traditional Japanese homes have milk delivery boxes, which are wooden boxes nailed outside the house where the milkman can drop bottles or cartons of milk—just like postmen drop mails in the mailbox. Some of the newer boxes are made of plastic and has Styrofoam insulation on the inside. Some milk shops even include a recyclable coolant pack with each delivery to keep the milk cold.
“Home delivery of dairy products, such as milk and yogurt, is a service that surprisingly is still available even these days thanks to the marketing efforts of the milk companies to combat lack of consumer interest which had been dwindling throughout the 1980s,” states an article on Phantom River Stone.
polestar, previously volvo’s performance and motorsport arm and now a brand in its own right, has unveiled its first vehicle at an event in shanghai, reiterating the brand’s electric performance credentials. called the polestar 1, the new model shows off the new brand’s focus on electrification, utilising a high performance petrol-electric plug-in hybrid drivetrain that generates 447kw of power and a staggering 1000nm of torque divided between the turbo and supercharged four...
Microsoft has been testing its latest Windows 10 Fall Creators Update over the past six months, and it's now ready to roll out to existing machines today. While Microsoft’s “Creators Update” naming extends to this latest Windows 10 update, a lot of the features are new additions that will be used by all Windows users. Microsoft is officially launching its Windows Mixed Reality (VR) headsets with the Fall Creators Update, and it’s finally bringing its contact integration to the Windows 10 task bar.
Most of the improvements in the Fall Creators Update are minor, and some have even been delayed until a future update. Microsoft is also starting to tweak the overall look and feel of Windows 10 with its new Fluent Design in the Fall Creators...
Microsoft’s existing Surface Mouse is by all accounts excellent, but if you’re someone who prefers more functionality from your mouse than just a left click, right click, and a scroll wheel, you’ve been out of luck with the company’s Surface-branded gear.
The company’s newly announced Surface Precision Mouse should help fill that gap with a device that looks to marry the simple comfort of the original Surface Mouse with the more advanced customization of something like Logitech’s MX Master S2.
Along with the new design, the Surface Precision Mouse adds three customizable buttons that can be programmed to do things like launch programs, execute macros, or even save documents. You can also pair the Surface Precision Mouse...
There’s a well-known thought experiment in the world of artificial intelligence that poses a simple, but potentially very scary, question: what if we asked a super-intelligent AI to make paperclips?
This may not sound terrifying at first, but as Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom (who first described the parable) explains, it all depends on how well we’ve trained the AI. If we’ve given it common sense, it might ask us: “How many paperclips do you want?” If it doesn’t know to ask, it might just make paperclips forever. And, if it’s a super-intelligent AI that we’ve accidentally forgotten to program with any human ethics or values, it might decide that the most efficient way to make paperclips is to wipe out humanity and terraform the planet...
This past weekend, Microsoft made official what was already known for years: the Windows Phone mobile operating system is dead. There’ll be no further development, no miraculous Windows 10 Mobile revivals, and no further attempts to compete with the overwhelming duopoly of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The new Microsoft, led by Satya Nadella, prefers collaboration over competition — or at least that’s the choice the company tells itself it has made in abandoning its thwarted mobile OS venture.
But the overall failure of Windows Phone masks a series of smaller successes and advances, which Microsoft and its hardware partners have never received enough credit for. At its outset in 2010, Windows Phone was the boldest and most original...
Most remember October 29th, 1929—also known as Black Tuesday—as the day when the New York stock market crashed. However, it was also the day when one of the most horrific tragedy involving human-animal conflict happened at the Brooklyn Bridge.
On that awful day a trio of three circus elephants, including the star attraction—a thirteen-foot-tall African elephant named Jumbo, was to cross the Brooklyn Bridge and into New York. The event was greatly publicized and crowds of people came from miles around to see Jumbo. While crossing the bridge, something caused the animals to panic and what was to be a slow and deliberate cross suddenly became a deadly stampede as the three elephants charged into the cheering crowd. Aside from scores of human casualty, two of the elephants died in the stampede, while Jumbo escaped to freedom through the Holland Tunnel and lived out his days at an elephant sanctuary.
The memorial to the 1929 Brooklyn Bridge Elephant Stampede. Photo credit: Joe Reginella
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