For everything from family to computers…
This is insane. 152,455 Lego bricks, 677 pounds (307 kilograms) and 6.56 feet long (2 meters). That’s how amazing this Lego cut-out of a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine is. It has over 160 separate engine components just arranged like the engine that power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. More »
from Gizmodo
Strangely, the Austrian city of Klagenfurt doesn’t have a public library, even though it hosts the Festival of German-Language Literature. However, an initiative dubbed Project Ingeborg is turning the municipality into a book repository of sorts with 70 QR code and NFC chip-equipped stickers. Plastered throughout town, they direct users to web pages where they can download public domain works, largely from Project Gutenberg. Oftentimes, e-books will be located in relevant locations — so you’ll be sure to find Arthur Schnitzler’s The Killer near the police station, for example. Come August, the team behind the effort will partner with local talent to distribute books, music and other digital content too. In an effort to build a stronger bond to the location, the organizers have prevented search engines from indexing the links, so you’ll have to visit Klagenfurt to access the curated goods. If you’d like to turn your city into a library, the group hopes to release instructions for replicating their system soon.
from Engadget
If you regularly snap pages of hardcopy text on your smartphone for perusing later, then an Android app being developed by Fujifilm may just tick your literary boxes. Called GT-Layout, it automatically carves up a photo containing text so that each character becomes a separate image. These sub-images can then be reformatted with line breaks to fit your screen area and preferred level of zoom — so you don’t have to pinch and pan so much and there’s no need for OCR. Want to try it? Then you’ll have to wait. GT-Layout is reportedly coming in an update to Fujifilm’s Dropbox client, GT-Document Lite, but there’s no sign of it appearing there just yet.
from Engadget
Another fun find on Facebook. I love these simple photo-based project how-tos that are starting to show up on FB and G+ with increased frequency. The chocolate bowl I posted a few days ago has gotten a lot of attention and makers trying it out. If you try any of these quick n’ dirty hacks you see here, or you spot some especially clever ones on Facebook and G+ (or elsewhere), please send them to us.
More:
How-To: Make a Chocolate Bowl Using a Balloon
from MAKE
The choices in the electric motorcycle market just keep getting juicier, and while you’ll still have to stick with the more established brands like Brammo, Zero or BRD if you’re looking to make a purchase, a hot new prototype has just been unveiled that threatens to make them all look a little bit… pedestrian. It’s called the Roskva from a team of five students at the University of Life Sciences (UMB) in Oslo, Norway. Like a MotoGP bike it has an all carbon fiber unified frame and bodywork that weighs less than 25kg and even rolls on carbon wheels. A 94HP motor provides the oomph and delivers a top speed of about 112MPH, with a maximum range of 62 miles. No word on when or if the thing might make it into actual production, but we can say for sure that there’s a second picture of the thing just waiting for you right after the break, still in that same garage that is far, far neater than ours.
[Image credit: Henrik Holmberg]
from Engadget
One of the biggest issues preventing the electric car from taking over the roads is their incredibly limited battery life. But researchers at the Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have demonstrated a new system that could let electric cars constantly recharge while they’re being driven. More »
from Gizmodo
Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Performance, BMW, Luxury
We’ve learned to expect that hybrid vehicles will produce lower emissions and fuel-consumption scores than their standard gasoline-burning siblings. What we generally don’t expect, however, is for that same hybrid to be quicker to 60 than its turbocharged brother or for it to make more overall horsepower.
Such is the case with the BMW ActiveHybrid 3, which offers up 340 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque from its 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline six and electric motor combination – useful gains from the 300 hp and 300 lb-ft in the 335i. Those added ponies allow the Hybrid 3 to hit 62 miles per hour in just 5.3 seconds, a .2-second improvement, according to the automaker, over the thirstier 335i.
BMW says the Hybrid 3 can travel up to 2.5 miles on electricity alone at speeds of up to 46 miles per hour, though not at the same time, of course, and fuel efficiency of about 40 miles per gallon on the EU test cycle. Expect the U.S. EPA figure to vary from that figure.
A lithium ion battery pack resides in the trunk, and it’s made up of 96 individual cells with a rated output of 675 Wh. Power is sent to the rear wheels from the dual drivetrain through an eight-speed automatic gearbox that shares its outer casing with the 55-hp electric motor. Naturally, there’s a rather prominent badge on the C-pillar displaying the car’s fuel-saving credentials, as you can see in our image gallery above.
Full details can be found in the press release below, but there’s still no word on when we can expect to see the ActiveHybrid 3 in the States or what it may cost if and when it arrives.
from Autoblog