Category: Techie

Posted on

From Engadget: Happy Biiiirthday Mr USAF X-37B Robot Space Plane

The X-37B was only meant to stay up in space for a gestational nine months, but a full year has now passed since launch and the US Air Force apparently has little interest in bringing its baby home. On the contrary: according to Space.com, the plan is to send up another unmanned space plane to keep the X-37B company on its [CLASSIFIED] missions. Whatever it’s getting up to in that airless playground, it must be doing something right. Air Force Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre says the craft is “setting the standard for a reusable space plane and, on this one-year orbital milestone, has returned great value on the experimental investment.” Which is a fine way of saying [STILL CLASSIFIED].

 

from Engadget

Posted on

From Engadget: Toshiba builds scanner that can identify fruit without a barcode, yup

During our hurried supermarket sweeps, we’re aiming for the Granny Smith, yet somehow always come away with French Jonagold. That’s why we’re in awe of this new supermarket scanner from Toshiba-Tech that can identify individual species of fruit and veg from sight. Rather than a cashier keying in a produce code, a camera with optical pattern recognition technology filters out “visual noise” before identifying the genus of your apple by shape, surface pattern and coloration. It’s also able to scan labels and coupons, but so far the database only contains a handful of items. It’ll take over a year (when each thing has been harvested and scanned) to build a database necessary to make it commercially useful. Still, if you can’t bear to wait those precious seconds as your server finds the right code for lettuce, head on past the break to watch your future in action.

Continue reading Toshiba builds scanner that can identify fruit without a barcode, yup (video)

 

from Engadget

Posted on

From Autoblog: Report: Fisker Karma owned by Consumer Reports breaks down

Filed under: , , ,

Like pretty much any driver, we’ve had our share of car trouble over the years, both with vehicles loaned to us for review by automakers and our own private rides. What we haven’t experienced is being the first media outlet to plunk down over $100,000 for a luxury plug-in hybrid, only to have it konk out before we even put 200 miles on it.

That “honor” goes to Consumer Reports and their brand new Fisker Karma, which broke down during calibration tests, just a few days into CR‘s ownership period. After the dashboard flashed a warning, the driver stopped to see what was wrong, and then couldn’t get the PHEV into gear again. Self-repairs (i.e., let’s leave it alone for an hour and see what happens) didn’t work and the manual was no help, so the nearby dealer sent out a flatbed truck to haul the Karma away. As CR writes:

We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.

The Karma’s problems are widespread. It has been plagued by a variety of problems, including two recalls, one for a software glitch and one for battery issues, following a long delay getting the car to market. Owners commenting on the FiskerBuzz forum are also reporting various issues. Not exactly behavior that leads to a “Recommended” rating.

Continue reading Fisker Karma owned by Consumer Reports breaks down

Fisker Karma owned by Consumer Reports breaks down originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

from Autoblog