October 05, 2005, 5:42 PM PDT
No driver? No problem
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

Yesterday, I was down in the Los Angeles area (at the California Speedway in Fontana) watching a series of cars drive themselves around an obstacle course. It was the qualifying rounds for the DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition where 20 cars race over a 175-mile desert course. Unlike with most off-road racing, the cars aren't permitted to have a driver. DARPA is sponsoring the event to promote research for autonomous vehicles. The cars ran the gamut from home-built by a couple of engineers in their spare time to full-on corporate efforts. For example, JackBot from MonsterMoto was based on a quad-ATV, using laser range finders and GPS to guide itself. One of its small team of engineers told me that some of the other teams' sensors cost more than MonsterMoto's entire vehicle. At the opposite end of the spectrum was Team TerraMax, using a 15-ton military cargo truck from the Oshkosh Truck Corporation. This thing had all the sensors money could buy: GPS, Ladar, radar, stereovision cameras, and a four-plane laser system.

The vehicles had to run the course four to five times, trying to avoid obstacles while getting to the designated waypoints. Among the obstacles were pylons, stacks of car tires, hay bales, concrete barriers, and parked cars. It was fascinating watching the vehicles navigate, sometimes coming very close to the obstacles, sometimes hitting them, and sometimes just running off in a completely random direction. The ones that went off course tended to stop, and it appeared as if they were thinking about how to get back on course. Some would manage it, while others wouldn't. A metal-lined tunnel comprised one obstacle. It completely blocked out GPS, forcing the cars to rely on other sensors to get through. DARPA released the list of qualifying vehicles (PDF) today. These cars will compete on October 8 for the Grand Challenge.

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October 05, 2005, 4:41 PM PDT
Fuel-cell road rally
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

The California Fuel Cell Partnership (CFCP) sponsored a three-day event to show off the current state of fuel-cell vehicles. Cars from every major fuel-cell effort participated, driving from Sacramento to San Francisco with event stops along the way, where the public was invited to try out the cars. I attended the final stop, which was at the San Francisco Presidio. The cars I got to see were the Nissan X-Trail FCV, the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, the GM HydroGen3, the Ford Focus FCV, the VW HyMotion, the Honda FCX, the Toyota FCHV, the Hyundai FCEV, and a fuel-cell-powered Chevy Silverado, which GM built for the Army. These vehicles are driven by electric motors that get their power from fuel cells. All the manufacturers use compressed hydrogen tanks. Most store their hydrogen at 5,000psi, although GM has pushed that up to 10,000psi. The majority of the cars felt like they could be ready for production, with the Honda FCX and Mercedes-Benz F-Cell really standing out. Both cars ran exceptionally smoothly. The Honda is a little quieter because its fuel cells, from UTC Power, don't require a compressor. Other cars ran on Ballard fuel cells, which use a compressor to push air into the cell that makes an audible whine.

The cars work very well, but a refueling infrastructure is needed to make them practical. The CFCP says there are 17 stations around California. It also works with UC Davis's Hydrogen Pathways program, which researches new ways to extract hydrogen from the environment.

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October 05, 2005, 4:40 PM PDT
Toyota Yaris set for U.S. launch
Posted by: Wayne Cunningham

While hunting for new model launches at the Frankfurt Auto Show, I missed one from Toyota. Although I saw the Yaris on the show floor, I assumed--because of its Eastern European-sounding name--that it was a Europe-only car. But Toyota seems to think that we in the United States are more cosmopolitan than we probably are and will announce the U.S. version of the Yaris at the SEMA show in Las Vegas on November 2. This little car uses intelligent variable valve timing on its 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine, producing an underwhelming 106 horsepower. Of course, it will be a winner at the pump. Its audio system is MP3 and CD compatible, and it has an auxiliary jack, something I hope will become standard on all cars.

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October 05, 2005, 1:59 PM PDT
Will PC prices rise?
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

eWeek weighs in with a piece about how rising fuel costs could find their way to PC prices, including small-business desktops now in the $350 to $400 range and $700-and-up laptops.

One analyst says to watch for hidden charges--or hidden subtractions from needed features--as makers hit with higher shipping or component prices use those means to pass them on to buyers without raising list prices: "Often the manufacturers try to bury a price increase by padding shipping charges or by cutting down features, such as RAM allotments, hard drive sizes, or the length of a system's standard warranty."

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October 05, 2005, 12:34 PM PDT
Nvidia's new 3D drivers steal ATI's thunder
Posted by: Rich Brown

Not that a driver release is ever as exciting as the rollout of an entire new product line, but Nvidia followed up ATI's announcement of its Radeon X1000-series 3D cards with some news of its own.

Nvidia's new release 80 driver (technically ForceWare version 81.84, available here) eliminates one of the major irritations of Nvidia's SLI technology: the fact that you previously couldn't pair together two cards from different vendors. You still need to match up the same GeForce chips, but now you can combine the OEM GeForce card that came with your PC with a store-bought secondary card from any vendor you want.

The new software also lets you mix and match cards of different memory sizes, and it lends support for HD deinterlacing. Also, it supposedly increases performance with dual-core CPUs. Time and testing will show the truth of those claims, but compared to ATI's still retail-MIA CrossFire, SLI just got even better.

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October 05, 2005, 12:01 PM PDT
Before you put a PC on the Internet …
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

When you have a small business, you set up your own stuff a lot of the time--it's not worth the time and hassle to pay someone else to do it. Still, unless you're an expert, you may be terrified you're doing something wrong.

From CNET cousin TechRepublic comes a nice list of "10 things you should do to a new PC before connecting it to the Internet" (registration required). The link will take you to a page where you can download the free PDF.

Tips include a lot of obvious stuff, but it's great to have the list, which includes the following:

Make a starter CD-ROM

Turn off unnecessary Windows services

Install and configure a router

Some of the items just dejunk the machine, others have to do with security or performance. Take a look at the 10 and include your comments or additions to the list. Please.

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October 05, 2005, 11:41 AM PDT
Opera: it's working, it's working!
Posted by: Molly Wood

In a press release today, Opera announced that downloads of its now-free browser have quadrupled since the change. Opera also says it has the strongest security record of any browser. Ahem. I'm sure the Firefox folks have a few choice words about the luxury of being unknown and therefore not a target.

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October 05, 2005, 11:39 AM PDT
Apple's next big thing: a BonoBot?
Posted by: Molly Wood

OK, OK, just kidding. It's looking like Apple's October 12 announcement will be a video iPod, and frankly, if it's not, I don't know what the heck they're thinking over there. But I think I used up all my iPod excitement with the last thing, and that's turning into a bit of a letdown, anyway. So...ho hum.

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October 05, 2005, 10:03 AM PDT
Creative Zen Micro Photo released in Singapore
Posted by: Jasmine France

We've been waiting and waiting and finally, it's here! OK, well, not here exactly, but the fact that the Creative Zen Micro Photo is for sale at all is a good sign that it will be out in the United States in time for the holidays. Right now, the player is available at the company's Singapore-based online store for S$469, which is about $277 U.S. Not awful for an 8GB device with a color OLED screen, but we're hoping prices come down a bit for the stateside release. Here are some more specs to digest:

• 3.3 by 2 by 0.7 inches (same as the monochrome-screen Micro)
• 4 ounces
• 1.5-inch screen
• 96dB signal-to-noise ratio
• Rated 15-hour battery life
• Removable, rechargeable battery
• FM radio and recorder
• Voice recorder
• Onboard calendar
• Supports MP3, WMA, Janus, WAV, IMA ADPCM
• Supports JPEG files and slide shows
• USB 2.0 connectivity

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October 05, 2005, 7:40 AM PDT
Building a Mac Mini media center
Posted by: Dan Ackerman

People just love their little Mac Minis, don't they? The latest home-brew project to push the limits of the sandwich-size box is a do-it-yourself media center, detailed on enthusiast site MacMerc.com. They sketch out a plan for outsourcing TV tuner duties to an external Plextor ConnectX USB box (as seen in our Entertainment PC resource center) to take in your TV signal, then use the Elgato EyeTV DVR software that comes with the Mac version to record shows. Pretty simple idea, but it saves Mac fans from having to open up their cases--not that there's really anything to open on the Mini--to get onboard with that whole trendy DVR thing.

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