tech

Honda's F1 team gives up green for green

Honda's Formula One racing team is to forgo millions of dollars in sponsorship revenue this season by replacing the valuable advertising real-estate on its cars' exteriors with an image of the Earth. The cars, which last year sported decals promoting eco-unfriendly Lucky Strike cigarettes, will this year be adorned with a huge blue and green environmentally inspired graphic.

In the press release accompanying today's official unveiling of the car at London's Natural History Museum, the automaker said it was eschewing the temptation to turn its RA107 car into a 200mph billboard in order to "raise awareness … Read more

A jug that keeps moths in check

Michael Banfield is proud of his jug filled with insect pheromones. He's managing partner at SpringStar, which sells biopesticides that work like this: Hormones from female gypsy moths are sprayed into the air, sending the males into a frenzy as they think that females are everywhere. They fail to find a real one and die before they can breed.

It's one of the technologies being touted at the Cleantech Forum this week in San Francisco, a conference where so-called green start-ups show off their wares to venture capitalists. SpringStar is working with researchers at the University of Washington … Read more

News Roundup: Digg gets OpenID, Flickr downtime, 37signals Highrise teaser, Blinkx + Sproose partnership

Digg to adopt OpenID. Later this year, Digg will be adding OpenID to its site. OpenID, which we looked at back in September, creates a master password similar to what you get with Microsoft's Live ID, but it's not proprietary. ( TechCrunch)

Flickr outage reveals site's scale. Flickr wasn't working yesterday, but fear not--it's back up. The problem mixed up a large number of photos across the site, which quickly led to Yahoo shutting down the service for several hours. Interestingly enough, the outage revealed that at times, the site serves over a billion photos a day. ( … Read more

Keep your eyes on the windshield

We at Crave would never advocate speeding or any other illegal activity on the road, but we do think it's only fair that motorists get a fighting chance against overzealous, quota-driven traffic cops (this is America, dammit). Besides, this windshield speed projector can actually help you keep your eyes on the road, making it easier to dial a cell phone phone or watch a DVD while behind the wheel.

GlobalTop Technology's "GPS HUD Speed Meter" projects your miles per hour on the windshield so your eyes don't need to drop down to the dashboard for … Read more

Porsche Panamera photos send shivers

Car Online in the UK is reporting that it has snagged photos of the Porsche Panamera.

Is that something to be proud of? I'm not so sure.

The Panamera is the four-door sedan rumored to be in development at Porsche, as the company begins to go the way of Ralph Lauren in terms of dulling brand impact. The rumors have recently reached a simmering point with 2009 as the expected date of release.

The car seems to be based on the 928 GT, as you can see from this photo compared with those of the Panamera on Car Online.… Read more

Working scale model of the Ferrari 312PB

For anyone who has cursed those couple of pieces leftover after putting together a model car, this is enough to make your eyes water. Frenchman Pierre Scerri spent 20,000 hours building a perfect, working replica of the Ferrari 312PB. His design drawing, based on photographs of the original, apparently took three years alone.

After that, he spent another 12 years building a fully functioning replica of the car, including a miniature version of its dry-sump fuel-injected 12-cylinder engine and its five-speed gearbox. Check out the video and listen to what Scerri calls the Ferrari "music."

VentureOne: A new angle on hybrids

Hybrid cars? Blah. Three-wheeled-cars? Blah. Three-wheeled hybrid cars? Blah.

Tilting three-wheeled hybrid cars? Now that's worth craving. Venture Vehicles has unveiled plans for its VentureOne, a two-seat plug-in three-wheeler with a glass canopy roof that can out-accelerate a Porsche Boxster, and gets 100 miles to the gallon. If that's not enough to get you reaching for your checkbook (estimated price is less than $20,000), then this might be: The VentureOne's passenger compartment and front wheel tilt when cornering for that authentic motocross experience.

The VentureOne will come with three engine choices: two gasoline-electric hybrids and one … Read more

Hydroponic plant farming in your house? Hmm...

I have a funny story about this Electrolux Vege that I read about on GadgetCandy. It's a prototype for a fridge-sized hydroponic plant-growing cupboard that will allow you to grow your own plants and herbs in the comfort of your own home. If you want to be mega-eco-friendly but don't have the time or space for a full-fledged garden or greenhouse, here's a solution. Cool, right? So I decided to Crave it.

Then it occurred to me that the Vege might gain more popularity as an incubator for plants that are a little bit more on the … Read more

Chrysler's in-car phonograph

Not much surprises us nowadays on the CNET Car Tech channel. In this age of mobile, voice-activated, wireless, digital, high-definition, mesh-networked, in-car infotainment, we hardly bat an eyelid as torrents of new automotive gadgets comes down the pike.

But here's something that made us sit up and take notice: an in-car phonograph. According to an article on the UAW-DaimlerChrysler National Training Center Web site, these record players--made by Columbia and offered as options on 1956 Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge, and Plymouth models--could handle 45-speed records as well as 7-inch records in the new 16-2/3 format. The players were installed … Read more