Engine Noise Reduction For The Toyota Crown Hybrid

My apologies for giving you two car posts in a row, but this has presented with the unique opportunity to waffle on about a Toyota hybrid without ever having to consider how environmentally friendly or green it is. What’s more, it provides me with the opportunity to mention the words Toyota and hybrid in the same sentence without having to talk about the Prius – a unique combination that warrants this post.

The Crown Hybrid from Toyota had raised a few eyebrows thanks to its particularly noisy engine. In order to reduce petrol consumption (for the sake of saving money, obviously, and nothing to do with the environment), the engine runs at low revs and therefore pumps out more noise than a 3 year old Xbox 360 fan.

To counteract this, Toyota has added three microphones to the ceiling of the car that register and record the noise output. Three speakers then playing noise cancelling digital sounds (otherwise known as antiphase signals) reduce the ambient engine sound by 5 decibels or more. We don’t have the first idea if it works, and the idea sounds ludicrous in concept, but you just never know. The Active Noise Control system is constantly operational when the car is running and apparently has no effect on the stereo or audio system in the car.

Land Rover LRX Concept Turbodiesel Hybrid Car

Concept cars are always a little disappointing because they essentially cost way to much to actually produce despite looking incredible. You can salivate or do whatever else you choose to over them but it’s rare that a good concept will go into production. Even when they do, the production models can be even more disappointing when you realise that it was billed as a prototype for a reason. Essentially, manufacturers get the opportunity to show consumers what they could but probably won’t actually do.

The Land Rover LRX is most likely to fall into the latter category of disappointments because Land Rover has stated that “a production model” will be released early next decade. As well as looking pretty beefy and downright evil (those squinted eyes follow you around the room I tell you) it also boasts being the most ecologically friendly vehicle in its class with a turbodiesel hybrid four wheel drive.

A diesel engine runs the two front wheels while an electric engine runs the back two. You enjoy four wheel drive while sort of doing your bit for the environment. Of course, you’ll still get badgered by tree hugging hippies but you can try to persuade them that it really is green because it can run on biofuel.

So there you have it, estate agents can now drive around in a slightly greener four wheel drive – super.

Your Own Mario Wall

Not so much cutting edge as retro geek chic, you can buy a range of Nintendo wall vinyl stickers to adorn your kid’s or your own, if you’re brave enough to own up to it, walls. I’m not quite sure how well the design would work in the front room or the dining room, but there’s always a place in the home for Mario and Donkey Kong.

The vinyls can even be removed and put up on another wall should the fancy take you and because they’re stickers and not rolls of actual wallpaper you can design your own Mario mash up or your own Donkey Kong level. In fact, you could design a Mario Kong level if that was what you really wanted to do.

As well as the original Super Mario Brothers and the old school Donkey Kong designs there is also a New Super Mario Brothers collection and if you want to go even more retro you might want to consider Space Invaders stickers too. Imagine how cool the games room is going to look when you’ve plastered the walls with games. None of your crappy paper posters or original concept art, or any of that either.

Liquid Metal Based CPU Cooling System

It’s a shame, in many respects, to learn that the image is of a CPU cooler because it looks so cool. Terms like liquid metal based cooler do little to make it any less cool either, although it could be some time before it’s actually released. The exact details of the liquid metal are being kept a closely guarded secret but suggestions include the same liquid metal from the Terminator films or mercury.

Perhaps liquid metal is more a descriptive term and its actually created using miniature replicators from Stargate SG1. Obviously, they’d have to have had their base code rewritten in order that they don’t attempt to become human form replicators and destroy all of human kind, but theoretically…

Perhaps the most sensible suggestion is the wait and see, view the banchmarks, read the reviews, and get the latest news as it floods in in the coming months. The only details there are so far, are that it’s designed by a company called Danamics and the technology allows for more effective, efficient, and quieter cooling than water cooling systems offer. You’d think they’d let the 95% of the world’s population using jet engine fans to convert to water first.

Grow Your Own At Work - The USB Greenhouse

The USB Greenhouse is a quite unique little gift that is the perfect gift for the special botanist in your life (you know who you are, right?). The egg shaped green house is not just the perfect size for a small plant to grow healthily and your computer doesn’t just act as a power source to give the plant ideal growing conditions, but it will even monitor its growth and conditions to ensure that you haven’t killed it and aren’t in the process of doing so – it’ll even tell you when it needs watering.

It includes a hydroponic soil variant and growth light as well as a removable tray and some marigold seeds to get you started. Next time you’re called to a meeting that you really don’t want to attend you could try using the excuse that your plant needs watering and even provide emailed evidence to back up your story. It might well get you fired and then you’d need a new home for your little plant, but because the USB greenhouse is compatible with any Windows 2000 or XP based computer it shouldn’t be too difficult to find another.

Stuck Up Chewing Gum Magnets

Is there any substance in the world that has the same elasticity and adhesive qualities as chewed gum? Get it in your hair and it’ll never come out without the assistance of scissors, and get it on your shoe and you’ll be more likely to leave your shoe behind that the piece of bubble gum. And yet, there’s something socially irrepressible about using chewed up gum as a viable adhesive, but there’s a solution to hand.

Stuck Up magnets, as they are called, look the spitting image of chewed up bits of gum and, as long as your intended surface is metal, they’re equally as effective at sticking but devoid of any of the negative side effects. Each of the four colours or flavours, which include gum, spearmint, peppermint, and tutti frutti, really do look realistic – in fact you can also smell the Wrigley’s goodness just looking at the picture can’t you?

The teeth prints add a little extra to the design, we think, while the high powered magnet that is enveloped by the seemingly realistic gum will easily stick to your fridges and other white goods as well as your lockers (should you still be attending school) and any other metal item.

Sony Ericsson To Announce Something On Monday

Sony Ericsson has either planned a huge next step in the evolution of the Walkman phone, or they’re about to look like complete half wits. They’ve set up a tantalisingly vague website at http://www.sonyericsson.com/reveals/ that reveals absolutely no information and is just a bid to build a little excitement over something that’s going to happen on the 22nd July at 9 o’clock in the morning (I know that because of the particularly useful little countdown timer that is included on the website.)

There will be a live webcast and an announcement made simultaneously, and you can register to receive either, or just wait to be informed. If it’s good it’ll be on every technology website in the world, and if it’s bad the site will quickly disappear and somebody in the marketing department as SE will be sacked.

There’s not really a lot else we can say except that the site boasts the announcement will be regarding the next chapter in the Sony Walkman phone and that the site is very Orange (not that that has anything to do with anything, but it really is very Orange). Talk about bigging it up, it better be worth it.

Pocket Surfer 2

The Pocket Surfer 2 does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, it surfs through your pockets twice. The QWERTY keyboard surfer actually works, which is always a joy, and while there are many phones available that enable you to log onto the Internet, check your email, and the such, squinting to read the page and scrolling down every four and a half words is not the most appealing way to check our latest posts.

When you learn that the pocket surfer will indeed tidy neatly into pretty much any pocket it’s surprisingly to then learn that the screen is 5” and offers great colour quality and page clarity. What’s even more surprising, though, is the price it costs to surf. Mobile data plans aren’t the most affordable and the pocket surfer isn’t that cheap at marginally under £200 but that includes 20 hours per month of free surfing for 12 months and £40 per month for the same package in the 2nd year.

Connection isn’t what you might be used to at home, but it can boast page load times averaging 6-7 seconds so it’s better than pretty much all but the very best mobile phone data packages and connections. You can use any network, depending on your own preferences.

iPhone Applications - G-Park

We tried our best to let the iPhone 3G launch with only the most essential pieces covering the “momentous” event because the original iPhone was so heavily swathed in media mayhem that it became almost unbearable. In all honesty, a browse around a few gadget and technology sites for most of the last week or so has shown that this launch was equally annoying.

However, we felt it was about time we started to look at a few of the applications that have also been launched. We’re starting with the G-Park, which enables you to basically set a waypoint on the GPS software that tells you where you parked your car. Not only will it then display on the map but you can get GPS style directions back to your vehicle. Ideal for those of you that lose their cars when visiting such towns as York (or, is that only me?).

Available from today, the G-Park is compatible with both iPhone models, although on the original you will only get a map display. With the 3G iPhone you will also get the full directional assistance without the need for a compass or following the night sky.

Alienware Area 51 Gaming Laptop

The latest Alienware laptop is, as you might imagine if you know of Alienware, a mighty powerful beast that is designed specifically with hardcore gamers in mind. The Area 51 laptop is heavy in various departments weighing more than 5kg and costing nearly £1,500 for a bog standard edition but you do get some hefty power for your pound.

As seems to be the trend when knocking one of these up lately, it’s based around the Core 2 Extreme processor from Intel and it utilises two of the most powerful Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTX graphics cards – because realistically, of course, one is just never enough if there’s even the slightest possibility that you can stuff two of them in there.

High definition features include an HDMI output, 1200p resolution support, and a built in TV tuner but no Blu Ray drive built in bizarrely. Options are pretty limited, enabling you to choose up to 4GB of RAM and up to a 640GB hard drive (with capacity for 1.5TB). For the beefy model you shouldn’t expect to be carrying much change home from £2,000 but this really is one serious piece of gaming kit.

The design is actually quite mundane for gaming gear, usually they’re all bright colours and neon lights, but the Area 51 clearly doesn’t think it needs to brag too much.

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