Video: Honda's Asimo + Kinect = Creepy animatronic hokey-pokey

Filed under: Etc., Japan, Technology, Videos

When the end of the world comes, it will arrive on the shoulders of dancing robots. The researchers behind Asimo, the humanoid robot from Honda, have tapped into the muscle behind the Xbox Kinect system to allow users to control Asimo using nothing more than their own body movements. With self-collision safeguards and upper and lower body correlation programming in place, the adorable face of our robotic overlords is moving more like a human than ever before. What's more, Aismo can now utilize a database of text-inspired gestures as a form of communication.

Why does this matter? In the past, programmers had to individually code the movements in each of Asimo's joints in order for the robot to be able to perform a simple task. The design required a symphony of programming just for the robot to be able to walk across a stage. Now Asimo merely requires a human to move naturally in order to instruct his joints. It's a massive step forward. We're guessing it wouldn't take much to be able to record those movements for future replay, either. Hit the jump to check out the video.

Continue reading Honda's Asimo + Kinect = Creepy animatronic hokey-pokey

Honda's Asimo + Kinect = Creepy animatronic hokey-pokey originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/10/02/hondas-asimo-kinect-creepy-animatronic-hokey-pokey/

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What's the greatest American racing car? [Video]

Apologies to the Discovery Channel, which produced the recent special "America's Greatest Racecar" about the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, but we've been wondering the very same thing. And so we put it to you, America's greatest commentariat. What's the greatest American racing car? More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/jalopnik/full/~3/lB843IqmK9E/whats-the-greatest-american-racing-car

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IBM Studies Navigation That Takes You Where The Advertisers Want You

Quick, what’s the point of having a navigation system in your car? To get where you want to be going, right? Well, IBM has another idea: maybe instead of taking you where you want to go, navigation systems should be offering to take you where a paying advertiser wants you to go. Say, right past [...]

Source: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/09/ibm-studies-navigation-that-takes-you-where-the-advertisers-want-you/

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Video: Drag racing Buick Regal driver loses best seat in the house

Filed under: Motorsports, Coupe, Etc., Videos, Buick, Humor

The only better place to watch a drag race than from the other side of the wall is behind the steering wheel. Then again, that depends on what car you're driving. This gentleman enjoyed the view from the driver's seat of his hopped-up 80's Buick Regal for the holeshot, or just until his seat went from upright to permanently reclined in 1.2 seconds.

All of which just goes to show how souping up a car can sometimes reveal hidden weaknesses in the most surprising ways. Our advice: Do some crunches, get back out there and try again! Check out the disaster-averted hilarity after the jump.

Continue reading Drag racing Buick Regal driver loses best seat in the house

Drag racing Buick Regal driver loses best seat in the house originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/30/drag-racing-buick-regal-driver-loses-best-seat-in-the-house/

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Presenting the First Car and Driver/Car Town Design Contest Winner

As the Facebook fiends among you are already aware, we recently announced a partnership with the game Car Town. Our first in a series of monthly contests has now concluded, and here are the results! September’s challenge was to wrap a Honda Accord in a ?Back to School? design. Last week, our editors chose their [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/0oPD_JxdGAw/

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2010 Land Rover LR4 Test Drive: New Refinement for Off-Road Juggernaut

If there were one major aspect that impresses about the Land Rover, it is the extraordinary breadth of capability shown by the company's cars, not least the LR4 we sampled in Scotland recently.

Source: http://feeds.popularmechanics.com/~r/pm/blogs/automotive_news/~3/M1y8WRB-FMw/4329657.html

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Nissan addresses Leaf battery life, replacement costs

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Nissan

Hundreds, not thousands.

That's the word from Nissan's chief vice-president of global marketing communications, Simon Sproule, who believes that after five years of repeated use, the battery pack in the Nissan Leaf may require some maintenance, but not complete replacement.

Nissan states that after five years (or 60,000 miles) of use, the Leaf's battery pack will still retain at least 80 percent of its original 24-kWh capacity. But if the pack dips below that 80-percent threshold, then Nissan says individual module swap outs - not entire battery pack replacements - will be the most likely solution. Sproule stated:

There's been a lot of debate online about the replacement cost of the battery and it's very unlikely that anyone's going to have to replace the entire battery pack. Typically people will need to replace modules and we can open up the battery pack and do that. There's been a lot of chatter online about tens of thousands of dollars or euros to replace a whole battery pack, but really you want to focus on the modules and these will be in the hundreds, not the thousands.

As for the common concern that daily use of a quick-charge (Level 3) station will degrade battery life, Sproule responded:

If someone uses the fast charging system every day, they would be doing more than 200 miles [daily] and on an annual basis that would be over 70,000 miles. There aren't many people that drive 70,000 miles a year in any car so it's an unlikely scenario that someone would be fast charging every day. The constant heavy recharge cycle is the extreme and we engineer for the extreme but the reality day-to-day will be nowhere near that.

Looks like Sproule has his hands full dispelling Nissan Leaf myths.

Nissan addresses Leaf battery life, replacement costs originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://green.autoblog.com/2011/09/30/nissan-addresses-leaf-battery-life-replacement-costs/

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