tech

GPS-based road train - Click above for gallery

It goes by the name "Sartre," but it has nothing to do with existentialism and just a little bit to do with exits. The Safe Road Trains for the Environment program is a three-year European study centering on the creation of 'platoons' of drivers behind a lead vehicle on the highway. It involves wiring cars to speak to each other, and to a lead vehicle - the platoon commander - behind which up to eight cars could follow in automated bliss.

The Mazda Sky D diesel and Sky G gasoline engines are meant to bring "everlasting blue sky" to oversee "sustainable Zoom-Zoom." Both utilize low-friction engine blocks, direct injection and piezo-electric injectors. The Sky G is fitted with a "highly functional variable valve timing mechanism," and the Sky D gets a 2-stage turbocharger besides.

Together with technologies such as the Sky Drive 6-speed transmission, i-stop, regenerative braking and lighter vehicles, these lumps will form the core of Mazda's goal of a 30% increase in fuel economy in the coming years. You can read more about them after the jump, and check them out in the gallery of high-res photos below.

Microsoft Surface is, at its most basic, a table-sized touchscreen computer. You can play with them at rather select locations, but we haven't yet begun to see what the thing can do because there aren't enough people investing in applications for it. But for a glimpse of a potential automotive use, Neue Digitale / Razorfish (ND/R) created a configurator that turns accessorizing into building a car in your bare hands.

Audi's Multi-Media Interface, which is arguably the best of the various all-in-one graphical user interface systems favored, has just got better.

According to Audi, resolution on the system's 6.5-inch screen is getting bumped up to 800 x 480, route calculation will happen faster with a 600 MHz processor, and you can scroll along the route - not just vertically and horizontally - and get speed limit data on highways.

Additionally, the system will also finally charge external MP3 players that are plugged in to the system, song titles will be displayed,

There's no doubt that car dashboards will soon be swept up in the technology revolution -- but rear-view mirrors? Korean company NeoView Kolon developed a kind of transparent transistor for an OLED display, and now they have found a way to integrate that technology into a rear-view mirror. As seen above, the mirror would display what looks like speed as well as two other numerical indicators, what gear you're in, and a host of ancillary information.

If it is really meant for rear-view mirrors we have to wonder what the scientists at NeoView are doing when they drive. It seems unlikely that one could quickly note the information and tell what's going on behind the car. But if nothing else, we certainly applaud the technology.

Not long ago, the premium German manufacturers said they were going to push diesels instead of hopping on the hybrid train, but we see where that's gone: Porsche has hybrids, BMW is pushing its coming hybrids, and Mercedes is oozing its hybrid desires everywhere. Of course, all three brands have diesels, too, but they seem to be hedging their bets that gas-electric is the wave of the future... at least for North America. Now, Mazda has gone on record with CNN, saying that it is dedicated to diesels and weight reduction, and the company plans to have a diesel that can post mild hybrid-like fuel economy numbers by 2011.

Glimmers of hope are arguably about all Saab has to hang onto now, but the Swedish brand hasn't stopped reaching for them. Saab is currently in bankruptcy proceedings while parties on both sides look to extricate the quirky automaker from parent General Motors' web.

D-Box aims to put viewers into the movies they've paid to go see by moving the chairs they sit in. It works by translating the onscreen action into motion code, which is then used to control chairs equipped with actuators that can pinch, roll, heave, and vibrate the seat in sync with whatever's being watched. For those of you wondering if the upcoming Fast & Furious could get any better (we use that term loosely), you'll be thrilled to hear it's the first major release to use D-Box technology.

In another case of Nature to the Rescue, scientists have come up with a polyurethane coating that repairs itself in the sun. The secret ingredient: chitosan, which comes from the shells of crustaceans and is also used for water filtration, blood clotting and as a diet aid. The common principle appears to be that it as a binding agent, i.e. it wants to hold certain things together.

If your car is scratched and it has the chitosan-injected coating, when put in the sun the chitosan "bonds with other materials in the substance, eventually smoothing the scratch" in less than an hour. No muss, no fuss, no messy clean up. However, the magic only works once -- the coating can't repair itself in the same place twice. Researchers also haven't yet studied how wide a scratch can be before it cannot heal itself.

DAWS concept - Click above for gallery

When Charles Pyott considered the possibility of on-the-fly adjustable camber, he looked at motorcycles, the human foot and cars like the Mercedes F400 Carving and the BMW Clever. What he came up with isn't something you'll find on any of them: the Dynamically Augmenting Wheel System, or DAWS.