Designed by Henrique Xavier as a degree project, at UFPE University, Brazil, the ROCAM, which stands for “ostensive round with support from motorcycles” in Portuguese, is a high-tech bike for Brazilian police force that makes extensive use of motorcycles in their service. Powered by a 400cc motor, the Viatura Rocam comes integrated with a radio, police lights and an on-board computer, so the cops can accesses the INFOSEG (a Brazilian police network) right on the road. The power bike also features an adjustable handlebar and pedals to make long bike rides more comfortable than ever before. Separating the access buttons on the bikes handles, the ROCAM includes the biking related controls (horn, lights and gears) on the left hand and foot, and the police related (police lights and radio) on the right hand side. The helmet comes with a Bluetooth speaker and microphone system that are connected to the handlebar commands. Moreover, the motorcycle incorporates an active suspension system that can adjust the bike height according to the terrain.

Clear Channel’s own iPhone app, iHeartRadio, was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first 20 weeks it was made available to the public, the company said Monday.

Exquisite craftsmanship with aesthetic and elegant design style is what LUXA2 commits to deliver, and their M1-Pro laptop cooler looks to be no exception. Crafted from a block of aluminum, the M1-Pro has been designed with ergonomics in mind, thereby offering a perfect viewing angle and comfort for your neck and legs. You can stay more relaxed by raising the
laptop display to eye level. The brushed finish is corrosion resistant and gives a shiny look to the
laptop cooler. Elegant design with Swarovski crystallized elements makes the M1-Pro highly glamorous and desirable. The M1-Pro allows superior heat dissipation by providing a direct heat conduction path between the laptop’s bottom casing and M1-Pro’s aluminum surface. The M1-Pro cooler looks to be the just right thing you need to rest your luxurious
laptop.

For those who like to spend their vacations on-board, far from the hectic city life and surrounded by the serenity of the sea, this playful yacht design from the
design team at Studio de Voogt, will revise your perception. The yacht
design is designed to indulge everyone in the family, from the kids to the adults, with its family-centric
design. The C-stream
design features spacious outdoor area, with the outside aft deck featuring a dock and a number of ‘pop-up’ pieces of furniture. The aft deck features an adjustable waterslide for other recreational activities too and it can act independently as a floating island, leaving the dock open for use as a paddling pool for younger children. When docked, the float complements the
design of the wavedeck. This unique, multi-functional wavedeck allows you liberty to use it just as you desire. Read the rest of this entry »

Fancy a cooking robot to help you roll out a gourmet treat this Christmas? We have earlier told you about some of the finest humanoid robots, including the Chinese AIC-AI cooking robot that is capable of making Sichuan, Shandong and Canton cuisines along with thousands of Chinese dishes. But, for the Japanese food-lover, the multi-talented Motoman SDA10 from Yaskawa Electric is a perfect robot-servant that can grill okonomiyaki with manual precision. When done with grilling the dish, Motoman even puts it on a plate and applies condiments. Designed to operate independently alongside humans in the workplace, the 135-centimeter (4.5 ft) tall, 220-kilogram (480 lb) industrial robot has 15 joints — 7 in each arm and one in the torso — allowing a wide range of motion for the job, whether it be on the factory floor or behind the kitchen counter. The robot is on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair now underway in Osaka. The company reported a sales plan: 1,200 units/year for 2008, 2,400 units/year for 2009, 3,000 units/year for 2010 or after.

German tuners Supersport have a “jewel” of a car on display at the Essen Motor Show. The word jewel is pretty much in the literal sense, as the Mercedes SL 65 AMG stands decked with 250,000 Swarovski crystals to create a dragon that wraps around the body of the car, and covers it in bling. Supersport has made some small changes to the car, including lower ride height and carbon panels, but the shiny stones hog all the light on this 620hp beast.

As a man who posted video online of himself speeding at 130mph has been handed a four-month suspended prison term, police are increasingly relying on YouTube as a crime fighting weapon. When an anonymous e-mail dropped in the inbox of Suffolk Police last autumn the fate of Danny Hyde was sealed.

It drew to the attention of officers a video posted on YouTube of Hyde, 18, driving his Astra one-handed at 130mph along the A14 near Ipswich.

He filmed it himself on his mobile phone and the footage included shots of the speedometer and the road ahead as he sped past other vehicles.

It’s good evidence as long as you can get some proof that it’s the person in the picture Solicitor Julian Young Youth admits 130mph speed charge

Police managed to identify Hyde and he admitted the offence to magistrates, earning a four-month suspended prison term. It is another instance where police have used video-sharing sites like YouTube to track down bragging criminals.

In Herefordshire, an 18-year-old was fined and banned from keeping animals for five years after picking up a cat and hurling it 20 feet, while friends filmed the act. The footage was put on the same website and reported to police.

But it’s not just low-level crimes that are being pursued this way. Two gangs who allegedly raped a girl in Croydon, south London, and posted a video on YouTube are being hunted by police.

Officers in Merseyside are particularly vigilant. They arrested two 14-year-old boys last summer after they were spotted on YouTube damaging car wing mirrors.

With the official introduction of a couple devices AT&T’s smartphone lineup is now better than ever. The new Nokia E71X brings WiFi, AT&T Navigator, and all of the physical design characteristics you’re used to from the original for just $99.99 with a contract after rebate.

There is also the Samsung Propel Pro, a smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s got WiFi, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard and will be available on April 14 for $149.99 after all your discounts have been applied and your two-year agreement is filed away.

In a big garage-size laboratory in Ford Motor Co.’s sprawling research complex in Dearborn, Mahendra Dassanayake stands beneath a planetarium-like dome that can replicate the sun.

It can surround new cars and trucks with an eye-squinting 5,000 watts of light. Or mimic the fading light of dusk. Or make the room turn black, like a backwoods street where there are no city lights or ambient light from the stars or moon.

In this visual performance evaluation lab — dreamed up by Dassanayake and put into use a little over a year ago — Ford can evaluate new interior and exterior lights in virtually every lighting condition mother nature and the manmade world has to offer.

But the research isn’t just about offering better, cooler lights. Ultimately, it’s about improving fuel economy with more efficient lights, such as those that use light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs.

About 5% of fuel consumption goes directly to power a vehicle’s interior and exterior lights, said Dassanayake, a senior staff technology specialist at Ford. So, more efficient lighting systems, which offer good luminosity with less power, could ultimately save consumers at the gas pump.

Lately, Dassanayake’s lab has focused on the benefits and challenges of LED lights over other forms of bulbs, such as incandescent, halogen or fluorescent versions that generally use a filament that must be heated and gas to create a visible spectrum.

LEDs don’t have a filament that can burn out. Rather, they are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, called a diode, which is a small, long-lasting chip.

Bulbs with light-emitting diodes are about twice as efficient as the other light forms, and usually 10 times more expensive. But Dassanayake said that if the lighting systems of all future vehicles were LED, consumers could save as much as a gallon of gas per week.

“We are not doing LEDs for the sake of LEDs,” he said.

BRASILIA — France has struck a landmark outline accord to sell 36 Rafale fighters for between four and seven billion dollars to Brazil, potentially the first foreign customer for the expensive jet, officials said.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced on Monday after meeting French leader Nicolas Sarkozy that advanced contract talks were being held, though French maker Dassault Aviation said it did not expect a final accord until 2010.

France has been seeking a foreign buyer for the multi-role combat jet for more than a decade.

A Dassault spokesman said the company hopes to finalize the sale in 2010. Even though no final accord has been struck, a Dassault spokesman in Paris told AFP: “President Lula’s declaration clearly means that the Rafale has won the competition.”

He declined to put a precise value on the deal.

France has provisionally agreed to transfer the technology to be able to build the jets to Brazil. France is also to buy about 10 military transport aircraft Brazil’s air force plans to build with Embraer, the national aircraft manufacturer.

The French company hopes the success will boost its chances in tenders made by India, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Libya and Greece.

Dassault has previously lost export competitions for Morocco, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the Netherlands.

The Brazil contest has been characterized by fierce lobbying by US group Boeing, which put forward its F/A-18 Super Hornet used by the US Navy and Australian air force, and Sweden’s Saab, promoting its Gripen NG. The rivals had also said they were willing to share technology with Brazil.

Brazil has been concerned by past US vetoes on the export of Brazilian aircraft built with some US components, and the fact the Gripen features a US-made General Electric engine and an Italian-made combat radar.

Throughout its tender process, Brazil has emphasized that full technology-sharing took priority over cost.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the proposed deal would mean Brazil could sell Rafale’s that it makes to the rest of Latin America.

“What’s important for us is to have access to the technology to make this plane in Brazil. That’s what we’re currently negotiating,” Lula said.

Lula said that his country wanted closer military ties with France.

“We are definitively consolidating a strategic partnership we started in 2005,” Lula said in a joint news conference with Sarkozy in Brasilia.

The deal adds to 10 billion dollars’ worth of agreements Brazil has already struck with France to buy five submarines (one to be converted to nuclear power) and 50 military transport helicopters.

Brazil’s only aircraft carrier is a mothballed vessel bought from France in 2000.

Lula, who completes his maximum second mandate at the end of next year, has said he believes Brazil is destined to be one of the great powers of the 21st century.

A country’s “independence also has to be a technological one,” he told reporters.

Brazil’s government wants to give Latin America’s biggest nation military muscle commensurate with its swelling economic and political clout — and its ambitions to win a permanent seat on a reformed UN Security Council.

It also wants the capabilitys to maintain control over its two key resources: its vast Amazon rainforest, and recently discovered offshore oil fields that could make the country one of the world’s top 10 oil producers.

The military transport planes that Brazil is selling, the KC-390, are designed to carry lighter loads than the delayed Airbus A400 heavy military transport plane France is committed to.