At least one person isn’t ready for Google’s futuristic world of self-driving cars: CEO Sergey Brin’s mother-in-law, who freaked out during a ride in one of the robo-cars.
So adorbs!
(Source: Wired)
The flying car is a symbol of fantastical, futuristic optimism colliding with reality. It’s shorthand for our inability to predict the future and our simultaneous refusal to stop, even in the face of our incompetence. We dream about driving flying cars in childhood and never outgrow the fantasy of their existence no matter how well we understand the obstacles.
That’s why French photographer Renaud Marion‘s series Air Drive is spreading fast on the interwebs. The photos of everyday cars hovering on the ground without wheels take viewers into the alternate reality that never was and might never be.
“When I was a child, and as many children, I was dreaming that we would have flying cars and I was truly believing that we would get to that,” Marion says.
See more of Marion’s flying cars @ Raw File!
(Source: Wired)
With CES in our rearview mirror, we headed east to Detroit for the second most important trade show of January: the North American International Auto Show. And one automaker utterly dominated.
General Motors kicked things off the night before with the unveiling of the all-new, seventh-generation Corvette, and after that, everything else was an afterthought. But there were a handful of other concepts and production models that deserve time in the limelight. So if you didn’t follow our two live-blogs from the show floor, here are the most important debuts straight from the Motor City.
NERDY DERBY: When maker nerds do what the Boy Scouts never did.
(Source: Wired)
Spanish photographer Oscar Monzón sees two contradictory worlds colliding in photography today. On the one hand, cameras and photos are everywhere thanks to camera phones. On the other, restrictions about where photos can be taken have only been increasing. (Look at the battle between the NYPD and photographers at the Occupy protest and the numerous photographers hassled by private security guards.) People have also become more guarded about protecting their digital image and often don’t want their picture taken unless they have control of it.
“When I raise my camera in public people immediately want to know what I’m doing,” he says.
It’s a phenomenon Monzón, 31, has decided to confront head on with his ongoing project Sweet Car.
In the project Monzón takes photos of people at night while they sit unknowingly in their cars at stoplights in downtown Madrid. Standing on a bridge or the street he zooms in with a telephoto lens and pops them with a flash.
(Source: Wired)
Fisker Automotive to Romney: Who are you calling ‘Loser’?
(Source: Wired)
The Pope goes electric!
(Source: Wired)
A citizen army of everyday drivers are taking to talking cars, buses and trucks to assemble a torrent of information about how drivers behave and what situations they encounter when behind the wheel. It’s the government-backed study of the connected car, and it’s happening on the tree-lined streets of Ann Arbor, Michigan beginning today.
(Source: Wired)
Thanks to the University of Middle Tennessee, you can now turn your car into a plug-in hybrid for $3000!
(Source: Wired)
