I prefer to be in control of my own car, so I don’t want this kind of stuff to be mandatory, but I vote we come up with some sort of idiot test and should you actually be an idiot you’re would be forced to have a highly-automated motor vehicle. BMWs idea isn’t like the fully-autonomous Google cars that drive with no human interaction, though. With BMW’s system, at any point along the way, you can take control and drive normally, but the car can handle many driving situations all on its own.

Built into a modified BMW Series 5, highly-automated mode is more along the lines of a fancy cruise control system that has radar, sonar, ultrasound, and other sensors built that can recognize when another vehicle is ahead of you and pass the other vehicle safely. The car will also recognize speed limits and not exceed that speed. Check out the video above to see highly-automated mode in action.

At this point, BMW has no plans to commercialize this capability, but will use the learnings from their research to help develop other improvements for vehicle safety systems.

[via Yahoo News]

To help cope, you could try yoga, pottery, work on arts and crafts, write about it in a journal, do some kick-boxing, or drive a tank and crush some cars. Yes, you read that right: Drive A Tank lets you drive an armored tank around for a day and even crush some real cars, if you want to. How’s that for anger release?

The basic tank driving package costs $499 (USD), and you have to fork over an additional $499 if you want to crush a car. Or if you’re feeling mighty angry that day, just add $200 more dollars and crush two cars.

You can drive a tank at Drive A Tank in Kasota, Minnesota. They even offer a helicopter taxi service to and from Minneapolis/St. Paul, since that’s the closest major city. This is a pretty expensive way to manage your anger though, so you might just want to try a few yoga classes instead.

But kidding aside, Drive A Tank seems to offer a unique service that you probably won’t find elsewhere.

[via Reddit]

The Steer Safe is a cradle that lets you mount a phone or other similarly-sized object on a steering wheel. Sameer Desai, one of the inventors of the Steer Safe, claims that the cradle works with all phones and all steering wheels. It even supports landscape view, so you can watch a movie or play Angry Birds while driving! Yeah! No!

Nah, Desai and company are aware of the US Department of Transportation’s guidelines, and insist that the Steer Safe is legal. Moreover, they repeatedly mention both on their website and on their Kickstarter page that the “use of your phone should be limited to when vehicle is parked or stationary.”  Which is why their demo video shows someone using a phone on the Steer Safe while driving.

Look, I can sympathize with people who use their phones while driving. I have friends and relatives who are guilty of that. I’m a gadget freak myself, so I know how tempting or useful it can be. And to be fair, looking up a map on a phone is pretty much the same as looking it up on your car’s navigation device. But I’m still more convinced that a product like this will only encourage people to be distracted with their gadgets while driving. If you’re only supposed to use them while you’re parked or stationary, why would you need to mount your gadgets on your steering wheel in the first place?

But that’s just me. If you’d like to see the Steer Safe become a real product, you can support its development by pledging on its Kickstarter page. You have to pledge at least $25 (USD) to be one of the first to receive the actual product.

[via Likecool]

The video, created by NotWorkingFilms, features a trippy, first-person Pac-Man game, played out along a dark, deserted highway, complete with ghosts, power pills and a good beat you can dance to. But why should I describe it when you can just watch it for yourself:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Ok, it’s a little odd, but not as weird as watching the ending to Blue Velvet set to the theme from Super Mario Bros.

[via GameSetWatch via TDW Geek]

The search giant has created some awesome tech that allows the fleet of autonomous vehicles to drive and navigate without needing any input from a person. Google has been backing a bill in Nevada that has now been passed. The bill in question is Assembly Bill No 511 and it makes operating Google’s (and presumably other) driverless vehicles on Nevada state roads legal.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

That means drivers in Nevada may soon be passed by cars with no driver on their way to work. I bet most people will never notice since they are too busy reading, eating or texting anyway. The tech sounds cool, but I would like to see just how well it works and responds to random and unexpected emergencies like a deer or child suddenly running out in front of the car.

[via inhabitat]

Escort has been making radar detectors for a long time now and the company has unveiled a new device that it claims to be the world’s first fully integrated driving accessory with both radar/laser detection and navigation – the Passport iQ. The GPS device offers what you expect with a moving map, POIs, and turn-by-turn directions.

The radar detection portion functions even in map mode and will detect and learn any type of radar, and also offers multiple laser sensors. It also has a database with locations of speed cameras, red light cameras, and speed traps loaded up. The iQ is available right now to purchase for $649.95(USD), and it works with Escort’s line of radar detector accessories.

As you can see from the pictures, AIDA has its own set of facial expressions, to help it “establish an affective bond” with the driver. I guess it is more pleasing to interact with something that has a face, as opposed to talking to the air like the Hoff used to do with KITT, but won’t it become a distraction?

What I like about AIDA though is its ability to familiarize itself with the needs and habits of a driver, like one’s usual destinations, or how one drives. It will then combine that information with real-time data like traffic or weather, stuff that may not be immediately available to the driver, to give hints and tips:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

What do you think? Will AIDA be a helpful companion, or a nagger that you won’t be able to kick out of the car?

[via MIT via Popular Science]

Actually, according to Destructoid’s Anthony Burch’s review of the PC version, Enviro-Bear is the “best, and only bear-driving-a-car-simulator”, which I have to say puts a slightly finer point on it than I did.

Yep, Justin Smith’s Enviro-Bear 2010 is a driving game, but you play a bear who’s managed to get behind the wheel, and all he can do is use a single oversize paw to steer, accelerate, brake, shift gears, and throw crap out of the passenger compartment that gets in the way of his main goals – to eat fish and berries.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As your bear runs amok through a jungle of clunky pixelated trees, he has to contend with leaves, pine cones, and an out of control badger – all with a single paw. Multi-touch is for wussies. Still don’t get it? Here’s the entire game manual:

1. Grab stuff with your finger.
2. Eat fish and berries.
3. When you are FAT enough, drive in a cave to hibernate.
4. You can throw stuff out of your windows and sunroof!

Ready to get your bear on? Head on over to the App Store now and plunk down that 99 cents you were going to spend on something from the Wendy’s value menu. No iPhone or iPod Touch? Then use your available paw to grab the free PC version here.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[Enviro-Bear via iamhandheld and indiegames]

He’s not in a galaxy far, far away. He’s in a black Ariel Atom. The person who took this picture is most certainly dead. Force Lightning’ed to ashes. His ashes Force Lightning’ed to fermions. Because that’s how Vader rolls.

[via Neatorama]

Drive it like you stole it dude. The Sith Lord can’t be far behind.

[via Neatorama]

They say, “Controlling is very easy with the iPhone 3G. It has five buttons, four of them you can use for traditional driving and when you press the last one, it unlocks the accelerometer control in the same way as in many driving games available on AppStore.” Check out the video here.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It took them just one afternoon to conjure this up. You can get the full how-to and read more at their website. Nice work, boys, very nice indeed!

[via GeekAlerts]

That’s exactly what Toyoda Gosei (an offshoot of Toyota) has done with these prototypes: they’ve equipped cars with camera and radar sensors to detect pedestrians and (presumably) activate the outer airbags to protect anyone within range of the car. The hood airbag is supposed to cushion your head while the grill airbag cushions your waist, making the fact that you are getting run over a teensy bit more comfy.

I’m not sure if these cars look awesomely futuristic, ridiculously stupid, or just plain huggable. And I’m not sure that having a pillow pop out of a car that’s slamming into you is going to help all that much. Still, it’s an interesting concept, and who knows? This may become the norm in the future and won’t seem funny-looking at all. Then again, probably not.

[via Fareastgizmos]

Flickr contributor Lividfiction came across the display at his local Target store, and managed to snap a couple of pictures before anyone in the department got smart enough to realize the gross inaccuracy of the signage.

Heck, even Target’s PS3 & Xbox 360 game reservation cards list the release date as “03/2008″. Now either somebody really screwed up here, or GTA IV is coming out much earlier than expected. I’m going with the first one.

After looking at the gorgeous in-game screenshots that Microsoft released the other day, I was starting to get excited about this upcoming racer. Now that I’ve seen the video, I think Gran Turismo 5 should be watching its back.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While I’m sure that racing sim fanatics will espouse the wonders of GT5′s realistic driving models, I’ve always been a fan of the slightly more arcade-y feel of the PGR series. Besides, I’m a sucker for great graphics, and this title sure looks like it’s got plenty of those. Sure, it’s possible that this intro wasn’t done in-game, but if I know Bizarre Creations, you can expect the game to look nearly this good anyway.

You can download or stream the high-resolution video here.

A recent filing by Microsoft reveals a new model number “WRW02″ for the racing controller (the original version was model number “WRW01.”) The latest controller has it’s been listed with the FCC as “New Equipment,” which is a designation usually reserved for entirely new products, not just minor revisions to current ones. For comparison, here’s the original FCC submission from 2006.

The strange thing is that the photos taken for the FCC testing of the new version (right image) looks virtually identical to the current wheel (left image.) Can you see any difference? I sure can’t.

It’s possible that the revision is just “under the hood,” and could be anything from improvements in the force feedback motors, to the wireless connectivity, to some other circuit changes.

If you do find yourself in the market for one of these wheels, you might want to wait a few weeks, and see if the new version starts showing up on store shelves.

Now we already know the game is going to feature some amazing weather effects that actually affect your driving, but the addition of some two-wheeled vehicles could really shake things up. I’d imagine that if motorcycles do make their way into the game, die-hard fans of this acclaimed auto racing franchise might freak out about how it’ll change the game.

Given developer Bizarre Creations track record, I don’t think we need to be concerned. It’s been a really long time they made a bad game (anyone remember Fur Fighters?)

[via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

He’s got the living room all decked out with a real racing chair, a force feedback wheel, and an amazing 3-screen panoramic display. I can’t really figure out how he managed to get the image from the console across all three screens, but it almost looks like he has multiple consoles hooked together to make it all happen.

…and I thought hooking up my Xbox 360 to my big screen was overkill.

[via Gizmodo]