Technabob » GM

GM Demos Touchscreen Windows for Interactive Road Trips

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:00:55 +0000

When it comes to road trips, any parent can tell you a few hours spent in a car with a couple kids can feel like days. Kids get bored and cranky after a while, leading to cranky parents. Now, GM is showing a cool concept that takes the windows of the car and turns them them interactive surfaces to keep the young ones (and other passengers) occupied.

The idea is that the windows would be transparent screens which could display all sorts of content from game apps for kids to navigation details for the driver or passenger. I really like the idea of navigation content being projected onto the windshield. That way you don’t need to take your eyes off the road for directions.

The apps for kids though are the ones that will likely get the most attention. The prototype apps let kids finger paint, and interact with characters who react to the speed of the vehicle. For the big kids, there are apps for navigation as well as streaming music and social networking.

GM notes that it has no current plans to use the window tech in a production vehicle, and there is no indication when this tech will leave concept and come to the real world. Hopefully it’s not that far off.

GM EN-V Goes for a Spin at CES

Technabob — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:16:16 +0000

I’m not quite sure how I missed this thing at CES. It must have been shown behind closed doors, or maybe some doors I just didn’t bother to peek through. At least the guys at Mashable shot some footage of this goofy looking two-seater, the GM EN-V. They titled the clip “eggcar” though, and I like that better, so that’s what I’m going with.

The guys in the video describe the two-wheeled concept car as both “an enclosed Segway” and “the coolest vacuum cleaner I’ve ever seen.” I’d have to say both are completely accurate characterizations. Here’s the zero-emission eggcar in all it’s glory…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I honestly can’t believe they can fit two occupants inside this tiny little thing. Still, you’ve got to hand it to them for the unique touchscreen steering wheel. I thought that was pretty cool. For some reason, I doubt the EggCar will ever be street-legal in the States, but you never know. After all, they let the Renault Le Car and the Yugo out on the roads.

Dainty Human-Like Hands Will be the Key to Robonaut 2′s Success

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:53:15 +0000

A while back, GM and NASA teamed up to build a cool humanoid robot to send into space to live on the ISS with the astronauts in what is the first step towards the construction of our own Cylons. The robot was dubbed Robonaut 2 – or R2 for short, and it is set to head to the ISS on one of the final shuttle missions set to leave soon.

GM is talking up R2 again lest we forget how cool the robot actually is. According to GM R2 will be able to use every tool and system on the ISS that human hands were intended to use. It will be able to use them because its dainty little hands have slim thumbs and fingers. The hands on R2 have lots of dexterity as well.

R2 will be able to adjust his grip and pressure to meet any task. This is a really cool robot and the only way it could be any cooler would be if it spoke in a voice like HAL and said “Good Morning Dave” when the astronauts woke up.

Rechargeable R/C Hummer: Guilt-Free Gas-Guzzlin’ Fun

Karen M. — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:17:21 +0000

Hummers are pretty cool and look fun to drive, but their egregiously low gas mileage and rampant carbon emissions make them a bit taboo. Now you can get your guilt-free Hummer fix with this rechargeable remote control Hummer.

Licensed by GM, this is a perfect 1:20 scale model of the Hummer H3 and comes in yellow. It has a 6 way controller. The Hummer itself has rechargeable batteries, but the remote control will take 2 AAs.

You can see more pictures and buy your very own for $46 at Toys Brando. And for the record, $46 is about a 1:1000 scale model of the price of a real Hummer.

[via GeekAlerts]