Technabob » porsche

Forza 4 Porsche Expansion Pack Brings 30 Classic and Current Cars

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:00:40 +0000

If you are a big fan of Forza Motorsports 4 and like to drive German sports cars, a new expansion pack for the videogame has landed that you’ll almost surely be interested in. Turn 10 Studios has announced this week that a new expansion pack is available called the Porsche Expansion Pack. As you’d expect from its name, every car in the expansion is a street or racing Porsche automobile.

Most of vehicles in the pack are Porsche streetcars, but there are some notable racing cars. The expansion pack includes GT and GTC class vehicles that raced in the American Le Mans Series.

The expansion pack is available for download right now via Xbox Live. The cost for the 30-vehicle expansion pack is 1600 Microsoft points.

[via Gamasutra]

199 MPH Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid Gets 78 MPG, Empties Wallets

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:00:32 +0000

There a lot of people out there that are really into the green movement who thumb their nose at fuel-swilling performance cars. Typically, when we’re talking about something along the lines of a Porsche, fuel economy isn’t mentioned in the same sentence. However, Porsche has a new sports car prototype that not only has very impressive performance; the car also achieves excellent fuel economy.

The car is the Porsche 918 Spyder and this sexy beast is a plug-in hybrid. The car uses a traditional four-liter V8 engine producing 500 hp along with a pair of electric motors. The V8 engine propels the back wheels, while each of the front wheels gets its own electric motor making for an all wheel drive vehicle. The car is capable of using the electric power alone to propel itself up to 94 mph. The 918 pushes out an incredible 770 horsepowere when the V8 and electric engines are combined, and consumes 3 liters of fuel for every 100 km driven. Top speed is 199 mph and it can hit 60 mph in 3.1 seconds.

It’s not clear how long the car can drive on electric power alone, but it apparently gets 78 mpg on the EU test cycle. The car you see in the picture here is a prototype wearing black and white camouflage, reminiscent of Porsche 917 racecars from the past. Of course, all of this comes at a price – the 918 Spyder hybrid is expected to sell for $845,000 (USD) when it’s released by the end of 2013.

[via Autoblog Green]

RIM’s QNX Porsche Learns to Listen

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:00:27 +0000

During CES this year, RIM had a Porsche 911 convertible on hand that was fitted with its new QNX system. The QNX system replaced the normal instrument cluster with an LCD screen and puts an LCD screen in the center column for navigation and web access. That system has learned a new trick thanks AT&T’s Watson Speech API.

That speech API turns the QNX system into something akin to Ford’s Sync voice control system. The QNX Porsche can now respond to voice commands from the driver such as locating a specific restaurant nearby or accessing a specific website. I wonder if the system will block things like twitter that might distract the driver.

The system interfaces with the driver’s smartphones and can read back texts and e-mails. The cool part about this system is that the driver doesn’t have to pair the phone – instead it uses a wireless NFC chip. All the driver has to do is get into the car and it pairs automatically. I wonder if the voice-recognition technology works any better than Ford’s. If you have any sort of accent I’ve found the Sync system doesn’t work that well.

[via Engadget]

Porsche 996 TV Entertainment Center, for Those Who Want a Third of a Porsche

Conner Flynn — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:00:37 +0000

Looks like Carlsen has done it again. He has crashed his Porsche into his living room wall. May as well use the thing as an entertainment center now. Well, at least this butt end of a 2005 Porsche 996 will hold a 42″ flat panel TV.

Let’s face it, wives and girlfriends won’t like this a bit, so you either get it and she goes, or this just goes in your man cave, which is really the best place for it.

You choose the color and this entire rear end of a Porsche is hand-built, with 100% original parts. Also available are other cars, like this 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, which holds a 52″ Sony LCD. It’s neat and all, but it would be cool if you could get the front end too, and create a nice Portal effect in your home, but that’s just me.

[via Autoblog via Dvice]

LaCie Porsche Hard Drives: Speedy and Sporty, Just Like Their Cars

Range — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:41:40 +0000

While I admire LaCie’s efforts in designing good-looking hard drives, their new mobile Porsche drives look even better than most. The latest hard drives include the LaCie Porsche Design Mobile P’9220 and Desktop P’9230 Hard Drives.

Both models are compatible with USB 3.0, meaning that they’ll not just look spiffy, but be quite speedy. Also, the housing looks minimal and elegant, since it’s mostly made out of brushed aluminum. The aluminum is scratch-proof, so you won’t have to worry about scuffing it up too quickly. As I’ve learned from my own MacBook Pro, aluminum works great for dissipating heat too.

The mobile version comes in 500GB and 1TB capacities, while the desktop version is available in 1TB or 2TB sizes. The mobile version starts at $109.99 (USD), while the desktop ranges from $119.99 to $159.99.

[via LaCie]

Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid Racecar: Most Complex Steering Wheel Ever?

Shane McGlaun — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:55:00 +0000

If you are a fan of sports cars and the Porsche brand you might recall that awesome 911 GT3 hybrid racing car that I talked about a while back the car looks fantastic on the outside, and if you thought all the racing tech inside the vehicle sounded complex, take a peak at the beast’s steering wheel. That has more buttons on it than the Logitech racing wheel I use for Gran Turismo 5.

It appears that the wheel is covered in Alcantra, which is a fantastic material for grip. It has a carbon fiber housing in the center that has a ton of buttons and other stuff on it. The LEDs you see above and below that, display would probably be the shift light. The LCD has all sorts of things on it, including a big indicator for the gear the car is in.

The wheel is festooned with all sorts of buttons and knobs. I see buttons for radio, headlights, alarm, and wipers. Those knobs I presume are for changing things like engine programming and perhaps brakes. The coolest button though is the boost button that shoots the car forward on hybrid boost when the driver needs to pass. I would hit those buttons all the time by accident.

[via Wired]

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid Race Car is the First Hybrid I Would Own

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:00:09 +0000

If you walk up to a bunch of automotive enthusiasts and start talking about the virtues of a hybrid we might listen if only because we need someone to buy the Prius and Focus Hybrids, so the V8′s we really like can continue on thanks to CAFE. You won’t catch a lot of us excited to talk hybrid tech though. Porsche has a sweet hybrid system that it crams inside a bad ass 911 GT3 R Hybrid that it is talking up and this is currently the only hybrid I would consider owning.

The car has a 480hp naturally aspirated 4L flat-six that Porsche is famous for that drives the rear wheels. The racecar also has an electro-mechanical flywheel system that might one day make it to some of the Porsche road cars. The tech is really cool and allows for a hybrid system that needs no batteries. That flywheel makes energy that is sent to a pair of 60-kilowatt electric motors that are mounted in the front axle assembly of the racecar and propel the front wheels.

That means that when the electric power is activated the car has all wheel drive. The electric power can be unleashed selectively to give the car extra acceleration out of corners and when overtaking. Basically, the car has a button like Fast & Furious that unleashes electric boost rather than nitrous.

[via AutoWeek]

Porsche Wheel Casemod Does Rock, Won’t Roll

Technabob — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:19:05 +0000

This automotive-inspired casemod embeds a complete high-end PC built inside an alloy wheel from an SUV.

The liquid cooled SLI-Machine Wheel PC is loaded into an 18-inch wheel from a Porsche Cayenne, then wrapped up in a Bridgestone Dueler H/P radial tire to round things out.

An intense green neon backlighting system gives the computer a bright glow as soon as the lights go out.

The system was sponsored by nVidia to show off their SLI video performance platform. Now all they have to do is make a networked set of four of these and bolt them on to my car. Then I’ll really be driving in style.

[via GizmoWatch]