Record

There’s something endearingly quixotic – and awfully English – about the British Steam Car Challenge. The team has spent the last ten years trying to successfully marry Victorian-age transport with modern technology in an effort break a 100-year-old steam land speed record. And, on Friday August 7 at Edwards Air Force base in California, they finally beat that world record speed with a run of 131mph – but because the FIA wasn’t present, it’s not yet official. Read More

Researchers will one day be able to accurately predict such things as the economic and social effects of billions of new Internet users in China and India, or the exact location and number of airline flights to cancel around the world in order to halt the spread of a pandemic, says Indiana University’s Alessandro Vespignani. This capability will be possible thanks to “reality mining”, which involves the collection of data from machine-sensed sources to provide knowledge about aggregated human behavior. Read More

A portable camcorder that records MPEG-4 SP video format at 30 frames per second - in stereo - has been released by Zoom. The Q3 Handy Video Recorder combines 640 x 480 resolution video recording with studio quality audio through two built-in condenser microphones. Read More

Korean designer Rhea Jeong says she's been astounded by the amount of interest in her conceptual Void LP record player. One look at the design and you can see why it's made so much noise without even uttering a sound. Close your eyes and imagine a little red globe spinning around on top of a vinyl record emitting sound from speakers inside it. The record itself is suspended in mid-air above a simple black base unit - no strings attached, no wires holding it up and definitely no safety net. The imagery is quite simply jaw-dropping. But can such a thing really work? Read More

USB turntables provide an easy way to digitize your collection of vinyl. Usually, it requires a PC. However, a new range of USB turntables from Akai includes a model that lets you record from vinyl, directly to a USB hard drive – without the need of a PC. Read More

Though being criticised by some senior motoring journalists as lacking "character", Nissan's GT-R continues to take all before it in the real world, and there is no greater testimony to this than yet another lap record at the infamous "Green Hell" - the renowned Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. We reported a few weeks back that the GT-R had created a new lap record of 7 minutes 27.56 seconds on April 15 and was continuing to attack the record. It seems Nissan is as adept at manipulating the media as it is at building cars because today it announced that it set a new record of 7 minutes 26.70 seconds - the record was set on April 23, a week after it broke the last one and a full three weeks ago! Read More

May 7, 2009 In 1974 Evel Knievel launched himself across the Snake River Canyon in Idaho aboard the rocket powered Sky-Cycle in what was to be the biggest stunt and biggest flop of his daredevil career. The Skycycle X-1 and X-2 were more rocket than they were motorcycle and both were powered by overheated water rockets. This incredibly powerful means of propulsion also saw the team at Swissrocketman achieve a blistering 214.7 mph in 2.5 seconds back in 1992 - a water-rocket record that has remained unbeaten ever since. Read More

A team of Ford hybrid engineers, a fuel efficiency expert and a NASCAR star have driven a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid 1445.7 miles (2313.12 km) on a single 17.5 US gallon (66.24 Liter) tank of gasoline using Eco-Driving techniques. That's an average of 81.5 mpg (2.88 l/100 km), not bad from a totally standard production car. The 1,000-Mile Challenge started at 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, April 25, from Mount Vernon, Va., and the car finally ran out of gas and battery power on April 28th at 5:37 am in Washington, D.C. NASCAR star Carl Edwards was behind the wheel at the 1000 mile mark and world-record breaking hypermiler Wayne Gerdes was also part of the team. Read More

The 1925 Sunbeam Tiger was a supercharged V12 four-liter racing car, driven by Sir Henry Segrave at 145 mph (233 km/h) and was the smallest-engined car ever to hold the world land speed record. The Sunbeam Tiger electric sports car concept has been designed to "virtually" commemorate the 100th anniversary (1925-2025) of the Tiger's land speed record win. The Tiger concept car is powered by a Siemens 3 phase AC motor powering the rear wheels with a 26 kilowatt/hour lithium-titanate battery pack and has a curb weight of 600kg (1323lb). Read More