posted by admin filed under Automotive
Spy photographers caught the next-generation Dodge Charger during a testing run earlier today. The car’s interior was photographed for the first time, showing a moderately improved design. The 2011 model sedan, based on Chrysler’s LY platform (shared with the Chrysler 300C and Dodge Challenger), is essentially a major refresh of the current model, rather than an all-new car. As a result, designers couldn’t completely revamp the interior, but it does have smoother lines and new, even if questionable, accents (such as a large, silver slab of plastic across the driver’s side).
The car photographed seems to be a top-spec model, with a large in-dash navigation screen and two-tone color scheme (cream-colored leather seats and matching door panels). Whether Chrysler is finally using soft-touch materials instead of hard plastic remains to be seen.
More photos of the new Charger after the break:
…click here to read more
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
A new tweet from MobiTV, maker of a mobile TV application that will come pre-loaded on T-Mobile USA’s version of the HTC HD2, suggests that the carrier might be launching the phone on March 23, instead of March 24 as previously rumored. Could just be a typo, but for those looking to snap up these phones the day they come out, that T-Mobile store run might just be coming a whole 24 hours earlier.
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posted by admin filed under Automotive
Daimler is selling its fifty-year-old stake in India’s Tata Motors, Bloomberg reports. The two companies are increasingly in competition around the world. Daimler is looking to expand in the Indian commercial vehicles market, having taken over a former joint venture with the Hero Group. The firm plans to invest nearly $1 billion in India and has started work on a new factory in Chennai that will begin producing trucks in 2012. At the same time, Tata Motors is expanding into larger trucks, hoping to challenge Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz commercial truck division. Tata also now owns Jaguar and Land Rover, which compete with the Mercedes-Benz passenger car unit.
Tata's new World Truck series is aimed squarely at the Mercedes-Benz commercial truck line
Daimler’s 5.3% stake in Tata Motors will sell for up to $428 million, according to Citigroup, which is handling the sale. The transaction should give Daimler some financial liquidity, which European automakers have been seeking after government auto sector incentives in Europe ended some months ago.
The partnership between the Germany luxury car maker and India’s largest truck and bus maker began in 1954, when Tata began to assemble medium-duty Mercedes-Benz trucks in India, and 15 years later, Tata began to sell Mercedes trucks under its own brand. From 1994 to 2001, the two firms also had a partnership to build Mercedes passenger cars in India.
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
TMoNews has come across a number of photos of T-Mobile USA’s upcoming HTC HD2. The Windows Mobile 6.5-powered, 4.3″ multitouch superphone is all set to launch on March 24 for $199 on a 2-year contract or $449 unlocked. The device is up on T-Mobile’s site, listed as “coming soon.” Besides the T-Mobile branding, it’s pretty much the same phone as the HD2 that’s been out for several months in Europe and Asia, but T-Mobile’s spruced it up with an included 16GB MicroSD card, HTC eBook reader, Barnes & Noble eBook store, Blockbuster movie rental app, and pre-loaded copies of several games (such as The Prince of Persia HD, Ferrari GT Evolution, and Guitar Hero 5 Mobile) and the Transformers and Transformers 2 movies.
More photos after the break. …click here to read more
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
A couple of interesting videos have come out of the Windows Phone 7 Series demos at TechEd Middle East. The first shows multi-tasking with the phone’s Internet Explorer browser, showing the browser instantly loading a site (either having been paused earlier or loading the site in the background) and then having a site collapse into a live tile on the start page. The second shows cross-platform gaming, with a game starting on a PC, then shifting to Windows Phone 7 Series, and finishing on Xbox.
Videos after the break: …click here to read more
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
Pirillo.com recently got some hands-on time with Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series prototype from Mobile World Congress and has posted a 17-minute video walkthrough. Video after the break: …click here to read more
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
It’s on! A few hours ago, Apple launched two lawsuits against Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC, alleging infringement on 20 Apple patents ranging from the early 90s to just a few weeks ago. The suits, filed with both the U.S. District Court and the International Trade Commission, focus mostly on software patents– an area of some controversy. You can see details of the patents at issue here– Apple has apparently filed over 700 pages of exhibits to the District Court, and based on the complexity of some of these patents, this might well take years to resolve.
HTC is the most prominent manufacturer of phones powered by Google’s Android OS. Is this the opening act of an Apple proxy war against Google? There certainly are some signs of it. More info after the break.
Update: Google just issued a short statement on the case:
“We are not a party to this lawsuit. However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.”
…click here to read more
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posted by admin filed under Automotive
Porsche just released a video about its new 918 Spyder concept at the Geneva Motor Show, tying it back to the very first car Ferdinand Porsche designed over a century ago, in 1900. The 918 is a parallel hybrid pairing a 500 HP V8 engine with an electric motor on each axle, adding another 218 HP on top, for 718 peak HP. 0-62 MPH time is reportedly 3.2 seconds, with a top speed of 198 MPH. That’s just about right for a modern supercar, but what’s new is that the 918 apparently gets up to 78 MPG and emits just 70 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. Porsche’s first car, depicted in the video, was an all-electric model with motors in each wheel hub and a whopping top speed of 30 MPH.
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
HTC HD2 - no Windows Phone 7 upgrade because of too many buttons?
APC quotes Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business, Asia-Pacific region, as saying that no current Windows Mobile-powered phones will be upgradable to the firm’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series OS. The shocking news is that not even HTC’s HD2 superphone, which meets almost all of the rumored “Chassis 1″ specs for WP7S, will see an official upgrade.
The HD2 has a 1GHz Qualcomm processor, capacitive multi-touch screen, 5 megapixel camera, and 3.5mm headphone jack, but it has five five buttons instead of the three (back, home, search) required by Windows Phone 7 Series. While the HD2 has back and home buttons, it lacks a dedicated search button.
“Because we have very specific requirements for Windows Phone 7 Series the current phones we have right now will not be upgradable”, Kwan said. APC reported that Tony Wilkinson, Business Operations Director for Microsoft Australia, said that “there are some hardware components that the HD[2] doesn’t have.” This could just be referring to the same hardware buttons issue, however.
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posted by admin filed under Mobile,
Technology
A Microsoft representative brought an LG prototype phone running Windows Phone 7 Series to the Engadget Show earlier today. This is the first time Windows Phone 7 Series has officially been seen running on a branded phone. The prototype itself is a QWERTY slider- relatively thin but otherwise generic-looking. Detailed specs are unknown, but we’re told it’s likely powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. The phone has the required back, home, and search keys, along with buttons for camera, volume, and power. It has a 3.5mm audio jack and a 5.0 megapixel camera with flash. More photos here.
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