(Credit:
Volkswagen Group of America)
If you're a person who would gladly relinquish the task of parking your car to a computer, there may be a Volkswagen in your future.
Last weekend, Volkswagen Group of America and Stanford University's School of Engineering hosted a dedication ceremony on the Stanford campus for the new Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) that included the "first ever" autonomous parking demonstration by a driverless car.
(Credit:
Volkswagen Group of America)
The car, a VW Passat called Junior, was developed jointly by VW and Stanford and is the same one that finished second in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Driverless cars have come a long way since the first DARPA race in 2004, when not one contestant made it over the finish line, much less parallel-parked itself.
VW donated $5.75 million for the new laboratory, which it called "the next step in the evolution of the two organizations' commitment to drive innovation in automotive development."
"When the new building opens early next year, VAIL will provide a home on campus for faculty and students from around the university to work on advanced automotive research," said Jim Plummer, dean of the Stanford School of Engineering.
The company also unveiled the Pike's Peak Audi TT-S, the latest iteration of driverless vehicles developed through the VW-Stanford partnership.
Sony's $4,300 Vaio TT is about as far from the standard $500 Netbook as possible.
(Credit: CNET)Sony's newly revamped ultraportable laptop, the Vaio TT, is a well-needed reminder that not every tiny laptop needs to be a low-cost, low-power Netbook-style system.
In fact, the Vaio TT is about as far from the standard $500 Netbook as possible, given the relative physical similarities. The TT's highest-end configuration (named the TT190UBX), includes not only an Intel ULV (ultra-low voltage) processor, but a whopping 4GB of RAM, and even an internal Blu-ray recordable optical drive. The real star power, however, comes from an unprecedented 256GB solid state hard drive, which jacks the price up to an equally imposing $4,300. Naturally, less expensive versions are available, ditching the Blu-ray and giant SSD drive.
The Vaio's 11-inch screen follows the 16:9 aspect ratio trend we've seen in new 16- and 18-inch laptops (including, naturally, Sony's new multimedia laptops). The 1,366x768 resolution isn't too far removed from the 1,024x600 found on most Netbooks, but the extra RAM and Intel Core 2 Duo processor makes a difference, allowing it to run Windows Vista smoothly, instead of XP.
... Read more
Sony's new Vaio TT ultraportable.
(Credit: Sony)It looks like the leaks were pretty much dead-on, and Sony does indeed have a brand-new ultraportable laptop called the Vaio TT. It's a thin, lightweight 11-inch model, available in two different shades of black, plus red or gold.
We're especially interested in the Vaio TT because it's the successor to Sony's Vaio TZ line, one of our all-time favorite ultraportable laptops, and a reminder that even though they're similar in size, there's a big difference between what a $500 Netbook and a $2,000-plus fully featured ultraportable laptop can do.
Sony says the new system has a lightweight carbon-fiber chassis that weighs about 2.87 pounds and measures less than one inch thick. Unlike Netbooks, the Vaio TT (and other ultraportables such as the Toshiba R500) has room for an optical drive, and there's even a Blu-ray option. Yes, that seems rather pointless, but at least there's an HDMI output for sending the Blu-ray signal to a larger display. Solid state hard drives are also available, including dual 128GB drives (making for a sizable 256GB of SSD storage).
The basic Vaio TT runs about $2,000, while the Blu-ray version is $2,700. A version with a single 128GB SSD drive will cost $2,750. The system is available for order starting today, and should ship to retail stores sometime later this fall. ... Read more
We've seen a bunch of new laptop models from Sony in the past couple of weeks, including the 15-inch Vaio NS, the 14-inch Vaio CS, and the whopping 18-inch Vaio AW.
Sony's apparently has one more new laptop model in the offing (that we know of), and this one is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the 18-inch Vaio AW. It's the ultraportable 11-inch Vaio TT, and according to the online rumor mill, Sony is going to officially announce it sometime Monday.
... Read moreClick the image to access the gallery.
You'd never hear us complaining about our job here at CNET Car Tech, but there are times during the course of our reviews that we find ourselves wishing we could drive our test cars a bit more, well, illegally (all in the interests of thorough automotive journalism, you understand). Yesterday, our prayers were answered at an event hosted by the Western Automotive Journalist association at Laguna Seca raceway in California. One of the first things we sought to find out was whether Audi's Quattro system worked as well on the track as it had on the roads. We lost no time grabbing some of the cars that we had reviewed over the past 12 months to find out. Check out our photos right here.
- prev
- 1
- next
