BMW showed off its entry-level 135i sport coupe at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show. But with BMW, "entry-level" means one of the most exciting small cars available. Although the 135i is BMW's smallest four-seater, the company packs its incredible twin-turbo, 3-liter, straight six-cylinder engine under the hood. And best of all, BMW will import the 135i to the U.S.
As evidenced by the F700, launched at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, Mercedes-Benz expects to be building large luxury sedans long into the future. But also recognizing the need to reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, the company includes some miraculous-sounding technologies in the F700. It's also using the vehicle to explore advances in passenger comfort and infotainment.
At the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, German automakers had hybrid cars and concepts on display. Up until now, European automakers seemed uninterested in employing hybrid technologies, but Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, and Audi have all stepped up to the plate. Mercedes-Benz has an actual hybrid SUV ready for production, while the other automakers have concepts that strongly indicate future hybrid powertrain development.
There are a few online video editors available right now, and there are also several slide show tools online. Vcasmo is both. It's designed to display video alongside a PowerPoint slide show. It fills a highly specific need, and it does it well.
If you want to put a speech on the Web so people can see it, and you have a video of it and a PowerPoint or a PDF (or a collection of JPEGs), with Vcasmo you can put the media together side-by-side. A simple timeline editor lets you define exactly when images display in your presentation. … Read more
It's showtime again in the auto world--that time of the year when manufacturers trot out their latest fleets of new models and wacky concepts. In preparation for the forthcoming Frankfurt auto show, Nissan this week unveiled details of its Mixim electric concept car. According to Nissan, the Mixim (which is unlikely to make it to production) is aimed at young, Web-savvy, digital-age drivers with a penchant for gaming. Check out our photo gallery here.
Embeddable widget powerhouse Slide gained buzz as a way to display photo slide shows on MySpace, but then saw meteoric growth as part of the Facebook Platform initiative. Now, the company has announced that 1 million of its Flash-based widgets are added to the network's servers every day for non-Facebook social media platforms. Slide's Facebook widgets, which rank No. 1, No. 2, and No. 6 on the list of most popular embeddable applications on the white-hot social network, are not Flash-based and consequently were not included in the tally.
Note that this refers to widgets created, not "… Read more
Jaguar is going to use next month's Frankfurt auto show to officially unveil its 2009 XF midsize sedan, but images and specs on the latest Big Cat were released today. Based on the Jaguar C-XF concept that we saw in Detroit earlier this year, the XF comes with four engine choices, including a supercharged V-8, as well as some advanced cabin and drive-train technology. Check out our gallery of the '09 Jaguar XF here.
G. Scott Mindrum considers himself lucky. He says that rarely do CEOs have the opportunity to interact with their products in a highly personal and emotional way.
On May 12, 2007, Mindrum's father, Gordon Mindrum, died at the age of 87. The younger Mindrum knew exactly what to do to memorialize his father, a World War II veteran and a doctor that specialized in treating addiction.
He posted to the Web a photo slide show that illustrated his Dad's life story.
The younger Mindrum is founder and CEO of Making Everlasting Memories a company trying to leverage the … Read more
Vuvox was one of the few services that wasn't quite ready for the public after showing off its wares at Demo 2007. Like Flektor, Good Widgets, RockYou, Slide, Mixercast, and other mashup services, Vuvox lets users pull in media content from the Web or a hard drive, and put that content together using a Web-based editor. The end result is something that's visually engaging and can be shared via e-mail, or embedded on blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles. The service is officially opening its doors to everyone as of today.
Vuvox grabs your media in two places. The first is from Web services such as YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, and Google. The other place is your hard drive. You can upload files one at a time, or in batches after installing Vuvox's small browser plug-in. Once you've added your media, it's a simple drag-and-drop process. You can reorder, combine, or delete pictures or video in a simple queue. When you're done creating, you can apply one of Vuvox's 11 different themes. Each is unique, and has various visual styles that enhance, or in some cases stylize, your media. You can also use some advanced editing tools, like a cropper and layer mask, to tweak your shots.
Once published, each user gets their own channel. Other users can come by and comment on slide shows, and then share the slide shows with others either by e-mail, embedded link, or a URL. The service also has a featured section, showing off some of the more popular, or notable, works by users.
Like most services these days, Vuvox also has a Facebook application. Similar to the full version of the site, you can grab content from Flickr and Picasa. Since it's Facebook, you're also able to pick photos from your Facebook albums. When finished, you have the option to share the content with friends, and post it to your profile. The only downside here is that the Vuvox editor has been tweaked slightly, both in size and features, to accommodate the Facebook crowd. The results look just as good, but the editing experience isn't nearly as enjoyable.
Is Vuvox worth using over the competition? It's pretty impressive for a new service, and quite polished. The one snag is that it can be a little slow, and you don't have a lot of control over the way some of the themes play with the presentation of your shots. If you're looking for a similar media mashup tool that offers stylization but also a little more user control, check out SplashCast (also a Demo 2007 launch) and Flektor (review).
For more screen shots of the interface and an example of the embedded application, click the Read More link below.
Tomorrow's Independence Day, and practically the whole country has the day off. For once, you get to have your cookout on a Wednesday. How will you document your midweek antics? You'll want photographic evidence of how cute the nieces and nephews were when they made that pyramid in the kiddie pool. You need pictures to explain that funny thing that happened with the mustard squeezer. And even if you just enjoy some epic lounging in the shade, you'll want pictures to remind yourself of ease and leisure when you're cranking through 400 e-mails back at work … Read more
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Christina Milian and the gadgets she loves
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