concept

In a time when most automakers limit their new production, Honda showed the most creative flair at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show with its Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT) concept. The P-NUT explores new ideas for small city cars, using a 1+2 layout, with rear seats that can fold up, turning the car into a delivery cart. Honda has some interesting ideas for how the driver would interact with the car, and specifies a head-up display for the broad windshield.

Don't expect the P-NUT to ever hit production; it is pure concept. Honda merely suggests some ideas that … Read more

This campy camera gun is, quite literally, that. The Aimat is a squirt-gun-looking digital camera that you, well, point and shoot. Conceived by designer Franziska Dierschke, it's a concept device and not for sale--and for good reason. We can't imagine packing this piece through airport customs or even any sensitive area for that matter.

One can also expect the picture quality to be pretty Lomo-esque. Still, despite its "for laughs" intentions, this "firearm" could be aiming to be a shortlived novelty, given its notable lack of a viewfinder, zoom function, memory expansion options, and … Read more

As a preview to the 2009 Los Angeles auto show, Honda sent out some tantalizing words--but no photos--of a new concept it will display. The Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT) concept is described by Honda as an "ultra-compact, aggressively designed coupe". Given the word "personal" in the concept's name, though, we're assuming P-NUT will be less CRX and more Batcycle, probably with some electric drive technology thrown in.

When our coverage of the 2009 Los Angeles auto show starts on December 3, we will post photos and answer the question, what is P-NUT?

Our colleagues in Paris got to drive Peugeot's BB1 concept car, a rare opportunity as concept cars usually get rolled out for display in a few auto shows, then never see the light of day again. The BB1 is small, designed as a city car, and runs on electricity, getting a range of 75 miles.

The BB1 includes an iPod dock mounted in the center of the steering wheel, which might prove to be a problem for the airbag. With an iPhone in the dock, the BB1 becomes Internet-enabled.

With the NBA season in full swing, we thought we'd take a moment to check out this year's offering of digital hoops games, which really boils down to 2K Sports' NBA 2K10 vs. EA Sports' NBA Live 10.

Last year, the contest wasn't even close, with 2K9 trouncing Live in a blowout that made it easy to choose which game to buy. However, this year EA Sports' Canada-based development team delivered a much more compelling game. At the same time, while 2K10's developer Visual Concepts has definitely made some improvements, including a new My Player mode and the usual upgrades to player models and animations, this year's installment hasn't introduced anything truly eye-opening. The net-net is you have two solid games that are hard to choose between.

Here's the skinny: … Read more

A hallmark of smart kitchen design is a properly calibrated work triangle--that's your sink, your fridge, and your cooktop. The idea is to minimize the steps you need to take to move between these three areas to make you as efficient as possible.

In a small kitchen, creating an effective work triangle can be tricky. In my galley kitchen back in L.A., we couldn't open the fridge and the dishwasher at the same time, which is more of a problem than you'd think.

But what if you could move the legs of your triangle around? Why … Read more

Over at the Taiwan Broadband show, Ericsson's vision for the portable computer of 2020 uses a pico-projected screen and laser-projected keyboard. And though the company's got a rough prototype (pictured above), they imagine it ultimately squeezing into this bizarre spider-leg tripod design:

It'd have essentials like wireless broadband connectivity and a battery, but I'm hoping we'll have cooler stuff than a laser-projected keyboard by 2020. Their time has come and gone already, no? Less of that, more interactive holographic display technology, please. More wacky 2020 shenanigans at Ericsson via MobileandNotebook. And a video after the jump. … Read more

MIT intends to revolutionize GPS navigation by making it friendly and predictive, using a friendly robot helper to anticipate your needs. The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) is a robot head on an articulated neck, reminiscent of movie robots from the 1980s, that mounts in the center of the dashboard.

It incorporates an expressive "face" that can smile, look sad, show warning signs, and even wink at you. AIDA was developed as a collaboration between the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, MIT's SENSEable City Lab, and Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab.

AIDA's expressive behaviors are designed to endear the device to you as it helps in your daily navigation. The robot learns your daily commute and which areas you frequent for which purposes.

For example, if you always head to a particular district in your city around dinner time, it will assume you like to eat dinner there. After it memorizes your commute, it will automatically plug in your route to work when you get into the car on a weekday morning. If you go to a hotel for a dalliance every Thursday at noon, it will probably give you a wink and a knowing grin as it maps the route for you. … Read more

Although the 2009 Tokyo Auto Show just kicked open its doors for the public this last weekend, industry insiders got a head start on sampling the bevy of automobiles that are debuting. One of these lucky insiders included Alistair Weaver of Inside Line fame, courtesy of Edumunds.com. Here, Alistair gives us all a teaser on the many new vehicles presented at the Tokyo Motor Show, and this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

In this video clip, Inside Line cherry shows a few more cars worthy of Web airtime. While the show seems to be short on American … Read more