Cars

If phones, cameras, printers and anything else can be dipped in gold, why not cars?

A company called RealGold apparently will gold-plate your grille (the one on your car, not your teeth) or any other part of your vehicle as long as the price is right. Some of its work was featured at this year's Bucharest Luxury Show, where the Hummer pictured here was on blinding display with its 24k-plated parts. As BornRich says, it would look fetching in the garage next to your chrome-covered BMW and diamond-encrusted Mercedes.

Automobiles have paved the way for hybrid and alternative energies in transportation, but other vehicles are quickly following their tracks. We've seen trains, golf carts and even wheelchairs running on non-fossil power sources in recent months alone. But one there's one category we hadn't anticipated: toys.

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies first made headlines with its hydrogen-powered "H-racer" remote-controlled miniature car, which Gizmag says is the "best-selling fuel cell product in the world." Now, Horizon has developed what it calls the "H-cell" power source, which it claims allows miniature cars to reach … Read more

So much of the electronics industry is defined by opposite extremes--the smallest of the small and the biggest of the big. Nowhere is that more evident than in TVs. On one hand, we lust after displays the size of a billboard; on the other, we covet things like this combo LCD TV and DVD player with a 7-inch screen.

There are other TVs and DVD players in this size and smaller, of course, but Hannspree has combined the two into one product that weighs less than 2 pounds. And unlike portable products made primarily for the car, as Popgadget points … Read more

There are some science fiction movies that you just have to love, no matter how awful they are. "Tron" is one of them. (Can you believe it was made a quarter of a century ago?) PSFK has been kind enough to post a YouTube clip of what I think is a very apt homage to the Disney proto-cyber classic on the part of Honda:

Forget coin meters and time-stamped windshield stickers. A new service called Mobile Parking Service, launched this week by Irish company ParkMagic, in collaboration with Verizon's Skytel subsidiary, brings parking into the digital age.

Rather than digging around for coins down the back of the passenger seat, drivers use the service to pay for parking by making a call from their cell phones, which debits a prepaid account. A message is then sent wirelessly to a digital display on the car's dashboard to show the parking time remaining. The service, which will be coming to cities across the U.… Read more

A lot of people seemed to like to idea of a remote-controlled H2 terrorizing their homes, so we got to thinking: These folks need a real one to go with it. But given their obviously discriminating tastes, it couldn't be just any old Hummer.

That's why this custom creation is the perfect mate: Not only does it have all the appointments of a fully loaded model, but it also has--get this--a fireplace and chimney, including a built-in flat-panel display to go with the oh-so-klassy white shag rug. Gizmag says this beauty was made for a German TV show … Read more

Most drivers have desired at one time or another to send messages to other drivers with more content than they can manage with hand gestures. And various solutions have been tried. It's probably good that no solution has been overwhelmingly successful, as incidents of road rage could catapult. The latest car-to-car communication solution, called Drivemocion, has an LED module that can show up to five different messages. The messages consist of emoticons such as a smiley face and a frowny face. It can also show text messages, such as "Thanks," "Back off," and "Idiot.&… Read more

We just got back from a spin in the 2007 Infiniti M35, and we have to admit that on first impressions, we like it. After playing around with the M35's 8-inch rear-seat entertainment system, programming the in-dash GPS navigation unit, and goading the 275-horsepower V-6 in short bursts of urban driving exuberance, we were faced with the final car tech challenge: operating the voice-recognition interface. Regular readers of CNET Car Tech will know that we are hard to please when it comes to in-car voice-command interfaces. (For detailed examples, feel free to check out our reviews of the 2007 Toyota Camry, … Read more

I just got back from the Los Angeles Auto Show, and Honda had more concept cars on display than anyone. But that's apparently not enough for Honda this car show season--the company just released a sketch of another concept it's saving for the Detroit Auto Show. The Accord Coupe Concept is probably a better depiction of future Honda styling than the Remix or the Step Bus. The Accord Coupe Concept sketch presents a sporty roofline, but the front wheels look larger than the rear ones. Which might be Honda's intent for a front-wheel-drive car, but more likely … Read more