Racing

The technology behind an F1 race

When the streets of Singapore come alive with Formula One action this weekend, it may be easy to forget how much technology is involved to enable the cars to whiz through the track at breakneck speeds.

Perhaps the most noticeable equipment will be the lights lining the track. Designed by Italian lighting contractor Valerio Maioli, the Philips-made system will involve some 1,500 lighting projectors around the track, lighting it to the level of 3,000 lux--nearly four times brighter than that of a typical sports stadium.

Provisions have been made for wet weather in the tropical city: the projectors will beam light on the track at different angles, rather than vertically, to minimize glare off the road surface, should it rain.

The power requirements of these lights are correspondingly stringent. While many of the teams will plug their back-end IT systems into the country's power grid, Valerio Maioli has fitted 12 twin-power generators to power the lights. These 24 generators are also fail-resistant--the second generator will pick up the load, should the first one fail, to keep the light levels consistent.

But environmentalists should rest easy, a Philips representative told ZDNet Asia. The lighting system is 16 percent more energy-efficient, compared to competitors' products, the representative said.

Another noticeable addition to the track from Valerio Maioli will be digital flags--electronic light displays that will replace the traditional colored flags used in day races, for better visibility at night. These 35 panels will communicate vital information to drivers.

Supercomputing in Formula One Behind the scenes is where you will find the heavy-duty computing power. Alex Burns, chief operating officer of the Williams F1 team, described to ZDNet Asia in an interview the magnitude of the systems involved, both leading up to the event and during the actual race.

Burns said the team takes 35 Lenovo ThinkPad laptops to the circuit, to be used by race engineers. In the garage by the pit stop, there are another eight racks of servers: two for the data coming off each of the two cars, and another two for each car's engines, he said. … Read more

Rocket Racing League takes off with new engine, DKNY

Rocket fans are a little closer to having their own spectator sport--thanks to a new engine design and the sponsorship of fashion brand DKNY.

The Rocket Racing League, an aspiring Formula 1 for rocket racing, said Wednesday that it completed its three test flights with a new liquid oxygen-alcohol engine from Armadillo Aerospace, a suborbital space company founded by Doom creator John Carmack. This summer, the RRL also secured a high profile sponsorship from a clothing brand that people wouldn't necessarily associate with rockets: DKNY for men. The premiere racer for the league now will have the luxury clothing … Read more

Logitech goes wireless with Wii racing wheel

Earlier this summer, Logitech debuted the Driving Force Wireless steering wheel for the PlayStation 3. It was essentially a streamlined, downsized version of the Logitech Driving Force GT, adding wireless connectivity to the console and dropping the gearshift--and making the whole rig a lot more living-room-friendly for casual gamers.

Now the company is applying that same basic design to the Wii. Except for the Nintendo-friendly color scheme, control setup, and built-in brake and gas controls, the Logitech Speed Force Wireless is a near doppelganger of the PS3 version: it utilizes the same sort of contoured, expandable lap (rest rather than … Read more

New York to Montreal overnight--with no GPS?

One piece of advice that should've been obvious to participants of last weekend's Rental Car Rally from Long Island City, New York, to Montreal, Quebec: use GPS.

Or so I figured, as one member of a three-person team equipped with a MacBook, an EVDO card, a GPS navigator, a backup GPS navigator, and a radar detector to know when authorities were nearby in case we, uh, pushed the speed limit a little bit. (We only used that in New York state, though, because radar detectors are illegal in Vermont and Quebec.)

The surprising truth? A large number of the driving squads had nothing but paper maps on them, making the overnight rally--with six backroad checkpoints, most of which were marked with nothing but a set of coordinates, to ensure that you couldn't just take I-87 the whole way--a pretty difficult affair.

But even with GPS, there was some head-scratching when everyone's Garmins and TomToms navigated them right to the shores of Lake Champlain and recommended that they take a ferry. The gadgets were right: teams that drove onto the Grand Isle ferry arrived in Montreal hours before teams that chose to drive around the lake.

As for the teams that opted for maps over GPS, most of them made it...eventually.… Read more

Electronic flags to debut in F1 night race

If driving while talking on a mobile phone is dangerous, how much more deadly would it be if Formula One racers got distracted while race officials tried to communicate with them via headsets?

Thankfully, colored flags are the de facto method by which vital information is relayed to the drivers without causing unnecessary disturbance. For example, a yellow flag means there's danger ahead and overtaking is prohibited, while a white flag indicates slow-moving vehicles (like the safety car or tow truck) on the track.

However, in F1's upcoming first-ever night race, traditional colored flags might be a little … Read more

At Siggraph 2008, up close with mobile workstations

LOS ANGELES--This week's Siggraph conference attracted a diverse crowd of graphic designers, animators, and industrial designers, and both HP and Lenovo were on-site to show off their new mobile workstations for graphics professionals. I had a chance to meet with both companies at the show to talk about some of the key features of these new models.

HP started the week by announcing the 17-inch EliteBook 8730w and 15.4-inch EliteBook 8530w, both of which support Intel's not-yet-official quad-core Core 2 Extreme processors, 8GB of RAM, and Nvidia's next-generation Quadro FX cards with up to 1GB of VRAM. In addition, these latest EliteBooks feature a few small design enhancements, such as a new latch designed to reduce stress on the display and a special coating on the keys and touch pad to help prevent wear. Even cooler is the VGA camera on the display bezel, which pairs with included software to double as a business card reader.

The EliteBook 8730w is also the first workstation on the market to include an HP DreamColor display option. The RGB backlit-LED screen can display millions of colors and displays true color even when the screen is dimmed. I got a quick demo of the EliteBook 8730w and I was impressed with not only the stunning color quality but also the ease of switching back and forth between sRGB and Adobe RGB on the display.

Also remarkable: both the 15- and 17-inch EliteBooks were quite thin and sleek, especially for such high-powered machines.

After HP I moved on to get a glance at Lenovo's ThinkPad W700 workstation, which was announced Tuesday. The beast was even larger than I'd imagined; after all, Lenovo representatives have emphasized that it's a workstation first, and mobile computer second. It's obviously larger than HP's 17-inch workstation, but the ThinkPad W700 also packs some bonus features: a built-in color calibrator and an integrated digitizer pad next to the touch pad. … Read more

Logitech goes wireless with its PS3 racing wheel

Serious fans of racing games on the PS3 have found the Logitech Driving Force GT to be the steering wheel of choice, with its force feedback, gearshift, and three-pedal configuration going a long way to recreating the on-track experience of Formula One, NASCAR, and so on. But that unit's $150 price tag, excess of cables, and setup requirements (it needs to be clamped to a table) made it a tough choice for all but the most dedicated race fan. More casual driving and racing aficionados will be happy, then, to see the newly announced Driving Force Wireless. While the … Read more

WiiWare and Virtual Console releases for this week

This week you can try your luck at an arcade-racer or destroy cities with the wag of your tail. Virtual Console

King of the Monsters (1991, NeoGeo, 900 Wii points): From SNK comes King of the Monsters, an action/fighting game that allows you to play as skyscraper-tall monsters in a worldwide battle to become the champion.

WiiWare

SPOGS Racing (D2C Games, 1,000 Wii points): SPOGS Racing is an arcade-style racing game that lets you upgrade your vehicle on-the-fly for instant advantages during gameplay.

What games do you think are missing from the Wii Virtual Console? Sound off here!… Read more

Obama flip-flops on telecom immunity

Sen. Barack Obama is taking heat from liberal supporters for changing his position on granting phone companies involved in President Bush's domestic spying program retroactive immunity for breaking federal laws.

According to a New York Times article published Wednesday, more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on Obama's own campaign Web site to protest his recent move to support legislation that will grant legal immunity to phone companies involved in the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program after the September 11 attacks.

Previously, Obama opposed any immunity for the telecom companies. In February, Obama voted on a Senate bill against retroactive immunity. … Read more