Performance

GM posted this video of the Corvette ZR1 doing a lap of the Nurburgring. It's a cockpit video with a stat overlay, showing the car hitting close to 180 mph on the final straightaway. Put on your headphones and crank up the volume, because the engine and road sounds come through clearly. You can almost feel the car hitting the apexes. Final lap time: 7:26.4.

The turbo has always been taboo for BMW's high-performance M models. But that may change.

Although BMW has preferred high-revolution, naturally aspirated engines, the next M5, due in 2011, is expected to get a twin-turbo V-8 instead of a naturally aspirated V-10, insiders say.

Variations of the twin-turbo, 4.4-liter V-8 that powers the X6 premium crossover have been tested with good results, an insider said.

A source also said the company has had "good experience with the performance characteristics" of the X6 base engine, a 3.0-liter, six-cylinder biturbo. It comes "very close to a … Read more

One year after the first release of the first Drobo that won our Editors' Choice award, and a few days after the release of the beta SDK, Drobo Robotics today announced its second revision of the product.

For those of you who don't know, Drobo is the world's first, and for now still the only, solution for external storage that automatically and intelligently takes care of your data with minimal input from you. All you have to do is install the hard drives, which is as easy as inserting a CD into the CD-ROM drive. The Drobo protects … Read more

It must be Christmas, because a 2009 Nissan GT-R showed up in our garage. Just like how we spent 1973 transfixed by commercials for the Vertibird Rescue Ship toy, we slathered over every specification sheet and photo of the new GT-R since the concept was shown at the 2005 Tokyo Auto Show. And in each case, we finally ended up at the controls of one. The GT-R is definitely the biggest, baddest toy on the block.

The GT-R is essentially a race car made for the street. Production cars don't generally squeeze 480 horsepower out of a V-6, or … Read more

OK, I admit it. I want options, even though, most of the time I don't have much use for them. Take pocket-size external hard drives, for example. I want them to be compact, light, pretty, bus-powered, and especially I want them to support USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. (I would take eSATA, too, though, that wouldn't make sense until it's bus-powered capable). However, the truth is, I've used mostly just the USB 2.0 connection for personal purposes. So today, I decided to find out if FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 are worth … Read more

When Jasmine and I evaluate MP3 players for CNET reviews, we always try to spend a few sentences describing any noticeable audio performance characteristics we detect during our subjective testing. We'll play around with all of the gadget's different EQ and sound enhancement options, listen back on our reference headphones, and run through a playlist of familiar music. We're only human, however, and hearing loss, ear wax, head congestion, and hangovers can skew our perceptions of audio quality from day to day. Thankfully, we have Eric Franklin.… Read more

A couple months back I attempted to test two 30-inch displays--the Samsung SyncMaster 305T and the Gateway XHD3000 Extreme HD-- at the same time using CNET Labs' current distribution amplifier (DA), the Extron Electronics D2 DA4 DVI D2 DA4 DVI. This device allows up to four displays to simultaneously view the same video signal from one system. For years we've used this device to not only speed up testing, but to do accurate direct comparisons as well. Unfortunately the native resolution for the aforementioned 30-inchers is 2,560x1,600, and the maximum resolution the Extron supports is only 1,920x1,200. So, without a means to test them simultaneously at their native resolutions I was stuck in a bind. I could have tested them one at a time, but since our testing--which includes DisplayMate--has a high level of subjectivity to it, it's always best to do direct simultaneous comparisons, instead of testing one display today and then waiting a couple days to test the next. Testing them simultaneously allows you to see the exact differences between the displays.

So I delayed the testing and the review for a few weeks. In the meantime I got in touch with a colleague at DisplayMate, Ray Soneira. He put me in contact with a company called Kramer. Kramer manufactures a number of distribution amplifiers including the Kramer VM-2DVI. This particular DA is Dual Link compatible and supports each 30-inch display's 2560x1600 resolution. So now I could test both 30-inch displays simultaneously at their native resolutions in DisplayMate and in our current games test, World of Warcraft. However whenever I attempted to run either our Kill Bill Vol. 1 DVD or our Swordfish BD on both displays at the same time, the DRM gods reared their ugly heads and denied me salvation. So when testing how each display handles disc-based movies, I was forced to evaluate each display one at a time. The Kramer VM-2DVI is not advanced enough to circumvent DRM tomfoolery, unfortunately. That said, we're still very pleased that the VM-2DVI allowed us to do the bulk of our testing as fairly and accurately as possible.

The issue of not being able to view certain disc-based movies simultaneously on two or more displays may not be an issue for long, as CNET Labs is considering moving away from using movies--and even games-- to evaluate the quality of a display. The reason being that video images generally move too quickly to do a picture quality comparison, whereas static images such as high-quality photos can be studied as long as necessary in order to examine their quality. No decision has been made as yet, though, but look for more on this in a future Inside CNET Labs post.… Read more

In news releases for Japan and the U.S., Mazda announced that the 2009 RX-8 is currently being shipped to dealers. The Japanese version can be had as a Type RS, with a better sport suspension, while the U.S. equivalent is the R3 sport package. In each case, the RX-8 gets fitted with Bilstein shocks, while Mazda fills the front crossmembers with urethane foam, which should give the RX-8 a smoother ride and better handling. The Type RS and R3 cars also get Recaro seats and 19-inch wheels. Mazda also redesigned the gear ratios on the RX-8's six-speed … Read more

Porsche offered details on its four 2009 911 models, which go on sale in September, which include a new navigation system and a double-clutch transmission. The 911 Carrera Coupe, 911 Carrera Cabriolet, 911 Carrera S Coupe, and 911 Carrera S Cabriolet also get their flat six engines fitted with direct injection, resulting in increased efficiency and performance. The cars don't look substantially different on the outside, although they do get LED tail and parking lights, along with an adaptive headlight system.

The 3.6-liter flat six-cylinder engine in the 911 Carrera gets a 20-horsepower increase to 345, while the … Read more