plug-ins

While it's unclear how many consumers are willing to pay more for plug-in electric cars, the case for fleet operators is a lot simpler to make, according to advocacy group the Electrification Coalition.

The group, made up of CEOs from the auto and electric power industries, today released a road map for fleet electrification in which it argues that corporate fleets can help make plug-in vehicles more commonplace. The document, prepared in an effort to influence policy, was released by members at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Electrifying transportation offers the best means for reducing oil consumption, … Read more

BMW announced today that it's sending the Vision EfficientDynamics plug-in sports car to production.

The plug-in diesel concept coupe was revealed at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show and won the manufacturer several awards for its innovative design and clean technology. The Vision EfficientDynamics uses three power plants to propel the winged 2+2: a three-cylinder turbo diesel engine along with electric motors at each axle. The exotic can operate using its electric motors, diesel engine, or a combination of the two. Full throttle, the trio produces a total of of 328 horsepower and has a 0-60 mph time of … Read more

This story was updated at 4:50 p.m. PDT with a new headline, and additional comment from Microsoft.

Microsoft has taken the covers off a future update to its Bing Maps service that removes the need for its Silverlight browser plug-in to view an alternate mapping layer, and has also announced that it plans to remove its 3D map viewer. The changes will arguably make the service more approachable to the masses, but indicate that the company is going in a different direction with its online tools and technology platforms.

In a post on the Bing community blog, Bing … Read more

DETROIT--The future of autos is electric. Or is it?

Even though the new big thing in the auto industry is electric cars, there is not a clear consensus on how big of a role electric vehicles will play in the coming years.

Auto and utility industry executives at the Business of Plugging In conference here today took pains to point out the significant hurdles to adoption that plug-in vehicles face in becoming mainstream.

In addition to the higher cost of components, such as batteries, there is also the question of building a charging infrastructure in public places and the customers' … Read more

The new version Adobe Flash Player addresses recently uncovered critical vulnerability in the software that could result in a crash and allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

The bug was present in Adobe Flash Player for all supported platforms in the versions before 10.1.82.76 (version 10.1.92.10 for Android), and has also been found in Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9.3.4 and earlier on the Mac.

If you have version 10.1.82.76 or earlier installed, Adobe recommends you update to the latest player (currently 10.1.85.… Read more

Adobe Systems released a preview version of its widely used Flash Player plug-in that catches up to newer trends in Web browser development: 64-bit designs and support for the newly Internet Explorer 9 beta.

The new Flash beta, code-named Square, is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, siad Adobe's Paul Betlem in a blog post today. The download is on Adobe Labs; note that if you install Square, you'll have to manually update it on your own.

The move isn't a big surprise--in June, the Adobe said 64-bit Flash is a "top priority"… Read more

A new method for blocking approved plug-ins from third-party sources appeared in the developer's version of Google's Chrome browser. Available on Friday for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Google Chrome dev 6.0.490.1 includes numerous bug fixes and introduces the Click-to-Play feature for more finely tuned plug-in control.

Click-to-Play adds a small but useful level of functionality to Chrome's native plug-in blocking. It allows Chrome users to activate a plug-in on a per-page basis. Without it, users can only toggle plug-in activation on a per-site basis.

To see how it works, first, you're required to … Read more

Adobe's beta version of Flash 10.1 player let you test out hardware accelerated video decoding on your Mac. Despite a few bugs, the beta version provided a notable decrease in CPU use when watching Flash videos. With its latest security update, Adobe adds hardware accelerated video decoding to the release version of Flash 10.1 player.

While Adobe usually reserves major feature additions for a full version update, the company must have felt it was too good of a feature to keep from users. Despite Flash now supporting hardware accelerated video decoding, it only works on recent Macs … Read more

General Motors has invested in electric vehicle company Bright Automotive, marking the first investment by the auto giant's venture-capital arm.

The companies said Tuesday that the investment by recently created GM Ventures for an undisclosed amount will give GM a minority stake in Anderson, Ind.-based Bright and accelerate Bright's plans to manufacture a plug-in hybrid van that can get up to 100 miles per gallon.

Bright designed the hybrid gas-electric utility van, called the Idea, specifically for fleet vehicle operators. The company was spun out of the Rocky Mountain Institute think tank and co-founded by John Waters, … Read more