challenger

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has won $40,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for correctly finding the locations of 10 red balloons scattered across the U.S.

Launched on Saturday, the DARPA Network Challenge released the 10 red balloons into the air, then dared contestants to find their latitude and longitude by the end of the day. Since no one person could track down all 10 in just one day, the point of the contest was to see how participants would use the Internet and social networking to team up with others to solve … Read more

Three developers made it past thousands of community voters and a panel of judges Monday to emerge as the winners of Google's second Android Developer Challenge (ADC2).

The top overall prizes went to SweetDreams, What the Doodle, and WaveSecure. These winners took home between $125,000 and $250,000 for their efforts. Smaller cash prizes were awarded to the top-three applications in each of 10 categories, which included media, entertainment, education, and travel.

SweetDreams is a lifestyle application that lets users sleep comfortably while knowing their handsets will block unwanted calls in the middle of the night but still … Read more

A new DARPA contest is using balloons to test our social-networking skills.

After kicking off the Internet 40 years ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is again tapping into the Net for a new challenge. The DARPA Network Challenge will award $40,000 to the first person who can identify the latitudes and longitudes of 10 red weather balloons positioned at different parts of the sky across the continental United States.

The 8-foot balloons are scheduled to lift off on Saturday at 7 a.m. PST and remain in their locations throughout the day, until sunset. The contest will … Read more

Not too long ago I delivered a few blog posts featuring some big-ol' gas guzzling SUVs like the Hummer and the Dartz Kombat. Well, I was sitting here stumped on what to write a blog about and I thought to myself that I hadn't done a full-fledged theme week with this video blog in a while, and from there I brainstormed what to do: this week's video blog posts are going to take a look at some of the worst new and ongoing offenders in gas mileage. And I figured since I was giving Hummer some air time … Read more

Yesterday's clip was all about some blazing hot custom made Ford Mustangs making their presence felt at the 2009 SEMA Show last week in Las Vegas. Chevrolet reportedly also got in on the act with pimpin' out Camaros a plenty for SEMA insiders and car enthusiasts alike. Well, if you're thinking Dodge didn't have something similar up their sleeves, then like Judas Priest says "you've got another thing coming."

Today's Web video features Edward Loh from Motortrend.com gushing over some flashy custom 2009 Dodge Challengers, and with damn good reason. These Challengers … Read more

A space race lifted off Friday in Southern California, only this one involved elevators.

Powering their laser-controlled robot to climb a 900-meter-long cable, the team from Seattle-based LaserMotive was crowned the winner in NASA's Space Elevator Power-Beaming Challenge game on Friday.

Held at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster, Calif., the challenge pits teams against each other to see whose robotic space elevator can inch up the cable the quickest in under 7.5 minutes. A helicopter holds the steel cable in place as each robotic elevator races to the top. The … Read more

If you're a person who would gladly relinquish the task of parking your car to a computer, there may be a Volkswagen in your future.

Last weekend, Volkswagen Group of America and Stanford University's School of Engineering hosted a dedication ceremony on the Stanford campus for the new Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL) that included the "first ever" autonomous parking demonstration by a driverless car.

The car, a VW Passat called Junior, was developed jointly by VW and Stanford and is the same one that finished second in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Driverless cars have … Read more

Yesterday I posted up a video clip featuring the guys from the critically acclaimed BBC program Top Gear as they modify a simple streetcar BMW to get it ready for a 24-hour Britcar racing event. I figured since I got us all involved in this adventure, we might as well see the finale of this very amusing Top Gear episode.

Part 1 of this clip ended with Top Gear's Jeremy, James, Richard, and The Stig managing to qualify for the Britcar 24 Hour Challenge, but at the cost of their makeshift race vehicle. Part 2 begins with the diagnosis … Read more