crash

An early burial for Hummer

I was reading an Associated Press article recently about all the soon-to-be-defunct product lines produced by General Motors: Pontiac, Saab, and Saturn. But another brand that's been on the way out for a while now was making headlines again, as GM looks all set in its selling off the Hummer brand to China-based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corporation. While it's not official yet, unless something goes awry it looks to be a done deal and GM will have washed their hands of the tanking SUV line.

With General Motors metaphorically taking its Hummer brand out to the … Read more

NASA drops a chopper from the sky

A certain American Airlines 757 pilot gave me and a couple of hundred others a very hard landing this week.

So my jaw finally began to cease chattering when I discovered NASA is beginning to work on dropping flying things from the sky to see if perhaps the impact can be absorbed.

NASA's Web site told me that it dropped a helicopter from 35 feet in order to see whether an expandable honeycomb cushion that NASA calls a "deployable energy absorber" could minimize damage to life, limb, and even nervous systems.

The MD-500's landing gear did … Read more

Cadillac Escalade transformed into Monster Truck!

The hot topic that's being discussed all over the 'Net and at water coolers all over the world is how Tiger Woods ended up crashing his 2009 Cadillac Escalade into a now-famous tree in Florida after what is being rumored as a fight with his wife over reports that he'd been steppin' out with another woman. I'll leave all the gossip and speculation on the why's and how's of that situation to TMZ or the National Enquirer. But I'm the type of person who tries to find light and humor in all situations, so … Read more

Johnson falls behind at Dickies 500 in Texas

So far, it seems like all the luck in the world has been on driver Jimmie Johnson's side throughout the 2009 Sprint Cup chase, and things have been so lopsided between Johnson and his Nascar competitors that some fans feel they should just throw him the trophy and call it a season. While Johnson remains the odds-on pick to win the whole shebang, he didn't fare so well this past Sunday at the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. And we got the footage right here...(and by the way, I have no clue … Read more

Flippin' out at the 2009 AMP Energy 500

Yesterday Jamie McMurray pulled off a significant upset by winning NASCAR's AMP Energy 500 Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway. Not that we here at The Car Tech blog would promote gambling, but if you had bet on McMurray, then you would have made out like a bandit with his reported 25 to 1 odds of winning at Talladega. As much as this victory is a feather in McMurray's logo-ridden cap, it doesn't matter much, as it appears that based on points alone Jimmie Johnson is gonna take yet another Sprint Cup championship. Yawn.

But what seems … Read more

A tune-up for your PC

As with any machine, your PC needs regular tune-ups to maintain peak performance. This virtual toolbox can enhance the speed, safety, and power of your computer with a wide range of functions and an extensive help system.

System Mechanic performs cleanup, optimization, and privacy protection with equal agility. As with similar tune-up utilities, it enables you to clean up your registry, remove junk files, and customize hidden settings to improve performance. Novice users can get all of that done at once or automatically taken care of via the software's ActiveCare feature. The app has additional tools for removing spyware … Read more

Crash testing the maybe-not-so-Smart ForTwo

If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, I'm sure you're probably familiar with the little golf-cart looking car called the Smart ForTwo. These trendy little things are gas efficient, eco-friendly, and easy to drive, but are they safe? Today's video demonstrates just how potentially dangerous these things are in an accident, so pay attention.

It's been noted that this video has an affiliation with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, although this claim has been disputed by some Web viewers. Regardless, this video is neat as it shows the testers setting up the crash … Read more

Crash test mania: Toyota Camry vs. Yaris

About 50 years ago, a nonprofit organization called the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was founded to conduct research on consumer automotive safety and preventive measures to reduce vehicular crashes and personal injuries that occur in car crashes. Recently the IIHS made news by crash testing a car from the era of its inception, the 1959 Chevy Bel Air, against a 2009 Chevy Malibu. The video for the Chevy crash test is readily available, but to sum it up, automobile safety features have come a long way, baby.

Today's video clip is also part of the IIHS crash experiment … Read more

Shrek challenges Crash Bandicoot for karting crown

Ever since Mario traded his running shoes for a four-wheeler, go-kart games have been a console staple.

Witness Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D for the iPhone, which debuted in 2008 (shortly after the App Store launched) and has been a top seller ever since.

Now comes Gameloft's Shrek Kart, which casts everybody's favorite ogre in the Mario/Crash role for some fairy-tale-themed fun.

Actually, you can race as Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, Puss in Boots, or any of 10 movie characters--each with his or her own vehicle and special ability. (Shrek, for example, can "break wind" to … Read more

Finder Error -10810 in Snow Leopard causing problems

A number of people are having a problem where the Finder will hang or crash, followed by a Finder error message saying "The application Finder.app can't be opened. -10810." The general agreement among affected users seems to be that this is spurred mainly when accessing external drives, but there could be a few other related reasons.… Read more