lanes

The last six months haven't been kind to Ray Lane.

According to a Bloomberg report, the former chairman of Hewlett-Packard has been fending off an IRS case putting him on the hook for a $100 million in taxes, all while he was trying to steer HP through snafus that culminated in his departure from the board.

Tax-court documents show the IRS in December found that Lane improperly used his partnership, Vanadium Partners Fund LLC, to claim $251 million in losses to offset income. Lane has appealed, disputing the agency's claim that his fund lacked legitimate business purpose.

Lane, … Read more

Hewlett-Packard chairman Ray Lane, along with three board members, will meet with some of his company's top investors to reassure them about the job they're doing, according to a new report.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in an interview published today, William Patterson, executive director of CtW Investment Group, a large HP shareholder, said that he and his supporters will lead a charge aimed at removing Lane and two of his fellow board members, John Hammergren and G. Kennedy Thompson, at the company's annual meeting on March 20.

That is, Patterson told the Journal, unless HP … Read more

Modern luxury vehicles are available with a wide range of driver assistance technology and use a variety of sensors to power that tech. Lane departure warning systems use front-facing cameras to watch the lines painted on the road. Blind-spot monitoring uses sonar arrays to check the area around the vehicle for obstructions. Rear proximity detection also uses sonar arrays to detect objects behind a reversing vehicle. The 2013 Nissan Altima will be able handle all three of these functions with only one rear-facing camera.

Nissan's system uses a rear-facing camera that constantly watches the area behind and to the … Read more

Here in Albuquerque, we have a 5-feet-to-pass law. You need to give cyclists that much room when you go around them in a car. It's easy to visualize when you have marked bike lanes, but some drivers push the limits on unmarked streets, especially at night.

If bicyclists carried their own bike lanes with them, it might help alert motorists to give them proper room. That's where Xfire's clever Bike Lane Safety Light comes in. The light uses two 5mW red lasers to create bike lane markings and five red LEDs for increased visibility overall. … Read more

Fab.com, a design focused e-commerce site that runs flash sales, is doing an impressive job racking up really big numbers.

The site, in its current iteration, is just eight months old and is already boasting that it's about to hit 2 million members, likely making it the fastest growing e-commerce site on the planet.

That's impressive, for sure, especially given that until Wednesday, Fab.com wasn't open to all; you had to request an invite and Fab would send you an e-mail within a day or two welcoming you to the party.

That in itself was … Read more

Last time, we took a look at how cars protect their passengers in the event of a crash. This week, we're taking a look at a few high-tech ways that modern vehicles can help prevent accidents in the first place.

Modern tech cars can be equipped with a host of driver aid systems that help make driving easier for your average commuter. From road-aware cruise control systems to self-aware headlight systems, cars are getting smarter every day.

Adaptive cruise control If the standard cruise control system was the first step toward vehicular autonomy, then adaptive cruise control system is … Read more

Swiss scientists say they have a new candidate for making flexible electronic devices, after they successfully manufactured the first molybdenite microchip.

The integrated circuit was made at the Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (Lanes), of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. Yesterday, the researchers said it showed how molybdenite microchips could be made smaller than silicon chips, use less electricity than silicon, and be more flexible than silicon, the mainstay of today's computers.

The flexibility of molybdenite could also make it suitable for creating rollable computers or devices that can be attached to a person's skin, the … Read more

Hewlett-Packard Executive Chairman Ray Lane uses a MacBook Air at home. At the very least an indication that when given a choice, he opts for a rival's product.

The photo seen here is a bit curious as Lane was originally a proponent of spinning off HP's PC business--despite its status as the largest PC/laptop maker in the world (and a profitable one at that).

So, this raises the question, if HP's chairman openly opts for Apple hardware, how favorably disposed would he have been to holding on to HP's PC division in the first place?… Read more