A year after Honda announced that the NSX-successor is cancelled you can see the first photos from the GT500 version of Honda's new HSV-010 GT. The images are from the website kansenzyuku.com and were taken yesterday in Suzuka circuit (owned by Honda) where 3 prototypes made some test laps. The HSV-010 GT will compete in 2010 SuperGT championship, replacing the very succesfull NSX-GT which represented Honda for 13 years and won 37 races.

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Another concept by ArtLebedev of the "why nobody think that before?" kind, the Transparentius road view transmitting system. The image above is almost self-explanatory, big vehicles obstacle view, especially in narrow roads and this is a simple way to almost eliminate the problem.

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All Japan Micromouse Robot Competition is a robotics competition that takes place for 30 years with almost no-change in rules. The concept is to place autonomous robots inside a maze. The robots will explore the maze in order to map it and then they do performance runs from the entry to the center and the faster micro-robot wins. Last year the winner run the maze in 6.4 seconds and this year in the 30th contest the TETRA micro-mouse (pictured above) by Kato-san did a test run in only 4,7" although in the actual competition it disqualified.

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This is the Code-X Yacht, another design that after Wally diverges from the generic rounded white shape that most yachts has. CODE-X AG, is based in Meggen Switzerland, on Lake Lucerne and develops this Yacht with SILICON-FIRE AG.
Instead of rounded shapes Code-X uses an edged form, of the popular "stealth" trend which here is very well implemented to give a simple but very aggressive design.

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Some days ago Wall Street Journal published an article saying that not only that video and metadata downlink from UAVs is unencrypted but it is also routinely breached by a variety of hostiles with minimum equipment in HW/SW.

US forces have found laptops and hard discs with many hours of footage and info downloaded from the video feed of various UAVs by using a simple satellite dish, a laptop and cheap commercial software like skygrabber.

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More than two years ago a Toyota Supra HV-R GT hybrid won the 24h Tokachi race in Japan scoring the first victory for a hybrid gasoline-electric racecar. From then on there are rumors that Toyota will enter the GT class at LeMans with a hybrid or even challenge the diesel dominators with an LMP prototype. A recent Autocar article speculates a Toyota entry with the Supra HV-R GT. However this car is very old, its production model is out of production for years and the Tokachi winner was the semi-official team SARD.Hybrid technology is Toyota's technology posterchild. If Toyota decides to enter LeMans with its first ever official hybrid racer it will probably be with the new Lexus LF-A. In two years it will be well in production and it is overengineered as it is to form an excellent basis for a GT racecar without a huge development cost even with the addition of a hybrid drivetrain.

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Every year LA Auto Show organizes a design competition for the local major manufacturers design studios. This years theme is "Youthmobile 2030" and the participants are the studios of Audi, GM, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota.

This is the winner, Nissan V2G (UNLMTD) which is an electric car (of course) that uses a Grid system (similar to cell phone companies) for its function and ownership plan, however the more rebellious owners will use it ("off-grid") outside the 'official' routes and customize it. Apart from the lifestyle story and the essential eco-credentials this is a very clever concept with a simple but striking form. The forward pods with the tandem small wheels is a smart design that allow the designer to get away with a non-wheel and maybe hover like look while retaining a credible (even in paper) technically design.

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GM just announced that after another fail to close a deal for selling SAAB the company will now close and in the next months operations in its main plant in Trollhättan will gradually wind down. After last years mayhem in Detroit GM decided to give away SAAB to another company. SAAB for the last years has almost exclusively owned by GM, which increased its share of 50% that held for a long time to own the entire company. The fact that GM hold half the shares of SAAB was held for many responsible for the lack of initiative and investments in the company that was for years stuck with a very limited range of two models and very scarce resources. High hopes were placed in the buyout from Koenigsegg, which while very small was supposed to establish SAAB in the position that the heritage and the extremely loyal fan base of the company wanted for decades. The deal with Koenigsegg collapsed suddenly when everything appeared to be ready for the owner transfer and the next deal with Spyker was spookily similar in every way.

It is a very sad day for automotive industry but the fate of SAAB was predefined by decades of bureaucracy and bad strategy despite the moments of brilliance and the efforts of the majority of engineers and workers in Trollhättan.

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These are the first renderings of Beachcomber concept that MINI will show in the Detroit auto show in January. It is an evolution of the Crossover concept and a prequel of the actual MINI SUV that will soon enter production. The Beachcomber's main theme is a tribute to Mini Moke of the 60's. However instead of using a bespoke simple utilitarian body like its ancestor, this concept car is obviously the fore coming SUV without doors and roof and with the added 'concept car' flash details.

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