Britains 1000mph car revealed – Autocar.co.uk.

By the way, 1000 mph = 1609.30 kmh = 44.70 m/s. And that Eurofighter engine in concert with a rocket!

Britain's Bloodhound SSC

Britain’s 1000mph car has been unveiled in Bristol, as its bid to break the world land speed record gathers momentum.

Bloodhound SSC has gone through 10 design evolutions since October 2008 and the final design has now been agreed. The car’s first attempts at the record, which currently stands at 763mph, will take place on the Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape Province of South Africa in 2011.

The car is powered by an EJ200 Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine and a 400kg rocket sitting below it. Bloodhound SSC produces the equivalent of 133,150bhp, the power of around 180 Formula One cars.

In the original plan, the 200kg rocket sat above the jet engine, but not enough thrust could be created to overcome the aerodynamic drag. This led to a 400kg rocket being used, but this caused the car to pitch nose-down, destabilising the vehicle. Engineers found the best compromise to be positioning the rocket below the jet engine.

The car’s 90cm-diameter wheels have been made from forged aerospace-grade aluminium to withstand the g-forces required of supporting a 6.5-tonne car travelling at 1050mph. The car will be driven by fighter pilot Andy Green and he has designed the cockpit himself.

One of the project’s greatest challenges has been finding a place suitable for the car to make its record attempt. The site needs to be 10 miles long and must have one mile of clear run-off at each end and be firm enough to support the weight of the car. Several locations, including the Bonneville Salt Flats in the US, were sounded out using Google Earth.

Hakskeen Pan was eventually found to be the best site; it is a 12-mile track across a perfectly flat dried-up lake. The record attempt is being supported by the Northern Cape Government.

So far, 166 sponsors have signed up to support the project. Public donations have also totalled more than £137,000, while 2410 schools have joined the project as part of its education programme.

Source: Apple  - Antenna Design and Test Labs

Oh my goodness – this raises my respect for apple a thousand-fold, despite all that antenna talk. Thank goodness i’m on the right bandwagon, at least for the time being.

Yes, we could dismiss all this as pointless PR spin, given how the testing process still produced a faulty product, but still…

I’m sure other handphone manufacturers might have the very same facilities, but when you’re producing tons of different designs a year, i wonder whether each can be tested to such a degree. Besides, companies with many models can spread their risk rather evenly.

More crucially, i’d reckon that Apple’s corporate culture means it doesn’t do what it says, in a good way – it cracks its skull in delivering industry leading products, yet keeps absolutely mum on developments. Above all else, i respect their Apple’s corporate pride, which i doubt every gets close to the arrogance that naysayers seem to enjoy accusing it of. It’s amazing how an entire organisation thinks like one, behaves like one, in a most coherent manner, yet still remains organically creative. That’s some miracle.

If you notice the Stargate-esque ring in the bottom-most photo, i think i’ve seen it before from a company named Satimo.

You can have a look at their products here: Satimo – Fast Antenna Measurement, Radome Test and Scanners Systems

According to Apple:

Advanced facilities.
Apple never releases a product without thoroughly testing it first. To do this, we built our multimillion-dollar antenna design and test labs. These labs feature 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.

Testing performance in the lab.
Our anechoic chambers are connected to sophisticated equipment that simulates cellular base stations, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices — even GPS satellites. These chambers measure performance in free space, in the presence of materials simulating human tissue (“phantom” heads and hands, for example), and in use by human subjects. Over a one- to two-year development cycle, Apple engineers spend thousands of hours performing antenna and wireless testing in the lab.

Testing performance in the field.
Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality, dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours — iPhone 4 was field-tested in nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier equipment all over the world.

Apple Antenna Design and Test Labs - Tapered Chamber

Apple Antenna Design and Test Labs - Large Anechoic Chamber

Apple Antenna Design and Test Labs - 'Stargate'

AKG K702 Audiophile Circumaural Headphones

Recently i’ve been doing my best to search for a pair of audiophile headphones hopefully in time for university. However, do bear in mind that the label ‘audiophile’ is very, very subjective.

Came across this video by the Discovery Channel outlining how the AKG 702 headphones are made. The process and construction seems rather simple actually, as compared with speakers. For example, the Bowers and Wilkins diamond tweeters utilise chemical vapour deposition of carbon. That just makes any of the diaphragms in any headphone look positively neanderthal. >< I’m sorry, i’m just an equipment-whore at heart…

Moreover, every time i go back to listen to increasing numbers of headphones, i’m just reminded of how limited they are in terms of sound as compared to speakers…

How am i ever going to find a pair of headphones? :(

The Ferrari 458 is already a pretty zippy car, yet Ferrari has agreed to shovel the much larger Enzo-derived V12 from the 599 into its engine bay.

Apparently, one can’t just be any megastar, in order to have a bespoke Ferrari. Your career has to be game-changing and soulful, thereby eliminating Beavers, Britneys and Cyruses. And as in the article below, Ferrari interviewed Clapton, which emphasised their enthusiasm in accommodating him…

I’m guessing that a car like the 458 was not designed to with any room for a bigger engine, so i wonder how difficult it would be to fit the heavier V12. Aston had a bit of trouble when they swapped the 4.3L V8 in the Vantage V8 for the 6L V12 in the DBS to produce the V12 Vantage. I too am guessing that a front-engined supercar has more space in the bonnet for the engine to ride further back and lower as the Aston, than a midengined vehicle as with the Ferrari.

Moreover, i’m sure the V12 would alter the balance and handling of the 458 significantly, and would it really be faster given the different weight-to power ratio?

But a what a noise it is sure to make, especially if they remove the exhaust baffles! It’s conceivable from the article below.

Maybe i should try to become a pop star instead of a surgeon…

Ferrari 458 Italia in White

Riding with the King: Clapton wants a Ferrari 458 Italia… with a V12 — Autoblog.

When you’ve recorded as many platinum records, collaborated with as many big names and topped as many best-guitarists-of-all-time lists as Eric Clapton, you can get pretty much anything you want. And the ironically nicknamed Slowhand is known to have a taste for Ferraris. So much so that when he stopped by the factory in Maranello, even Ferrari couldn’t pass up the opportunity to interview him. 

Neither could Quattroruote, for that matter. While speaking with the Italian car-mag, Clapton reportedly professed his love for the new 458 Italia… with just one caveat: He’s not such a fan of eight cylinders. Could he get it with V12?

According to Quattroruote, apparently he can, as Ferrari has reportedly agreed to build it for him, with the 6.0-liter V12 from the 599 GTB Fiorano. We’ll believe it when we see it, which is pretty much exactly what we said the first time we heard the guitar riff on Layla.

“Login” is not a verb.

This site graciously explains a grammatical error we commonly encounter nowadays knowingly or not!

Despite what many people –mostly in the computer field– think, “login” is not a verb. It’s simply not. Whether or not “login” is a word at all may spark a debate in some circles, but assuming it is then it may act as many parts of speech, but not as a verb.

I will repeat the important part for clarity: “login” is not a verb. It’s simply not.

This site is dedicated to educating people about the common misuses of words like “login.” It is meant for both non-native speakers who may not know any better, and for native speakers who should know better but don’t. It is in no way a substitute for a real education. Poor grammar is an excellent way to make any presentation sound stupid –or program look sloppy– so if you intend to use this language much then it behooves you to learn it properly.

So please, as we Singaporeans would have it, ‘email to’ all your friends now.

If we only could have a site like the above to cater to each and every one of our grammatical failings!

Engrish - Racist Park in China

Google walk woman’s legal action – Autocar.co.uk.

I reckon that unfortunately this incredulous incident will hurt google more than it does the lady in the long run.

So much for being the ‘competent adult’…

A woman who was hit by a car after walking on a highway in Los Angeles is suing Google.

Lauren Rosenberg claims she looked up a walking route on Google Maps on her Blackberry on 19 January last year.

The directions she was given included walking on a highway that has no pavement, but instead of seeking an alternate route she walked in the middle of the highway.

She was hit by a car and is suing Google for medical expenses amounting to $100,000 (£68,000), and for punitive damages. Rosenberg is also suing the driver who hit her.

Her court filing claims Rosenberg “was and is a competent adult” and lays full blame on Google and the driver.

Google Maps

I really have been away for too long – only found out about this insanely great advert through my rss reader.

I’m not so much amazed by the creativity as by the logistics that the BMW team put together.

After working with new media for a bit now, i believe these publicity events are more effective than single adverts in traditional media, which in turn include print and TV ads. That’s simply because these stunts that are unique and uncommon easily trigger a social media response from the people, from mobile snapshots to uploads on an iPhone. Given that the barriers to interpersonal communication are at an all time low with the proliferation of social networks, adverts of a physical nature have never been so powerful.

Case in point – the hype and coverage surrounding the launch of the iPhone and iPads were instrumental in effecting the large sale volumes that apple mustered in recent years. Social networks combined with a fanatical desire for the device ensured a self-sustaining movement that in turn led to more sales. And together with free coverage in news networks and other traditional media avenues, this could have been one of the greatest value-for-money marketing campaigns.

Either way, hope you enjoy the video. And if you’re Singaporean, hope it gets you all fuzzy as well. :)

Somali pirates attack French military flagship – Yahoo! News.

Somali Pirates FAIL

That Lee Lam Thye fella and ‘the system’ « The People’s Parliament.

This is quite an interesting article from across the causeway, comparing the number of fatalities between Singapore and Malaysia’s respective National Service.

No idea how i stumbled upon it.

Because we bloody can.