new tech.....

[nauc 10+ year member]

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8658

Click to read more...

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

Conventional internal combustion engines rely on a piston moving inside a cylinder to provide power. Big ones are efficient because gas leakage round the piston wastes only a small percentage of the total power. But in smaller engines the leakage loss is proportionately high, so efficiency is poor.

? ? ? ?

 

[Ingleside 10+ year member]

ooooooooooooooooooook ??

so honda

 

[Beat_Dominator 5,000+ posts]

Read lower, IBM stereo thingy.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

ooooooooooooooooooook ??so honda

That's almost exactly the thought I had when I read it, Ingleside.

But it was more along the lines of "So my friend's Z71 with a 5.7L v8 is more efficient than my Toyota-powered Prizm?!?"

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

You guys are dumb-dumbs:

Driving-music heaven

Some people spend more money on their car stereo than their home hi-fi. Unfortunately, passengers can upset the perfect balance of a car stereo by selfishly reflecting and absorbing sound inside the vehicle.

So IBM researchers have come up with a dashboard computer to automatically cancel such distortions.

To calibrate the system the driver sits in an empty car and manually adjusts the volume and tone to their taste. From then on, each time the car is started, the system sends test signals through all the speakers at inaudibly high and low frequencies.

The sound quality is then tested for each seat using microphones hidden in the headrests. The overall balance is automatically adjusted to give passengers a good overall sound, while still ensuring that the driver gets the best possible stereo effect.

Hopefully the system will keep everyone calm when the car gets stuck in traffic, perhaps by triggering a few classics by The Jam.

Read the full car stereo heaven patent here.

 

[jrz126 10+ year member]

I've actually had thoughts about something like that. Is it being marketed yet?

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

I have a simple solution for that...make my passengers ride the duct tape section behind the front seats //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif