Nissan GT-R speed limiter removed only in Japanese tracks

The Nissan GT-R is a dream car, with a character distinguishing it completely from Italian and German exotica. Unfortunately, modern electronics come to spoil completely driving satisfaction limit the car’s top speed to a sad 180 km/h (111 mph) in Japan and 250 km/h (156 mph) in the US -and I suspect in Europe. The only consolation for Japanese users is the fact that the car’s ECU uses GPS to detect Japanese tracks and remove the speed limit. This feature is not present outside Japan…

The 180 km/h is simply unacceptable when a modern car with a 2 liter turbodiesel engine can easily surpass 200 km/h. Acceleration, deceleration and hard cornering are surely at the heart of driving pleasure but paying for a sports car means getting the full performance deal. German car manufacturers use the 250 km/h limit for years now, the result being a thriving tuning industry. So next time you go to your Nissan dealership for your new GT-R do not just calculate the cost of extras but also add the cost of your tuning specialist…

Link: Autoblog

Russia’s GLONASS again at full strength, competes with GPS and Galileo

Russia’s GLONASS is a little bit like a mirror of the country’s state. GLONASS was planned in the 70s as a military system to compete with the American GPS. The disintegration of the all powerful Soviet Union and the following lack of money and neglect in Russia in the 90s led to a system operating far from its originally planned full strength. Much needed new satellites were never launched to complete the required number of twenty four -21 plus 3 spare ones like for GPS. Coverage remained patchy and never covered the globe, it centered instead on more urgent Russian needs.

It’s the end for Sony rear-projection TVs

Rear-projection TVs were major show off tools back in the days of CRT TVs. They could offer large sizes at affordable cost. Personally I never liked their picture quality so never went anywhere near them and do not feel much sorrow now that Sony has decided to pull the plug in all related production sites. Combined with a similar move by all other rear-projection TV manufacturers, it means that now this technology is more or less display history.

Since SED displays by Canon and Toshiba don’t make it to the market, the game is LCD vs plasma vs OLED. For the time being OLED screens are too small and expensive to challenge LCD and plasma but with R&D funding from large names behind them the battle will be anything but boring. Now all that manufacturers and electronics chains have to do is unload older stock to unsuspecting and non-informed customers as we approach the 2008 Olympic Games to make room on the shelves for the new LED backlight stuff for Christmas 2008… :-)

Link 1: Engadget

Link 2: Reuters

Good news, the US to switch to efficient light bulbs too

Saving energy is preferable to producing more of it, even if it is 100% green. Politicians have recently got the message and earlier this year EU leaders decided to follow Australia’s lead and stop the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2010. Now the new US energy bill makes a similar move and 2012 will be the date after which consumers will only have access to more efficient incandescent or new technology bulbs of the fluorescent type. The news is more than welcome since the EU and US are the largest energy consumers worldwide with a combined population of 800 million consumers. The race is on of course for even more efficient LED lighting, a technology promising further efficiency gains.

Link: New York Times

How I would like to watch my internet TV

I watch very little conventional TV, not because I dislike some of its programs, but because I have zero control over what I watch and when I watch it. Standard definition channels are not that great either, certainly not good enough to keep me away from streaming video sites and free downloadable programs. So is TV going to die slowly? Impossible I think for the moment. But it is going to change from what we know now, that is for sure.

One reason TV keeps going so strong is the failure of internet video to get to our living room in a convincing and simple fashion. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal addresses these very difficulties and proposes some solutions. At least in the US it is clear that if you want to stream internet TV you can make it mainly via cable with one of a collection of boxes. Unfortunately, cable is not available in all countries and the boxes used are aimed at certain markets with a subset of the total of programs that consumers could possibly access in total.