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Ford engineer builds vibrating shift knob using 3D printer and an Xbox 360 controller (video)
You're not going to find it in the next car you drive off the lot, but a Ford engineer has developed a fairly novel approach to making a manual transmission a bit easier to adjust to: a vibrating shifter knob. As he explains in the video after the break, Zach Nelson first turned to an Xbox 360 controller for the necessary vibrating mechanism, which he then stuffed into a 3D-printed knob along with an Arduino controller and an LED display. When fully assembled, the knob is able to communicate with the vehicle's on-board diagnostic system using Ford's open source OpenXC software platform, and vibrate to let you know when you need to shift gears. As Wired notes, the knob can even be used by more experienced drivers to pinpoint exactly when to shift to get either the most performance or the best fuel economy. We also expect a booming business in custom shifter designs to start any minute now.
Fanatec Forza Motorsport CSR wheel and Elite pedals review
Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel for Xbox 360 review Fanatec Porsche GT2 wheel and Clubsport pedals review Forza Motorsport CSR and CSR Elite wheel and pedals hands-on It's amazing to realize that about two years ago Fanatec's first Xbox 360 racing wheel, the Forza 3 Porsche 911 Turbo Wheel, hit the scene. Although it turned out to be a mixed bag, Fanatec pleasantly surprised us with its Porsche GT2 and Clubsport Pedals in January of this year -- despite a roaring fan and shaky shifter mounts. Now, we're saying hello to a new trio of racing sim-related goods intended for Forza Motorsport 4 on Xbox 360: the $249.95 Forza Motorsport CSR Wheel, $59.95 shifter set, and $149.95 CSR Elite Pedals. If you'll recall, it was back in March that we checked some of this kit out, and now with Forza 4 here, we hooked this mashup of gear up with our Playseat Evolution for a massive amount of virtual spins. So, did this combination help speed past the checkerboard with a respectable feel? Shift past the break find out in our full review. %Gallery-140233%
Fanatec's Forza 4 accessories now up for pre-order
Turn 10 Studios and Fanatec have partnered to offer some high-end, wireless peripherals for Forza Motorsport 4. The CSR Wheel ($250), CSR Elite pedals ($150) and CSR shifter ($60) are all made with aluminum parts. The wheel's got force feedback and an LED display for tweaking the turning, force feedback, vibration and sensitivity; five available presets make for easy switching. The wheel is even compatible with PC and PS3, if you've got other racing games, and the pedals are also compatible with PC via an optional USB cable. Take a gander at the goods in the gallery below. %Gallery-135146%
Capo gives you play-along tempo controls for $39
Capo is a new app from the makers of TapeDeck, and it's the talk of the town amongst musicians -- it allows you to simply change the speed or pitch of any songs you happen to have laying around your computer, so that you can play or sing along with them at your own pace. We got a chance to try out the app just before release (though it's available for $39 right now), and while the UI is very impressive, the actual purpose of the app is too limited, in my opinion, to be worth it.Not that it does anything badly -- the speed and pitch manipulation are very impressive. While there's a little bit of clipping and distortion at the absolute extremes, that's to be expected when you're changing these attributes on the fly, and when you're not at the extremes, things sound really great here. The app is extremely responsive to the controls as well, which are very intuitive and well designed -- you can choose to quickly select various tempos or pitches on a meter, or drag the slider in between those to find exactly the point you want. And no matter how fast you move the slider, the music responds instantly without any noise or slowdown. If you want to change a song's pitch or speed in order to try to play along with it or give it a closer listen, Capo will let you do exactly that, in style.
