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Advanced taxi prototypes to be demoed at New York car show
The humble yellow cab hasn't changed a whole lot over the years, but now that new, greener methods for powering cars are starting to verge on mainstream acceptance, prototypes for reforming the city vehicles are starting to appear. At the New York International Automobile Show next month, the Taxi 07 project will be exhibiting a group of these prototypes which include Hybrid Technologies's lithium-ion battery powered taxi, a taxi based around the Kia Rondo crossover vehicle design, and "The Standard Taxi" which can accommodate wheelchairs, motorized scooters, and baby strollers. Alongside these designs will be the "World's Fastest Taxi", a hydrogen powered car that can produce 1,000 horsepower and hit 200MPH, and a "high rider" Crown Victoria cab with raised ground clearance and large wheels. All these and more will be showing at the exhibition, where our green colleagues over at Autoblog Green will be there to document all the yellow action.
London's crime-free PS3 launch results in free HDTVs / cab rides
If you weren't already aware, there actually is a bright side to Sony jacking up the price of its PlayStation 3 for European gamers, and while folks were still forced to camp out to snag a (somewhat) coveted unit, things went over drastically better during London's launch compared to similar ones here in the US. While we knew the Brits and Aussies were fully prepared to blow a good chunk of savings on the pricey machine, Americans should seriously scrutinize just how easily these other nations pulled off the high-profile launch, reportedly happening sans any reckless drive-bys or random acts of violence. More interesting, however, is the tidbit where "everyone who purchased a PS3 at the London launch event received a free 46-inch HD television and a taxi home." You read right -- over £250,000 ($490,450) worth of HDTVs were handed carted out to over 100 presumably elated gamers, and London officials made sure that cabs were readily available to rush buyers home after completing their transactions. Notably, a 17-year old fan snagged the pole position in line after waiting just 36 paltry hours, which still suggests that we Americans are more devoted (or delusional, depending on perspective) when it comes to camping out, but we don't even want to imagine the mayhem that would've ensued here if the first hundred buyers were eligible for a free display. Good show, England, good show.[Thanks, Karim M.]
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars revealed
Sega's really starting to ramp up their PSP support. As if After Burner and Full Auto 2 wasn't enough, they recently revealed a new version of their popular Crazy Taxi series for the PSP entitled Fare Wars. GameFront has pictures of the game, and unfortunately, they don't look too sharp. Thankfully, the game has a lot of time to shape up until its expected Summer release (in Europe).The game will feature 2 player ad-hoc multiplayer, and content from Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2. We're not sure if it'll have new content, but it will have a cool feature that allows you to record videos from the game and save it to Memory Stick, so that you can share your craziest fares.[Via IGN]See also:Power Stone Collection producer wants more Dreamcast ports
NYC taxis to map out dead zones in mobile networks
We've already seen an influx of hybrid vehicles take their places in the mammoth fleet of New York City taxis, and now that the Taxi 2.0 will reportedly sport GPS tracking an built-in televisions, what else is really left to implement? Stockholm-based Ericsson has apparently seized the opportunity in using the random, perpetual motion of NYC's yellow mainstays to better itself (read: make some coin), and has recently received permission from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to install small devices "about the size of a computer modem" into cabs in order to "feed information about signal strength and clarity to engineers." The research, which has already been completed in other areas of the world, is being conducted in the Big Apple on behalf of a yet-to-be-named carrier, and it purportedly hopes to more accurately map out dead zones in mobile phone networks. Currently, "at least one fleet" has signed up to participate, and others could join in considering the royalties that will be paid out for tagging along on those zany routes through the city. Of course, this whole system should be relatively invisible to cab riders, but a continual voice recording of furious (and disconnected) passengers could probably work equally well in pinpointing those dead spots.[Via Textually]
NYC taxis to map out dead zones in mobile network
We've already seen an influx of hybrid vehicles take their places in the mammoth fleet of New York City taxis, and now that the Taxi 2.0 will reportedly sport GPS tracking an built-in televisions, what else is really left to implement? Stockholm-based Ericsson has apparently seized the opportunity in using the random, perpetual motion of NYC's yellow mainstays to better itself (read: make some coin), and has recently received permission from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to install small devices "about the size of a computer modem" into cabs in order to "feed information about signal strength and clarity to engineers." The research, which has already been completed in other areas of the world, is being conducted in the Big Apple on behalf of a yet-to-be-named carrier, and it purportedly hopes to more accurately map out dead zones in mobile phone networks. Currently, "at least one fleet" has signed up to participate, and others could join in considering the royalties that will be paid out for tagging along on those zany routes through the city. Of course, this whole system should be relatively invisible to cab riders, but a continual voice recording of furious (and disconnected) passengers could probably work equally well in pinpointing those dead spots.[Via Textually]
