Audi O Sports Car Concept is fuel efficient diesel/electric hybrid drivetrain

Audi O Sports Car Concept

The Audi O concept was designed to fuse a powerful and innovative audio system with a stylish and sporty four-seat hatchback. The exterior design uses several Audi trademark styling themes, especially at the front where the square grille sits neatly between the LED headlights.

Audi O Sports Car Concept

The doors feature glass windows running along the bottom edge which provide an interesting shape to the profile of the car. At the rear of the car the pullout door echoes the design of the squared off Audi grille. The 2008 Audi O concept was designed by Ondrej Jirec, a design student from the Czech Republic who is beginning studies at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California in 2008.

Audi O Sports Car Concept

The interior of the Audi O concept is bright and airy thanks to a full length panoramic roof which floods the cabin with light. Inside, the passenger compartment has been separated from the engine compartment by a double firewall to help keep out external noise which might interfere with the powerful sound system.

Audi O Sports Car Concept

The Audi O concept features a unique audio system which has internet connectivity for downloading music onto the built-in 650 GB hard drive. When parked up a Bluetooth system can connect two or more Audi O cars to play audio over a wider area. In this situation, a host Audi O is set to be the source of sound and the other vehicles act as speakers.

Audi O Sports Car Concept

The Audi O also features a pullout rear door fitted with a DJ set with mixing decks. The decks can also be removed and used anywhere outside the car.
Powering the Audi O concept is fuel efficient diesel/electric hybrid drivetrain.

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car The 8-litre’s Debut at Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance, California

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

2010 Bentley Motors unveiled the Mulsanne, the company’s all-new flagship grand tourer, at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance in Monterey, California. The Mulsanne is inspired by the company founder W.O. Bentley’s crowning achievement in 1930, the 8-litre. And it was W.O.’s own sensitively conserved company car that shared the podium with the new Mulsanne in Pebble Beach. This early motoring masterpiece represented the last big Bentley that was designed, engineered and built from the ground up by Bentley engineers - until now.

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

Nearly 80 years later, while paying respect to this illustrious past, the new Mulsanne is a thoroughly modern statement of luxury driving and grand touring. Conceived, styled and engineered entirely at Bentley’s headquarters in Crewe, England, the Mulsanne, with its completely new and unique platform, goes into production next year in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility within the Crewe factory. The Bentley design team, lead by Dirk van Braeckel, have created a flagship that offers the classic sporting, styling cues long-associated with Bentley - expressed in a thoroughly contemporary way.

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

The return of the Mulsanne name to a car carrying Bentley’s iconic ‘Winged B’ emblem underlines the company’s racing pedigree and nowhere reflects that heritage better than the famed Le Mans circuit, the scene of no fewer than six Bentley triumphs. Few places offer a stronger or more emotive connection with the Bentley marque than the famed Mulsanne corner.
The Bentley 8-litre displayed alongside the Mulsanne in California was first shown at the 1930 London Motor Show.

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

It was the second-built and was W.O. Bentley’s company car for two years. Capable of reaching more than 100 mph, the 8-litre demonstrated W.O. Bentley’s ambition and ability to build a grand luxury car capable of surpassing every other leading manufacturer of the day. A total of 100 cars were built in 1930 and 1931.

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

“The 8-litre’s breathtaking performance and quality was perhaps the finest example of a ‘pure’ grand Bentley. Every mechanical detail carried W.O. Bentley’s unique stamp and it was the clearest demonstration of a car built without compromise,” commented Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn, Member of the Board Engineering. “The Mulsanne has been designed with exactly the same guiding principles, so it is entirely fitting that these Bentleys from different eras share the same stage.”

2010 New Bentley Mulsanne Luxurious Sports Car

The Bentley Mulsanne will go on sale from mid 2010. It will also be displayed at the forthcoming IAA Frankfurt Motor Show (15-27th September, 2009) where Bentley Motors will provide additional product information.

Charlize Theron Leggings

Charlize Theron pictured looking exceptionally hot, while sporting a sassy pair of butt hugging leggings.

Is Charlize Theron the total package? That is the question of the day.

Top Google Apps in 2009

Here's a list of my favorite Google services that were launched or were significantly improved in 2009.

10. Google Public DNS - a DNS resolution system that doesn't offer too many features, but it's free and fast. Very fast.

9. Google Fast Flip - a service that lets you quickly browse news. It's easy to use and it's a better way to discover interesting news articles than Google News.

8. Google Squared - an innovative way to dynamically generate collections and facts about each item. It's an extension of Google Sets and you can use it to create lists.

7. Google Wave - an online platform for collaboration in real-time. While there are many interesting features in Google Wave, Google's implementation of the Wave protocol is too confusing and difficult to use.

6. Google Translate added new languages, made it easier to find web pages written in other languages and to translate web pages in real-time. You can now use Google Translate in Gmail, Google Docs, Google Groups and many other Google services.

5. Google Maps aggregated information about locations in place pages, started to show more search results and to use its own mapping data in the US. Google also launched Google Maps Navigation, "internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance. It is part of Google Maps for mobile and is available for phones with Android 1.6 and higher." Unlike other navigation apps, Google's Android app is free, but it's limited to the US.

4. Google Image Search added many advanced search options: color filter, size filter, Creative Commons search and an option that lets you find similar images. There's also a great Android app that helps you search the web visually: Google Goggles.

3. Google Search added a toolbelt with many options that help you refine search results: you can restrict the results to forums and recent web pages, find pages shared by your friends, view page thumbnails and explore related searches. Other changes include a redesigned homepage with bigger buttons and less links, Google Suggest as a standard feature and more sitelinks.

2. Android, Google's mobile operating system, had 3 major releases and it's now used by more than 20 devices. Companies like HTC, Motorola, Samsung bet on Android and there are many cool applications that are only available for Android: Goggles, Sky Map, Google Navigation.

1. Google Chrome, the most innovative Google software released last year, continues to be a trendsetter when it comes to simplicity and great performance. It now supports themes and extensions, it has a bookmark sync engine and you can download native versions for Linux and Mac. Chrome is the most significant component of Chrome OS, a browser-centric operating system for notebooks, and a strategic project that helps Google push the web forward. Even if that means improving Internet Explorer.

Predictions for Google's 2010

1. Google Chrome's bookmark sync will be extended to sync the documents stored in Google Docs.

2. Google will launch a service that indexes and ranks web applications.

3. Google will use different interfaces for displaying search results, depending on your query.

4. Google's search engine will group related results.

5. Google Image Search will let you upload an image and will show related images from the web.

6. Google Street View's images will become searchable and Google will start to show information about different places in Street View.

7. Google will release an online development environment optimized for building web applications.

8. An open platform for search experiments: tweak Google's ranking factors, customize the interface and create a better search engine.

9. Android will have more users than Windows Mobile.

10. Many browsers will copy Google Chrome's features: the simplified interface, the rapid development model, the lightweight extensions, sandboxing, compiling JavaScript code.

11. Google Drive will finally launch, but it will only be an extended version of Google Docs. Instead of sending attachments, you'll be able to upload files to Google Drive from Gmail.

12. Google Wave won't become successful, but its features will be used in other Google products.

13. Google will buy True Knowledge and will launch a fact search engine.

14. Gmail's spam filtering algorithms will be more transparent and you'll be able to define custom rules for flagging messages as spam.

15. Google Trends will show popular web sites from different categories.

16. Google Desktop will be discontinued and replaced by Google Quick Search Box.

17. If you use Google Chrome, you'll be able to use the most important features of Chrome OS.

18. Google users will be able to add comments and start conversations if they want to find some information about a hot topic.

19. Google Toolbar will be available for Chrome and Google will start to bundle Chrome with Google Toolbar for IE.

20. Google will buy Spotify and make it available for free.

Johnny Knoxville And Naomi Nelson Welcome Baby Boy

Former Jackass, Johnny Knoxville and his girlfriend Naomi Nelson are proud to announce the birth of their son, Rocko Akira Clapp.

The baby was delivered without a hitch, last Sunday in Los Angeles, the little man weighed in at 8 lbs and 20 inches long.

Knoxville was quoted as saying "I'm excited as hell".

This is Johnny's second child, and the first for his girlfriend Naomi.

Last Year's Predictions for 2009

Last year I tried to anticipate some Google-related events from 2009. Let's see if I was right.

1. 10% market share for Google Chrome.

No, Google Chrome's market share is about 4% (3.93% in November, according to Net Applications).

2. Google's search engine will lose a significant amount of market share as Live Search's position will consolidate.

Live Search's relaunch was successful, but Microsoft didn't manage to convince too many users to switch from Google to Bing. Google and Bing increased their market share in 2009, while Yahoo and Ask have a declining market share.

3. Google's Q&A service, used to implement Google help forums, will become a part of Google Apps.

No, not this year.

4. GrandCentral will be publicly available in the US and the interface will integrate with Gmail.

It's not publicly available, but more people can use it. According to a Google report, there are more than 1.4 million users in the US.

5. Google will launch a mobile browser for feature phones and non-Android smart phones.

Google decided to focus on Android.

6. The popular Google Bookmarks service will improve the way you manage bookmarks, by adding hierarchical labels, sharing options and more intuitive visualizations.

Google continues to ignore its bookmarking service.

7. Google will bring some of the Chrome features to other browsers.

Google Toolbar added the "new tab page" and Google Chrome Frame lets you open web pages using Chrome inside Internet Explorer.

8. Google Translate will be seamlessly integrated with many Google services and applications.

A lot of Google services integrate with Google Translate: Google Docs, Google Groups, Gmail, Google Toolbar and more.

9. Google Reader will list popular posts shared by the community and you'll be able to subscribe to OPML files dynamically (the changes will reflect in your subscription list).

There's a "popular items" section in Google Reader, a "what's popular" gadget for iGoogle and you can subscribe to feed bundles, but they're not dynamic.

10. Google Maps Live - Google's service will showcase webcams that stream from all around the world, it will include a tab for Google Earth and the most recent custom maps, reviews and map edits from your contacts.

Google Maps added a layer for webcams and the new social search feature lets you find interesting reviews written by your friends.

11. Google Contacts will become a separate application, it will offer advanced search and an option to synchronize contacts data.

Google Contacts is now available at http://www.google.com/contacts, the search feature has been improved, but it's still difficult to synchronize contacts.

12. Google's efforts to promote Chrome will change people's perception about Google, which will be increasingly associated with Microsoft.

Not everybody is happy to see Google promoting its browser on the homepage, in YouTube and across the web.

13. Many high-profile Google employees, including Marissa Mayer, will leave the company.

Marissa Mayer didn't leave Google, but a lot of top executives left Google this year.

14. Google Apps will start to be attractive again once the App Engine will be fully released.

Google Apps had a great year, but it wasn't because of the App Engine. "Companies around the world are moving to the cloud with Google Apps, and we just crossed the two million customers milestone," mentioned Google's blog in November. Google managed to double the number of customers that use Google Apps.

15. Personalized search ads for users that are logged in.

Google started to personalize content ads and to show ads that are related to your previous Google searches.

16. OneGoogle - a new interface that merges all Google applications so you can quickly switch between Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs without opening a new tab or losing your work.

No, there's no unified interface for the desktop.

Thank you for making 2009 such a great year....

Christmas Evil (1980)

Title: Christmas Evil (1980)

Director: Lewis Jackson

Review:

Christmas Horror films are an understood sub genre. Many people (mostly uptight conservatives) think films that portray Christmas as something evil or scary should never be made because they soil something that they consider holy and sacred and….WHAT EVER!! First off, those conservative douche bags should remember that one of the biggest ideas behind Christmas, that a fat jolly old man comes down your chimney during Christmas Eve and leaves presents for the “good boys and girls” underneath the Christmas tree is a big fat lie! And according to the bible, lies come from The Devil! So put that in your pipe and smoke it you self righteous hypocrites! Now, on with the rest of my review for this excellent Christmas horror film called Christmas Evil.

Story for this film centers around a young boy named Harry. One night, Harry’s parents decide to surprise the kids by having their dad dress up as Santa Claus and visit their home. The kids are delighted by Santa’s visit! After the kids are put to sleep, Santa decides he wants some action, so he begins to give his wife (while still dressed in a Santa suit) some head. That’s right! Mom and Pop decide to go down on each other while dad is still wearing his Santa suit! If that isn’t freaky enough, little Harry decides to take one last peep at Santa and catches his mom and dad going down on each other. Now Harry knows there’s no such thing as Santa Claus! He’d been lied to all these years! Fast forward thirty years into the future and now Harry is a 30 something dude, working in a toy factory. He has never quite recuperated from what he saw that night, and little by little, the events that unfold during the Christmas season start driving him mad! Can Harry keep his madness under wraps? Or will he go out and pass judgment on the little boys and girls of his neighborhood?

So this movie is that kind of film where the quiet introverted person suddenly goes nuts and is tired of being pushed around, so he finally explodes and decides to make all those people that screwed him over pay! “The worm has turned” is a phrase commonly used for films of this nature and it means that even the most humble person will strike back if abused badly enough! And poor old Harry is abused a lot on this film. Harry works as a manager in a toy factory, but he gets no respect from his employees. His brother constantly abuses him verbally and emotionally. His boss gives a younger kid the position that was supposed to be for him. Basically, Harry gets no respect from anybody in this movie…until he cracks under the pressure! That’s when he decides to dress up as Santa Claus and goes out into town being good to the good people and brutally killing whoever pisses him off! In this way, the film is very similar in nature to Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) though Christmas Evil predates it, since it was released in 1980.

Christmas Evil was a small film, with a meager budget and very low production values. Yet I have to tell you naughty boys and girls out there, the low production values help the movie a whole lot! Everything feels dirty, old, dark, shadowy and poor. The proper ingredients for a guy like Harry to loose his marbles in! Speaking of which the actor who plays Harry (Brandon Maggart) did an excellent job of playing the good guy who goes bananas! There are some memorable moments in the film where we can really feel Harry loosing it. There’s this great scene where Harry glues a fake Santa beard to his face with super glue and starts pulling his beard making sure it’s stuck to his face, all the while he looks at himself in the mirror and laughs maniacally. Awesome moment! Just like in that other Santa Claus gone crazy movie called Santa’s Slay (2005), in Christmas Evil Santa uses Christmas ornaments to kill people! One particularly gruesome moment has Santa slitting somebody’s throat with a Christmas Tree Star. But to be honest, the film does not go over the top with the gore. We do get a bit of gore splattered all through out the film, but it’s not the films main focus. This film is more concerned with showing us Harry slow descend into madness, shinning a light on the fakeness of the idea of Santa Claus, and establishing great atmosphere.

Why had I not heard of this movie before? Probably for the same reason why films like Silent Night Deadly Night and Santa’s Slay are not widely known. Because they make Santa Claus look evil. People don’t like for movies to portray Santa as murderous or evil Any film that does so is guaranteed to live a short life at the box office. For example, Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) though an excellent slasher, was pulled from theaters on the very first week of its release because of raving parents! Some don’t even make it to theaters at all and are sent straight to DVD like Santa’s Slay (2005). A fun Christmas horror film if there ever was any! Apparently, you just can’t go around messing with the cash cow known as Santa. Santa has to retain his squeaky clean image, and it has to remain untarnished and clean so that kids across the world will always dream of getting Christmas presents from him on Christmas Eve. In this way businesses all across the world are assured to make millions, and the economy stays strong. Still, thank god for DVD!

I loved how the film makes an effort to show the fakeness of Christmas. In one scene Santa walks into a Christmas party and begins talking to a bunch of little kids. He begins to explain to them how if they are good, he will give them toys every year to reward them, but if their not, he will give them something horrible! I loved that part of the film because its true. Parents use the idea behind Santa to scare kids into being good “or else you wont get any presents”. So kids begin to learn how to act out of interest rather then being good because its really the best thing for them. Theres another great where Santa tries to go down a chimney, but realizes that this is physically impossible, so he gives up! Another scene shows Santa trying to break into a house to leave some gifts, but in reality, he looks like a burglar trying to break into a house.

This is a very low budget film, with low production values and laugh inducing dialog, yet it is entirely watchable in my book. It doesn’t forget that it’s trying to be a parody of Christmas and at the same time it criticizes it. What makes it so watchable for me are the complete zaniness of the ideas it portrays! For example, Harry is so obsessed with Christmas that he literally has books where he writes down little boys and girls names and all the good and bad deeds that they performed all through out the year! So next time you want to watch a funny and enjoyable Christmas horror film, don’t pass up Christmas Evil, it’s a jolly good time.

Rating: 3 out of 5

 

Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1992)

Title: Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1992)

Director: Frank Henenlotter

Review:

In the very first Basket Case movie we met Duane and his freaky brother Belial. Both of em where out on a hunt for the doctors who separated them at birth. You see, they were born stuck together. Duane is the "normal" one and Belial is the freaky one. Belial was born stuck to Duanes torso! And Belial is a deformed little monster who has telepathic abilities which he shares with Duane. In the second film, Duane and Belial met with "Granny Ruth" a lady who devoted her life to helping "unique individuals" (read: the freakiest beings on this planet) to adjust and find a place where they can be accepted for who they are. In this home both Belial and Duane found love! But strangest thing of all is that the "freak" Belial is the one who actually gets some action! If Basket Case 2 was the film where Belial was going to "get some" then Basket Case 3 is the one where Belial becomes a dad!

The big attraction for me with the Basket Case films is the continuity they have, one picks up right where the other one left off, so if you’ve seen the previous films, you should enjoy this one a lot. In this installment Belial (the freaky deformed half that was born stuck to Duane) still resides in Granny Ruth’s House of Freaks, and well, his gotten his girlfriend "Eve" (another similarly deformed female) impregnated! That means that Belial’s going to be a dad! Duane is out in the world, searching for his brother Belial whom he hasn’t found yet, you see, Duane and Belial had a falling out of sorts at the ending of the second film. Granny Ruth decides to take all the freaks out on a trip to the country. Unfortunately some people aren’t willing to live with the fact that there’s a whole colony of freaks living in their town, so they go out on a monster hunt to kill Belial and Duane! Will Duane ever reunite with his brother Belial? Will the world accept Belials offspring? Or will they try to kill them off because they are different?

The story behind this Basket Case movie is that Frank Henenlotter didn’t really want to make it. He'd grown tired of the whole Basket Case thing and wanted to make different films. This of course is completely understandable. What’s a filmmaker to do when he wants to make another film then the one producers are willing to finance? You make the one their willing to finance in order to make some cash for your next film, that’s what you do! So Henenlotter did exactly that, in spite of the fact that he didn’t really have his heart on making this movie and he didn’t really get to make that other film he wanted to make. But its weird, for not having his heart set on this movie, he made a very freaking entertaining movie! And he brought that dirty, grimy, dark, grindhouse feel of the first one back!

In fact, this might even be a weirder film then the first two Basket Case films! The first movie will always remain my favorite of the three because it’s so grimy. The first one feels like Henenlotter walked up to the darkest dirtiest alley in New York City and said: "Hey! Who wants to be in a movie?!!"  I love it for that alone. People arent "Hollywood Models" on Henenlotters films. Neither are his locations and sets. The second film is weird and freaky, but too squeaky clean for a Henenlotter film, in spite of the fact that it gets its balls back somewhere around its third act. But this third film in the Basket Case franchise goes extremely freaky. It goes back to the dark and dirty roots of the first film and throws out the slick look of the second. Let’s see, Belial has a girlfriend, she gets pregnant and has a bunch of baby Belials! Just imagine that! Meanwhile, Duane meets a dominatrix chic! If you think that’s nuts, wait for the third act where the freakiness goes into high gear! I mean, Belial goes Terminator on a couple of bastard cops who mess with his offspring. The ending has gross out deaths and gags galore. These deaths are are cartoony, gory, silly looking, and insane, but they are extremely entertaining as well. And just when you think things are over...it goes into freaking overdrive! I’m not going to spoil it for you...but Belial gets some help from some of his freak friends and gets an upgrade! That’s all I’m going to say.

In conclusion, Id say Basket Case 3: The Progeny managed to make things even stranger then the first two films, if that’s at all possible. I mean, saying that this Basket Case film is weirder then the previous films is a bold statement, because the first two are already extremely weird films. But believe me it does. So strap yourselves on tight, and get ready for one weird final chapter for Duane and Belial's freak saga.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5