Nearly 4 years after the Picanto’s debut in early 2004 Kia “pro-cee’ded” to its mini’s first facelift. Up front, the redesigned Korean mini gets a new set of headlights, a “Cee’d” styled grille, a new bumper and hood. In the rear, the F/L Picanto features new light-clusters and a slightly redesigned bumper. Apart from giving it a fresher look, these changes also resulted to a slight increase in

Now this is what we call reality-rally. Watch what happened to the driver and his co-driver from the in-car camera when they missed a turn and headed full speed into a lake. Freaky, to say the least.

Despite a recent report on German newspaper Handelsblatt that said Chery wanted to re-examine a deal to build small cars for Chrysler due to the sale of the latter to Cerberus, the Chinese car maker has still got the hots for Chrysler. A Chery spokesman told Reuters today that the German newspaper had misquoted Chery’s general manager, Zhang Li, and that the earlier agreement with Chrysler,

Over the years the 3-Series has become the car that defines the term “sport sedan” and the benchmark for every luxury car maker from Alfa Romeo to Volvo. Also it’s the best selling car in BMW’s range. That’s the sole reason why the Bavarians have been so tentative with the styling of all 3-Series models. Either you like them or not, design-wise, the latest 5-Series and 7-Series sedans performed a

Not the prettiest SL you’ll see on the road but admittedly, it does ooze with power. Kicherer’s latest interpretation of the Mercedes-Benz SL roadster is equipped with a bi-turbo V12 engine delivering 605hp/445kW. 0 to 100 km/h (62mph) come in just 4.3 sec and 200 km/h after 14.2 sec while top speed is electronically limited to 300 km/h (187 mph). Performance isn’t the SL K 60 Evo Black’s only

Not only did Nissan’s new compact crossover get a maximum 5-star rating for adult occupant protection, but thanks to a near to perfect 36.83 points out of a maximum 37 points, the Qashqai achieved the highest ever recorded score in this test for any vehicle in Euro NCAP’s 10-year long history. In the other tests, the Qashqai received 4-stars (out of 5) for child protection and a mediocre 2 out of

Jeep decided to share with us the first pictures of their upcoming Wrangler based Ultimate & JT concepts both of which will make their public appearance at the 2007 SEMA Show in October. Beginning with the sand-colour JT, the 4×4 pick-up is based on the new Wrangler Unlimited’s 116-inch wheelbase platform featuring a 5-foot pickup bed and an easy-to-handle removable hardtop. Its off road

This fella has serious issues to solve, and we mean really, really serious issues. Kitsch plastic add-ons aside, why the hell would you stick a reversed BMW kidney-grille on a first-gen Audi A3 hatch? Seriously now, why? Can’t even begin to start imagining what his next project will look like. -Thanks for the pic Mike!

Intel has recently announced
that their newest chips (and all future chips) are going to be lead-free.
And this is not 99.99% (like we see for batteries and some other
applications for various materials) but 100% lead free. 

Intel on Tuesday said its future microprocessors will be lead
free, a move that coincides with the tech industry trend toward more
environmentally friendly products. The chipmaker said its "green"
processors would start with its next generation Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad,
and Xeon products. Production of the 45-nanometer processors is set to
begin the second half of this year.

There are a number of unpleasant chemicals inside the case of the average
PC. But things are starting to get better. European RoHS
standards (which we’ve mentioned before) require reductions
or elimination of many of these chemicals. 

Unforunately, lead is not the most egregious of these chemicals, and the CPU
chip is not the greatest source of contamination inside a PC case.
Brominated fire retardants among other chemicals inside the case are
more worrying to us than lead is. We’re generally more excited about
announcements of new processors with lower energy demands,
because those have a bigger impact than the relatively tiny amount of some
elements in the chips. But it’s good to see manufacturers continuing with
these incremental steps, as well as the bigger ones.

Using hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is one of the possible solutions being
touted as a replacement for oil-based fuels. Hydrogen fueled vehicles
would be preferable because their emissions are merely water vapor, rather
than CO2. But carrying around hydrogen in fuel tanks makes people
twitchy. And there is no national infrastructure to distribute hydrogen
the way we currently distribute gasoline.

Researchers at Purdue University have developed a process that
produces hydrogen gas when water comes in contact with special
pellets made of aluminum and gallium. Normally, aluminum quickly forms a
skin on its surface which inhibits this process from taking place (which is why aluminum cans don’t dissolve into clouds of hydrogen gas when filled with liquid). But the gallium
prevents the skin from forming, and allows the aluminum to remain
reactive.

Of course, refining aluminum in the first place is an incredibly energy
intensive process, so the production of these gallium-aluminum pellets
won’t be cheap. But the ability to produce hydrogen as it is needed and
in a transportable form is an interesting prospect. Those of you who are patiently waiting for the hydrogen economy now have a little bit less to wait for.

Via Physorg

Coinciding with the Roland-Garros tennis tournament, Peugeot presented yet another special version of one its models bearing the name of the famous French Open. Based on the 207 CC 1.6 (120HP), the Roland-Garros is offered exclusively in a bright yellow colour reminiscent of a tennis ball (…). Colour aside, the 207 CC Roland-Garros features special badges and a longer standard equipment list.

Either way, make your life easier and take a bus next time you visit the city. Or at least that’s what Belgian bus company De Lijn is saying in its playful campaign in an attempt to persuade people to use public transport instead of cars. De Lijn’s first campaign includes a bus with an MG parked on its rooftop suggesting that they’ll let people park their cars on one of their busses if they