Latest Technology Advice

The Morgan Aero SuperSports is a pretty impressive automobile, even in its standard form. It has a lightweight aluminum body, a hardwood and leather cockpit and a top speed of 170 mph (273 km/h). It also has a 4.8 liter BMW V8 engine, although in a project currently being undertaken by the British automaker and Zytek Automotive, that power plant will be replaced with a 70kW electric motor. The result will be known as the Electric Morgan +E.


Although only two of them will be made, the company says that if the experience proves favorable, "further developments" could result. The 70kW (94 bhp) 300Nm motor will be derived from a model already made by Zytek, that is currently being supplied to some American EV manufacturers. It will be mounted in the transmission tunnel, where it will require connections for cooling water, high voltage electrics and low voltage electrics.

We've seen iPad docks that mount an iPad on a wall, on a car dashboard and on a fridge, but the iRoom iDock is the first we've come across that mounts an iPad in the wall. Featuring a motorized docking system that automatically opens and closes thanks to a proximity sensor, the iRoom iDock is flush-mounted to the wall, which means you'll need the services of an electrician to connect the unit to your home's electrical system.


The motorized dock can be triggered by a proximity sensor that detects when you're nearby so it automatically opens up ready for iPad insertion or removal. The door will close automatically after ten seconds and if you don't like the idea of the unit constantly opening and closing as you pass the proximity sensor can be disabled.

The concepts of the Frankfurt Motor Show 2011 are some of the best we have seen in years. Some are far-out experiments, some preview a possible direction for a car maker's design themes - but others preview production cars we could be able to buy in the near future.


Here's our pick of the best here at the Frankfurt Motor Show 2011.

If you live in Britain and are debating whether or not you should purchase a hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity, well ... your decision may now be a bit easier to make. In order to encourage development of fuel cell vehicles such as the FCX, Honda has just opened the UK's first open access station for hydrogen-powered vehicles. It's located on the grounds of Honda of the UK Manufacturing in Swindon, and everyone who needs a little hydrogen in their lives is welcome.


The commercial-scale station can fill vehicles at either 350 or 700 bar, which are the two standard pressures used by major vehicle manufacturers. Filling up an FCX is said to take less than five minutes, and due to the fact that the station uses multiple hydrogen cylinders, cars can fill up immediately after one another - at stations with less cylinders, users might have to wait for more hydrogen to be generated.

Sony has taken the wraps off the NEX-VG20, a consumer HD interchangeable lens camcorder that follows the world's first consumer-oriented HD camcorder with an interchangeable lens system, the NEX-VG10. The upcoming NEX-VG20 features the same E-mount system that offers users the choice of seven different E-mount lenses. Sony claims the VG20 offers a number of improvements over the previous model, including comprehensive manual controls, improved imaging quality, upgraded sound, and ergonomic refinements such as enhanced grips and a second record button.


With the same Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor found in Sony's NEX-5N and NEX-C3 still cameras, the VG20 offers an effective resolution of 16.1 megapixels to capture 16 megapixel stills in RAW format and Full HD video in AVCHD format in 24p and 60p. For a more cinematic look, footage shot at 24p can also be enhanced with Cinema Tone Gamma and Cinema Tone Color. With the use of E-mount lenses, the sensor also allows for the creation of background defocus - or "bokeh" - effects.

Musicians are generally liberal souls but when it comes to their equipment they can be ultra-conservative - particularly guitarists. Getting their personal 'tone' and a particular 'feel' from a system of wood, wire, pickups, effects pedals, amplifiers and speakers can become a life-long struggle of incremental experimentation and bouts of pure voodoo.


Over the decades certain combinations of (usually) tube amplifiers and speakers recorded using certain microphones have become known standards that feature heavily in everybody's record collection. It can be a prohibitively expensive however to keep a stable of classic tube amplifiers and, since the late 90s, the holy grail of music technology companies like Line 6 and others has been to digitally re-create these amplifiers so that hundreds of iconic tones could be stored in one box and used in the studio or live.