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As promised, the X Prize Foundation will be releasing the preliminary guidelines on Wednesday at the New York auto show for the Automotive X Prize, a competition challenging the world’s best and brightest minds to design, build and demonstrate vehicles that are super-efficient and production-capable.“We are at a remarkable moment in time when promising new automotive technologies can meet growing consumer demand,?” says Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe know the moon, but in some ways we know surprisingly little about it. New science is emerging about its core, for instance, and new reports come out constantly about how much water is inside our natural satellite. In a new study out today, scientists try to answer another mystery of our natural satellite: Why that one side we do see is significantly flatter and more volcanically active than the mountainous “dark side of the moon....

In 1961, NASA was mulling over two possible flight plans to put a man on the moon. While agency officials argued the merits of Earth Orbit Rendezvous versus Direct Ascent, John C. Houbolt, a little-known engineer at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., came up with a daring and ingenious alternative: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. LOR, which would require two spacecraft to link up a quarter-million miles from Earth, initially struck many people—me included—as dangerously complex, even bizarre....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics has released two free iPad apps for download in iTunes this week: and .QuakeTrackerBe the SparkQuakeTracker uses data from the U.S. Geological Survey to display all the seismic activity in the continental United States over the previous seven-day period. It also shows the biggest quakes to hit the country since the mid-19th century. The second app, Be the Spark, is a simple game that challenges the player to keep an engine running by triggering the spark plug at the right moment in the four-stroke cycle....

Dodge has introduced an all-new Avenger model to replace the Stratus line for its 2008 vehicle lineup. The five-passenger midsize sedan is offered in four series with three engine types and an all-wheel drive option.Here’s how they line up: At the bottom end is the Avenger SE, with a 173-hp, 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine and four-speed automatic transmission. Front-wheel drive and 16-in. wheels are standard. Price: $18,895, including delivery.Next up the line in price and content is the SXT, powered by a the same four-cylinder as standard and an optional 189-hp, 2....

The Houston Police Department wasn’t planning on announcing its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) test program. But when a local news team from KPRC caught the drone on camera on Nov. 16, the department reluctantly released some information, however skimpy. The FAA-approved test took place within a 2-mile radius 45 miles west of Houston, and involved a single fixed-wing drone. The aircraft was remote-controlled from the ground by operators from Washington-based Insitu, Inc....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photograph by Denis Kleiman)Broadcast radio stinks. And that’s a bummer if your commute is like mine. As I navigate two states, I pass plenty of hissing, buzzing power lines and a couple of Faraday-cage tunnels while listening to the same commercials over and over again. The interference, constant dropouts and yet more ads for hair-restoration products and male enhancement are enough to make you want to stick your fingers in your ears and hum....

Media Platforms Design Team LAS VEGAS—Well, the rest of the Popular Mechanics team is sticking around, but I’ve got a day job and have to leave. So where do we stand? I had a good time, of course—CES is always fun—but there was an undercurrent of disappointment among many of the journalists. There’s no big story, no iPhone, no new Windows to love, er or hate, just a whole lot of versions of products that are basically incremental improvements over last year’s products....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen it comes to shop equipment, it’s easy to see which tools are the most popular. There’s always a new table saw with innovative features, a redesigned compound miter saw with greater capacity and more accuracy than last year’s, or a planer that delivers a flatter, smoother surface than ever before. But after all the hype has settled to the showroom floor, you’ll find one machine sitting quietly in the corner, doing the same job it has for decades, with little change or help from the marketing team....

Media Platforms Design TeamSony’s MXS10 desktop system is fast, versatile and expensive. But is speed the only criterion?I was in a computer store recently, checking out the new boxes, when I decided to have a little fun. I asked the sales kid whether I should get one of the new 800-MHz G4 iMacs or a kick-butt Sony MX system with a 2.0-GHz Pentium 4 chip. The iMac was $1900 and the Sony was close to $3400 with an LCD monitor....

Media Platforms Design TeamSyriaMotive: Bashar Assad, a western-educated dictator who inherited the throne from his father, is desperately trying to prevent his regime from becoming the next to fall to revolutionary forces. The Middle East tyrants and despots have had a rough time lately—Egypt’s Hosni Mubarack is in jail and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is dead. The Assad regime has shown it is willing to use force against civilians to maintain control....

Media Platforms Design TeamArthur Gage of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was a captain in the Army Dental Corps stationed with the 24th Regimental Combat Team during the Korean War. A lifelong Popular Mechanics reader, Gage spent his downtime amid the turmoil building an Adirondack chair out of broken-down ammunition boxes and scavenged nails.Using skills he learned from his early days as a Boy Scout and woodworking with his father, he made do with a handsaw—the cutting tool of “no choice,” he says—borrowed from his engineering outfit....

Astronomers from the University of Warwick have successfully measured and mapped the weather system of an exoplanet for the very first time. On HD 189733b, a Hot Jupiter about 63 light years away, the winds are blowing at about 5,400 mile-per-hour.For comparison, the fastest wind recorded on Earth gusted at 253 miles-per-hour, making the winds on HD 189733b over 20 times faster, or about seven times the speed of sound on Earth....

Media Platforms Design TeamBack in the day, MotoGP bikes were powered by two-stroke, 500cc engines endowing them with raw, explosive power that was notoriously difficult to control. The king of that ballsy era was none other than nine-time Grand Prix champ Valentino Rossi; in the unlikely event that you’re unfamiliar with the Italian racing legend, I strongly recommend a riveting documentary entitled Faster, which dissects his otherworldly ability to tame these notorious machines....

OQO Model 2+Media Platforms Design TeamOQO is a marvel of miniaturization. It packs an Intel Atom processor, a slide out keyboard, and world wide 3G connectivity into a pocket-size device. It’s a full Vista computer that can be used while walking around. This is the first computer with an OLED touch screen, providing the highest image quality on the market-and it still runs $1000 to $1500, cheaper than many of its competitors....

LOS ANGELES —Volvo’s ReCharge concept takes a quantum leap in technology by anticipating a world in which rechargeable batteries can be plugged into city power grids, and augment or draw from public utilities. The concept is built on a C30 platform, and features individual motors that operate at each wheel, transferring power as directly as possible with a minimum loss of drag. An added benefit of the transmission-less setup is enhanced crash safety, a feature well-suited toVolvo....

Media Platforms Design TeamVW has traditionally represented the archetype of frugal, gas-saving cars. And yet, where’s the hybrid in the VW lineup? Just about every automaker has at least one hybrid today and plenty more are coming. Finally, VW is announcing the introduction of its first hybrid, the New Compact Coupe (Yes, that’s really what it’s going to be called).The New Compact Coupe is powered by a 150 hp turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine and a 20-kilowatt electric motor, and it drives the front wheels through a seven-speed DSG automated gearbox....

On June 7, 2014, an Atlas-E rocket was set for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, CA. While some Atlas rockets were used in the early space program, this Atlas-E was intended as an intercontinental ballistic missile. So when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong.A combustion problem in the rocket caused an explosion shortly after launch. The rocket exploded and destroyed so much of the launch complex that it was out of commission for six months....

Media Platforms Design TeamJurassic Park 3 was released in 2001 to middling reviews, failing to capture the glory of the original or even the first sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. But in 2002, a true spiritual sequel to Steven Spielberg’s classic was released, though it grossed relatively nothing and languished in obscurity. Ok, so it was more of a remake than a sequel, sometimes copying the original shot for shot....

Media Platforms Design Team Video games might not always have real-world applications—you’ll probably never assist an Italian plumber in saving a damsel from a giant ape by jumping over barrels. But in a strict, military environment, free-time simulators can sometimes impart fundamentals better than a classroom, if not a drill sergeant. “Huge balloons in the form of grotesque birds are being used by the British Army Air Corps in training flyers,” PM reported in October 1933....