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MARANELLO, Italy—Ferarri’s new lust-worthy 562-hp supercar hits 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. It’s indisputably attractive, but it is also derivative, as though it had been concocted from the best parts of previous great Ferrari designs. Let’s see what it can do on real roads.The SpecsFerrari’s early cars were dominated by V12 engines. But the Italian sports car maker inherited its first V8 from Lancia in 1955, and its mid-engined V8 sport coupes have been the backbone of the company’s model range for the last 35 years....

Media Platforms Design TeamAFTER THE KEYNOTE /// INSTANT iPHONE 3G ANALYSIS!• PODCAST: iPhone 3G Roundtable & Behind the iPod Accessory ‘Tax’• PETE MORTENSEN: Why the iPhone Forced Steve Jobs to Play Nice • ERIC SOFGE: How Google Can Help Build a Better iPhone• COMPLETE COVERAGE: iPhone News and Breaking Analysis!• SETH PORGES: Next Steps for Apple to Take Down GPS Biz• GLENN DERENE: Why GPS Is More Important Than 3G to Apple• S....

Media Platforms Design TeamSiri’s been earning quite a reputation. Ever since Apple in October 2011, critics have voiced their disappointment, with some posting snarky Youtube videos to lampoon her and a few going as far as filing alleging that Siri’s performance does not live up to advertising promises.debuted its voice-activated digital assistantclass-action lawsuitsBut instead of griping that Siri doesn’t understand their needs or obey commands, some tinkerers have hunted down workarounds to bend Siri to their will or to create new uses of the assistant’s skill set....

I’ll spare the politicians (and perhaps you) and go back to some first-person reporting from the off-grid frontlines for today’s post. Ok, just one dig: What is up with the daylight savings change? This is energy policy?!? Spare me. The weather has turned toward spring (nearly 50-degrees and hazy sunshine as I write this), which means it’s time to plug in the fridge. If you’re new to this blog, you may not know that my family relies on a homemade “cold box” to chill our food during winter months....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow do you engineer a convertible with a folding hardtop that’s only 88 pounds heavier than its donor car? If you’re McLaren, you think “open air” while you’re designing the coupe.McLaren’s team of engineers knew the 12C would eventually become a convertible, and from the get-go they incorporated rollover protection features like an a-pillar internally reinforced with a boron tube, and a steel cast buttress.Thanks to the inherent stiffness of the car’s carbon fiber tub, no additional chassis bracing was needed when the roof was ditched....

Media Platforms Design TeamClick here to post this video on your blog or website.Media Platforms Design TeamClick here to post a photo of this winner on your blog or website.Amory Lovins showers with solar-heated water and dries his clothes using a ladder-shaped system he rigged from galvanized pipe and nylon rope inside a specially built light shaft. He raises and lowers the clothes using a boat winch. Tinkering with such contraptions is relaxing for a guy with the weight of a poorly designed world on his shoulders, and he’s all about reining in errant kilowatt-hours....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen Rhett Turner’s voice broadcast out from a Houston studio in July 1969, describing in clear, deliberate language the events of Apollo 11, it was heard over shortwave radio by people in dozens of countries around the world–from Australia and remote parts of India to the space race-era Soviet Union. All except the United States. “I was big in Fiji,” says Turner, then the worldwide English anchor for Voice of America (VOA), half-jokingly....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe burn fuel to drive our cars and heat our homes; we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Imagine, though, if researchers could reverse the process by capturing CO and turning it into fuel, thus closing the loop on carbon emissions.2Engineer James Liao of UCLA is leading one project to make this happen with the help of microorganisms. In a new study published this week in the journal Science, Liao and colleagues showed that bacteria zapped with a little electricity could help to turn carbon dioxide into biofuels....

Media Platforms Design Team"A mere four centuries ago, our tiny world was oblivious to the rest of the cosmos. There were no telescopes. The universe was only what you could see with the naked eye." This opening monologue, as spoken by astrophysicist celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson during a panel at New York Comic Con, begins a new episode and a new era for the television seriesCosmos. This particular episode tells the story of Giordano Bruno, an Italian polymath who believed the universe was infinite....

Media Platforms Design TeamPotatoes are versatile, tasty, and rich in vitamins. They’re not too shabby as a garden crop, either—they’re easy to grow and can keep for the entire winter. The downside is that they take up a lot of room in the garden, which is a particular challenge if you have a small yard.A potato tower is an excellent solution. Ranging from two to four feet high, these simple vertical gardens are constructed of a cylinder of metal fencing lined with straw and filled with soil....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn May I wrote about a critical coming shortage in coral snake antivenom, known as Micrurus fulvis, the only FDA-approved cure or coral snake bite available in the U.S. By some bizarre and slightly macabre coincidence, the expiration date for the existing vials of coral snake antivenom is October 31st, Halloween. Since the manufacturer of the antivenom, Wyeth (now owned by Pfizer) stopped making the drug back in 2003, the expiration of the existing stock would mean that there will be no drugs at all that can stop the effects of a coral snake bite in the U....

View full post on YoutubeIf you’ve ever wanted to see who would win in a fight between Jackie Chan and Adrien Brody, then Dragon Blade is probably the movie for you.Also starring John Cusack and Peng Lin, the film considers an alternative history in which ancient Rome battles with dynasty-era China for control of the Silk Road. Brody plays a malicious Roman general; Chan, a formerly imprisoned rival. Writer and director Daniel Lee made the film at a price tag of $65 million, making it the most expensive Mandarin-language film ever produced....

Media Platforms Design TeamIndustry Safety: How to Improve the OddsSolution: Quick-closing watertight doors—dogged with a single turn of a wheel or push of a lever—would be a lifesaving upgrade from the cumbersome models on many ships. Proper maintenance and training is critical.According to surviving Alaska Ranger crew members, there was a company culture of leaving watertight doors open at sea. Wheelhouse alarms that alert officers to doors left ajar can act as an important backup....

Many early automatic pistols (and some revolvers, for that matter) were offered for sale with shoulder stocks, a practice that endured up until the 1930s. Usually the factory would offer a single option, often a combination stock and holster (the “Broomhandle” Mauser is the best-known example). The Luger, however, had a remarkable number of different stock options available for owners who wanted to shoot from the shoulder.A simple wooden board stock was issued with many German Navy 1904 pattern Lugers, but in addition to that, several folding or collapsing stock designs were marketed....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen I rolled up to the security line at New York’s JFK Airport last week, rushing to get through in time to catch an international flight, a series of pleasant blue boards assured me that it would take a mere12 minutes to progress through the checkpoint. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually helping to create this stress-reliever. That’s because Terminal 4 at Kennedy is now tracking travelers’ phone signals to find out how fast the lines are moving....

Media Platforms Design TeamYou may not want to give up on that metal detecting hobby after all. Maybe you’ll find something really valuable—like, say, more than 5,000 coins from a thousand years ago.Metal hunters in the United Kingdom turned up the coins at a farm near Aylesbury, a suburb of London. The coins date to around the year 1000, during the reign of Cnut the Great (take care typing that one) and Æthelred the Unready, most famous for his slaughter of the Danes, general incompetence, and destroyed crypt....

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple wants to debut its own streaming TV service by as early as this fall. Now, we’re getting some new details about how Apple’s big moves in the TV market might happen.According to Buzzfeed, Apple will release a new version of it’s set-top Apple TV box in June to coincide with the company’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. The new set-top box will also have an “Internet TV” option, a home entertainment controller, upgraded on-board memory and processor, and Siri-like voice activation....

Media Platforms Design TeamElvis drove a BMW 507. That historical tidbit alone might be enough to convince you that the 507 is cool, but as time marches on and these squat little roadsters become increasingly rare, there are a dwindling number of regular Joes who get the privilege of experiencing this midcentury relic from the driver’s seat.Thanks to the cosmic confluence of my curious job responsibilities and BMW’s well-preserved four-wheeled history, I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon bombing through the Tuscan countryside in this V8-powered bad boy....

Something’s weirder about the Pluto system than we thought. While most planet-moon systems have an orbital resonance such that an observer would see the same face facing the planet all the time, two of the smaller moons of Pluto seem to be in a constant state of spin, according to new Hubble observations.Pluto and Charon orbit close together, and are similar enough in size that some have called them a double (dwarf) planet system....

Media Platforms Design TeamTOM SANDERS CAN enable jets to land on runways and aircraft carriers scattered through a fogbound night, but things get tougher when he goes to dinner on a business trip. That’s when the engineer is confronted by mankind’s greatest navigational challenge: finding a rental car in an oversize parking lot. But Sanders has a secret weapon, based on the constellation of military satellites that he employs at work....