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Media Platforms Design TeamHoused beneath the massive Mercedes-Benz umbrella are AMG and Smart, two brands which couldn’t be more philosophically diverse. We recently checked in with company heads Ola Kaellenius (AMG) and Dr. Annette Winkler (Smart) regarding the state of affairs at these dramatically different divisions.Though AMG premiered their ultra-exclusive SLS Black Series at the LA Auto Show– only 200 to 300 of the FIA GT3-inspired coupes will be built– Kaellenius told Popular Mechanics that AMG plans to continue expanding their production volume, and that the performance division is poised to outsell BMW “M” cars this year....

Media Platforms Design TeamSo far, Nissan’s entry into the increasingly popular crossover market has consisted of one model—M the midsize Murano. That changes this year with the introduction of the smaller Rogue. It’s based on a lengthened and beefed-up version of the Sentra’s C platform and should provide some healthy competition for longtime mainstream leaders such as the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. Compared to those models, the Rogue is longer in both wheelbase and overall length, but it’s also narrower and has less room inside for cargo and people (click here for video of our ultimate crossover trunk test)....

Media Platforms Design TeamEdinburgh, Scotland–The Bentley brand has gone through numerous cycles of boom and bust since W.O. Bentley fired up his first engine some 91 years ago, and the company’s most recent challenge has been an economic downturn that has placed particular strain on the sales performance of the VW-owned British brand.The poshest offering in Bentley’s already lofty lineup, the new Mulsanne asserts the brand’s most ambitious ideals of limited volume and hand-built assembly....

Sports fans and average humans were left dumbfounded last week as Michael Phelps and his USA Swimming teammates shattered records on a daily basis. With 20 world-best marks falling in Bejing–as many as in the last two Olympics combined–what’s the scientific secret weapon? And while Olympians crushed 28 records in 1972–the year Mark Spitz won his now-surpassed seven gold medals–what makes Phelps and Co. so much better than swimmers of yesteryear?...

Rural broadband access is a significant issue, especially in isolated communities. When Orcas Island in Washington had enough of its service provider, CenturyLink, the community decided to eschew CenturyLink and build its own broadband Internet. Jon Brodkin at ArsTechnica has a detailed breakdown of how it came to be, and how Orcas Island put it together. After suffering for a long-time with subpar Internet speeds – down to 700kbps or less at the lowest points – a 10-day outage finally broke the community’s relationship with CenturyLink, especially as the company was slow to repair the connection....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Richard Newstead/Getty Images)A London-bound British Airways plane got quite a boost on a trans-Atlantic trip this weekend, thanks to a jet stream that pushed the plane to speeds of 745 mph. That allowed the plane to make its entire sojourn from New York to Heathrow in just over five hours.Most flights between the cities take between seven and eight hours, so the 5 hour, 16 minute flight is quite the record breaker....

A new innovation by Carbon3D, unveiled Monday at the TED2015 conference, could finally move 3D printing out of the hobby shop and onto every factory floor.Imagine you’re in an emergency room with a blood vessel blockage. To save your life, a surgeon will first insert a tube, and carefully guide it through the clog. Then she might insert a stent, a piece metal or fabric mesh, to keep the vessel open....

Media Platforms Design Team On Thursday, July 9, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave Congress a reminder of how vital intelligence gathering is to the U.S. effort against insurgents. Fewer F-22 Raptor attack planes were being ordered so that more electronic attack airplanes could be fielded, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, during a reconfirmation hearing before the Senate. The airplane in position to gain from this funding switch is the EA-18G Growler, a design based on the Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet....

Scientists on the hunt for distant “fast radio bursts,” unexplained phenomena from the far regions of space, have been haunted by one big problem: Their data set gets clouded by “Perytons,” which look like the bursts but are definitely Earthly in origin. Now, a group of researchers at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing and other facilities think they’ve found the origin of these terrestrail interlopers. They come from your microwave....

Consider it another marvel of the digital age–or the latest evidence that the beautifully difficult, soul-taxing art of music creation has irretrievably slid into the hands of talentless idiots. Either way, with the help of a computer, a few peripherals, a variety of entry-level software and two weekends’ worth of struggle, I have produced my first single. It’s hardly a secret that musical production has been striding boldly into the digital age over the past three decades....

Media Platforms Design TeamI just got new tires a few months ago, but since then one of them has been going flat regularly. I had that one checked out where I bought the tires, and there aren’t any holes in it, so I’m perplexed. How does a tire with no leaks go flat?This sounds like a riddle: How can a tire with no holes go flat? By not leaking through the tire, of course....

Media Platforms Design TeamWelcome to the shadowy world of the hired gun. We talk withRobert Young Peltonthree years he spent with private security contractorsMarine infantryman Bing WestDaniel WilsonHosted by Benjamin Chertoff, who’s new book, License to Kill, details the in the high risk, highly paid world of military outsourcing. Former – also a former assistant secretary of defense – shares a grunt’s view of the killings in Haditha, and explain why we shouldn’t be so quick to judge....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe next-generation console wars came to a head this week at the big E3 video gaming conference, as Microsoft and Sony gave dueling flashy presentations to tease the forthcoming Xbox One and PlayStation4, respectively. During press conference day, Sony announced that PS4 will cost only $399, $100 cheaper than its rival’s console. That, along with a jab or two at Microsoft’s hated (at least on Reddit) new DRM policies, earned Sony a wave of fanboy love....

Media Platforms Design TeamReplacing a rearview mirror is straightforward; you probably won’t need any tools beyond a screwdriver and one Allen wrench.All you can see in your rearview mirror is grille. There are lots of shiny chrome teeth, all the better to chew up your tiny little economy car, and spit out a stream of nuts, bolts, glass and a hank of hair. It has the makings of a bad B movie — but actually you’re being tailgated by a giant sport utility vehicle....

Media Platforms Design TeamDon’t let the Porsche 918 Spyder’s princely $845,000 price tag or its 795-hp output distract you. This plug-in hybrid’s most telling number resides in its model name. That 918 badge implies that this two-seat plug-in hybrid is a spiritual successor to the legendary 917, an incredibly successful race car whose later iterations boasted in excess of 1100 horsepower and a notorious appetite for victory. If that doesn’t speak volumes to the 918’s stratospheric ambitions, consider the other figures surrounding this low-slung sled: a Nürburgring lap time of 7:14 (20 seconds faster than its V-10-powered ancestor, the Carrera GT), an electric motor that produces a 442 lb-ft plateau of torque between 1000 and 9000 rpm, and an improbably high 78....

Today’s prosthetics are medical miracles, controlled by impulses from the user’s own muscles. But one myoelectric hand can cost $35,000 and up— daunting, if attainable, figure for patients with health insurance, but more of a concept than an option for many amputees around the world. So when a team of students at ITESO Graduate School in Guadalajara, Mexico, began working on a new prosthetic hand, their goal was simple: Cut costs....

December has not been kind to Seattle’s enormous tunneling project. And not just this December.A year ago this month, North America’s largest tunnel-boring machine got stuck just 10 percent of the way through a 1.7-mile-long dig under downtown Seattle. Throughout 2014, engineers have been plugging away on an ambitious plan, outlined in a Popular Mechanics feature, to free the mechanical marvel and get the project going again.But today, Bertha remains stuck under the city....

One of the most highly-lauded advantages of self-driving cars is that a world filled with interconnected autonomous vehicles will significantly reduce the number of traffic accidents and resulting deaths. But this comes with an unintentional consequence: fewer organs will be available to hospitals for patients who need transplants. As a new report from Slate points out, hospitals around the country already struggle with organ supply shortages. About 6,500 Americans die every year waiting for a transplant, and the waiting list for organs has nearly doubled in the past 18 years, from about 65,000 to more than 123,000....

Ben Goldstein(Photos by Ben Goldstein)COMPANY: Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co.FOUNDER: Brian FahertyLOCATION: Portland, OregonSchoolhouse Electric & Supply got its start in 2003 reproducing the undulating opal-glass light-fixture shades that, during the Great Depression, found their way from municipal buildings—libraries, city halls, and schools (hence the Schoolhouse name)—into home kitchens and bathrooms. Founder Brian Faherty had been working in real estate in Portland, Oregon, and renovating houses on the side when he noticed that light fixtures were often an afterthought in a home remodel....

Handicapping the next Corvette is the car geek’s version of fantasy football. And next year will be the seventh model year for the current Vette, known as the C6, so the speculation about the next version has gotten only more intense. Hard data is tough to come by. GM employees are notoriously tight-lipped, and pundits make what amounts to guesses (We’re not immune. PM’s crystal ball predicted the C7 for 2012, but GM’s trip through bankruptcy delayed that date)....