Technology

Cars are a small passion of mine, I go to auto shows whenever I'm able to. I enjoy seeing the latest trends in automotive styling and refinement, and of course the place where most of these new vehicles are showcased is the Frankfurt Motor Show.

This year I couldn't get to the show, although in previous years I've been a keen visitor. Luckily, Motorward were there and wrote about a couple of the best tuners and modifiers in the world who showed off a couple of spectacular vehicles, my favorite being the Aston Martin Cyrus by Mansory.

What an incredible looking car, just the sort of thing I'd be buying if my lotto numbers came up. Those sleek lines, hungry front end reminiscent of a wild animal, huge grill that screams performance, and side intakes for the brakes let you know this is a car that doesn't take prisoners. Sitting behind the wheel of Mansory's Cyrus would be like driving a rocket.

The German cars are always popular, especially Porsche, but for me I'm a little tired of the regular shape, so it was kinda nice to see the Porsche Panamera get a makeover as well. Of all the Porsches I think the Panamera is the one that is least understood, maybe because it doesn't have the classic back end, or front headlights of a Porsche.

To me this is what makes it more interesting, in my mind I don't associate Porsche with innovation in shape, only in engineering, despite the success of their 4wd models, but the Panamera is different. The version created by TechART really puts the stock vehicle to shame in my opinion, frankly Porsche should have contracted a company like TechART in the final design stages of the production model.

On the other hand I understand production vehicles need to appeal to the widest range of consumers, and maybe not everyone likes bodykits. Even so, if I had the money, I'd be going direct to a tuner to buy rather than a dealer.

One of the most interesting discoveries I made recently is a new website dedicated to answering the question Why Does...? It seems like a really simple concept yet most websites I've ever come across talk about the answers, instead of the question.

Let me try to rephrase that, I don't think I'm making myself clear. When I want to know something, and if I don't have the information close by, the best source is the Internet, and especially my good friend Google. My problem of course comes down to phrasing my search so that I get the best results, and often this means guessing about the answer rather than just asking a simple and direct question.

Search engines are more or less stupid, they scour the web looking for articles to index, but context is often missing, so let's say I want to ask the question Why does my nose keep bleeding? or Why does my elbow hurt? Normally I wouldn't expect to find an exact result that answers my question.

The Why does website is in this regard quite unique, as someone looking for information I don't need to worry about guessing possible answers, or rearrange my thoughts to maximize the chance of finding what I'm looking for, I simply need to ask a question.

In SEO terms it is brilliant, as for extending the power of search engines so that they become truly useful, well I'm sure this is the logical next direction of things to come, after all, if I go to a doctor I'll ask Why my elbow hurts, he or she will ask what I've been doing and run some tests, and a the end will be able to give me an answer. I would never say to my doctor "reasons for sore elbow" or "elbow injuries that don't heal", I'd look pretty stupid if I did.

So the fact that a website is asking the kinds of questions we ask each other is in my opinion quite a radical step. It brings us closer to real communication with computers, and makes it much easier to find the information we really want.

I had an interesting experience this morning, coffee from a machine, but an unusual machine, one that does everything for you. All I had to do was put in my 60c and press a button, a minute later I received a hot cup of coffee.

OK, so you're thinking why is this unusual, well the cup is inside the machine, so after I pressed the button, the cup dropped down from one side of the dispenser into an arm that swung it around to the preparation side. Then the coffee was added, and also the cream, but this was special, not powdered cream, actual UHT cream.

I like the fact it isn't using powdered cream, the problem with powdered cream is that it doesn't actually cool down the boiling water, whereas UHT cream is at least at room temperature, and it does partially cool the coffee, meaning I could drink it straight away.

Even more impressive, within the machine there is also a dispenser for stirrers, how cool is that. I took the cup out, expecting to have to find my own teaspoon or stirrer, but no, it was already in the cup ready for me to stir and start enjoying my coffee. Wonderful.

Now machine coffee is never as good as the kind a Barista makes, but considering I wasn't in a cafe or coffee shop, it's a novel solution and wasn't that bad really. And 60 cents is a lot cheaper than 1.50€ so I guess it's all relative. Here's a picture of the machine.