Fab New Materials
Sit in a new car, and I wonder what materials you’ll find yourself seated on. Cleverly designed materials can ward off smells, resist stains, and even repel hair and other loose bits so that the vacuum cleaner can suck them away easily when it comes time for giving the car a good clean out. But take this a step further and imagine seats that have a high-tech fabric that can be part of a car’s communications system – think of this as being a bit like a voice control. Perplexed?
Recently, researchers at a polytechnic in Montreal have been intrigued by how fabrics could be used as part of a control structure for onboard computers and other systems. What some of the researchers have come up with is fascinating. They have devised a touch-sensitive fabric that reacts to finger swipes or touches. I guess some people could see this coming with touch screen computers, and such. It’s amazing that the fabric has been implanted with electronics, hooked up to software and, hey presto, you’ve got a surface that receives and gives messages.
Here's to Opel!
How many of you know that it’s Opel’s 150th year of celebration? There are many cars that have recently celebrated 50 and 100 years but these are spring chickens compared with other car makers like Opel.
Sat Nav mishap…
Let’s hope the 5 sat navs we are giving away in our Easter competition don’t land the winners in the same sort of trouble as these guys
One Bucket Car Wash
A couple of months ago our newsletter looked at how best to clean your car
We completely overlooked another way, and you need only one bucket of water to do it. What’s more, you never need to clean your car again!
Level 2, 9 Help Street