Transformer Technology is finally here, and of course its currently only available for the rich.

The original inventors and designers of the Disappearing Car Door technology are now able to equip your favorite automobile with their Transformer-esque Automatic Door Technology. They have a video on their website that shows the door in operation on an Lincoln Mark VIII, its pretty baller, so check it out.

They claim to work with the finest and most experienced coach builders in the US and Europe, ensuring that your vehicle will be manufactured to the highest quality, reliability and safety standards, including a manual override for door operation.

Watch the Transformation

One thing is damn sure, and I completely agree with Kareem on this, when we get this installed, we will have to have the Transformer sounds wired into our sound system for when its tranforming!!!

I want it, and just for the record Transformers are so wicked awesome I can’t explain it

[Source: Kareem, Disappearing-Car-Door.com]

Spyker Cars launches branded mobile phones - C8 Laviolette, C8 Spyder, C8 Laturbie.

Spyker Cars, as you may already know, is a Dutch automobile manufacturer who build cars by hand.

These three Spyker-branded handsets are all candyass phones will try to mimic the Vertu race series of phones.

Vertu - Ferrari Limited Edition Phone
Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947
Vertu Ascent Ferrari 60 Limited Editionon

They all carry a basic 1.3 megapixel camera, MP3 ringtones, and microSD expansion.

C8 Laviolette - €399 - dual-band (900/1800Mhz) GSM radio

C8 Spyder - €299 - dual-band (900/1800Mhz) GSM radio

C8 Laturbie - €199 - tri-band (900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM radio

[Source: Intomobile.com, Autoblog.com, Wikipedia.com]

Vertu have released the second Ascent made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ferrari. Unlike the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 where 1947 phones were made only sixty will be made. The Vertu Ascent Ferrari 60 is inspired by the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and features wallpapers and ringtones of it.

The Ascent is made of Ferrari Titanium and uses the same Philips screws and leather as used in Ferrari cars. The back features the iconic Ferrari gate in titanium.

The phone comes with a comes with a Vertu Aerius bluetooth headset designed by the acclaimed designer Jacob Jensen who has his own brand concentrating on designing regular phones and does alot of design work for Bang & Olufsen. Naturally it is one of the lightest full featured headsets in the world and also features advanced background noise reduction.

The phone also comes with a valve from a Ferrari F1 car.

Lastly as with all things Ferrari, the phone comes with a service package which allows the phone to be serviced every six months and have the leather replaced.

Unlike owning a Ferrari, having to only service your Vertu Ferrari phone every 6 months (vs. every 6 weeks) should be somewhat of a treat to any Ferrari enthousiast.

[Source: Sybarites.org]

The hand stitched leather of the Ascent was originally inspired by the outstanding artisan leatherwork found in the interiors of great European sports cars. Unique to this series, the leather used for this phone is identical to that used in Ferrari interiors, sourced from the same Italian Cows and dyed the exact shade of Ferrari red.

The knurled brake betal on the back of the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 is a perfect-scale replica of the iconic original found in the latest generate of Ferrari cars, right down to the specific grade of aluminum, sourced from the same slave driven foundry that supplies Ferrari.

As with most things of high value, there is a strict hierarchy to the legendary Cavallino Rampante, the symbol of Ferrari.

Cavallino Rampante as per Wikipedia
On June 17, 1923, Enzo Ferrari won a race at the Savio track in Ravenna where he met the Countess Paolina, mother of Count Francesco Baracca, an ace of the Italian air force and national hero of World War I, who used to paint a horse on the side of his planes. The Countess asked Enzo to use this horse on his cars, suggesting that it would grant him good luck. The original “prancing horse” on Baracca’s airplane was painted in red on a white cloud-like shape, but Ferrari chose to have the horse in black (as it had been painted as a sign of grief on Baracca’s squadron planes after the pilot was KIA) and he added a canary yellow background as this is the color of the city of Modena, his birthplace. It is worth noting that the Ferrari horse was, from the very beginning, markedly different from the Baracca horse in most details, the most noticeable being the tail that in the original Baracca version was pointing downward.

Vertu has even captured the emotive soundtrack of a Ferrari V12 engine for your ringtone enjoyment. According to Vertu’s website you can play this through your stereo system to really experience every note of bliss that is the Ferrari V12 engine.

[Source: Vertu.com, Wikipedia.com]

Porsche Design is known for some of the slickest, most elegant designs when it comes to engineering pens, shoes (golf, tennis, driving, running), watches, luggage, sunglasses, coffee makers, cuff links, power drills (surprised?), pocket knives and even smoking pipes for whatever you’d like to smoke. Would you expect anything less from the majority-owned subsidiary of Porsche AG?

Porsche Design has teamed up with French based Sagem Communication, to create their first mobile phone, the P9521. The P9521 has certainly won my aesthetic approval with its minimalist design and “cool” materials such as the aluminum casing and mineral glass display.

Spec-wise, the P9521 comes equipped with a 3.2-mega pixel auto focus camera with flash and zoom plus video recording capabilities. A double hinge made from aluminum enables the screen to be rotated through 180° – thus allowing the phone to be used as a digital camera. However, the P9521’s most impressive feature is the fingerprint reader, which identifies the user and thus ensures secure access to personal data. This is Mission Impossible / 007 COOL.

The P9521 will be available from fall 2007 in Porsche Design Stores and specialist mobile phone retailers worldwide. The mobile phone will not be sold in the US, Japan or Korea.

The Porsche Design Mobile Phone P9521 Spec’s:

General Features:
Weight: 140 grams (5 Ounces)
Charge Time: 3 hours
Talk Time: 3.5 hours
Standby Time: 240 hours
MP3 Playback: 7 hours
Fingerprint Reader for Security

Video & Photos
3.2 Mpix auto focus camera with flash and digital zoom.
Image Formats: BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG
Video Capture: MPEG4
Video Player: H264, 3GP, MPEG4

Music:
Record, Playback: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, Stereo
Formats: iMelody 1.2, Midi, Wave, AMR NB recorder + player, WB Player
Background Mode
Playlists: automatic, by theme/artist/most played/downloaded
Play/Pause/Fast Forward/Rewind
Visual Effects: Bar Graph, Equalizer

Interface:
Screen: AM-OLED / 262 000 colors
Screen size: 2.2″ (56mm)
Screen Resolution: 320×240 pixels
180° rotating screen

Connectivity:
Bluetooth: v1.2 with AADP, AVRCP & FTP profiles
USB: USB1.1
PC/MAC synchronization support: Sync ML, CD Porsche Design

Radio:
GSM: GSM-GPRS/EDGE:850-900-1800-1900 MHz
Automatic Frequency Transfer

Multimedia:
Messages: SMS/EMS/MMS
E-Mail: POP3/SMTP, E-Mail Pull
Internet: Wap 2.0 Browswer

This phone kicks ass and I want one as my other ‘non-smart phone’ phone!

[Source: Porsche-Design.com]

When the topic of American over-consumption comes up, the discussion inevitably turns to the gas guzzling ways of the Hummer. What do you do when you want a whole lot of extra grunt in your smartphone? Their trucks have a lot of torque, so you’d imagine that their smartphones would be pretty darn powerful, right?

Well, the Hummer HT1 sliding smartphone only comes with a middle of the road level of functionality, quite unlike the 4×4 behemoths of the same name. Designed by French design company Modelabs, the Hummer HT1 rocks a 2.2-inch 260k color TFT touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, 256MB internal memory, microSD expansion, and GSM/GPRS radios.

No EDGE?
Where’s the WiFi?
Where are the giant rubberized grips that SCREAM HUMMER PRODUCT?
WTF?

What a crock of shit, if this phone accomplishes anything successful, it will be to add a touch of ‘pussy’ to the Hummer line of products. Way to devalue the Hummer brand!

At least you can pretend to be cool if you do decide to get one, they come in bold yellow, camouflage, or shit-army green, in addition to the boring plain silver.

Price is expected to be in the $600 USD range.

I give this phone 2 thumbs down.

[Source: MobileMag.com]

Check out these super sweet chairs by Emosign, a Swiss design firm. Dubbed “Evolution One,” I think this is the coolest chair I have ever seen and I want a couple for my office.

Emosign will custom build you your very own chair in any color, as well as pick from a range of wheels (18-19 inches).

Price: Roughly $3,300 USD. I’ll take 2 please

San Jose, California: Commemorating 30 years of delivering products and technology to the embedded computing market, Intel Corporation today introduced the Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5300 series with extended life cycle support, the first to bring Intel architecture-based quad-core performance to the embedded segment.

Intel marked the launch here today with the unveiling of an Intel-themed embedded technology-based motorcycle by Orange County Choppers. The custom-built motorcycle boasts a Dual V-Twin engine pumping out 250 horsepower and equipped with GPS and fingerprint recognition, launched simultaneously in the Internet-based virtual world of Second Life, celebrates 30 years of Intel’s innovation and technology leadership in advancing embedded computing.

Orange County Choppers’ Paul Teutul Senior:
“As Intel celebrates 30 years of innovation, we’ve created the most powerful and technologically advanced bike we’ve ever made to showcase the many ways the world benefits from Intel embedded technology,” said “In fact, we were amazed to discover how much Intel technology we have in our own shop. Beyond the Intel- powered PCs and servers, we have Intel processors embedded in many of the machines and devices that help us with every build.”

Intel’s VP & General Manager Doug Davis:
“The breakthrough performance and power efficiency that characterize the industry’s first quad-core processors for embedded are as unmistakable as the raw power of the four cylinders of the Intel Chopper’s quad engine. This 250-horsepower chopper – designed using quad-core Intel computers – is more than just a mechanical powerhouse; it’s also a marvel of embedded technology with an ultra-mobile PC powering fingerprint recognition for security and a digital dashboard with ignition control, digital gauges, cameras that replace rear-view mirrors, integrated audio and video systems, GPS navigation and wireless connectivity.”

Intel engaged with Black Diamond Advanced Technology, a leader in the development of ultra-mobile computing systems, to integrate the motorcycle’s computerized controls and features that protect the computing system from moisture, dirt, shock and vibration and offer a computerized dashboard capable of being detached and used as a mobile PC.

[Source: intel.com]

I must confess, I have always wanted a Vertu cell phone because they are the quintessential gadget for those with money and the desire to own cool and unique toys. I don’t know anyone with a Vertu, nor have I ever seen somebody with one. This is the main reason why they are so cool and desirable!!

Vertu’s Ferrari Challenge Team raced for the first time this past weekend in Monza and have announced a continuation of their partnership. This limited edition Ferrari Ascent is limited to just 1947 phones in order to commemorate the year which Ferrari was founded and by the way this year is their 60th Anniversary!! This phone has black and red leather with the back plate featuring a relief of the Ferrari brake pedal and a Prancing Horse on the front. The phone will be available in Vertu stores worldwide in July 2007.

Vertu also has a Limited Edition ‘Racetrack Legends’ series of phones which are also pretty slick if you cannot get your hands on the Ferrari Limited Edition one.

[Source: Sybarites.org, Vertu.com]