PROTON EMAS COUNTRY

Part of Proton's concept car series called Proton Emas that was just unveiled at Geneva's 80th International Motor Show, the Proton Emas Country portraysEMAS as an urban SUV.  It's overall length is 3550 mm, hatchback with three doors.

Passengers could easily get in the car with large doors measuring longer than 1350 mm and the rear seats are fitted 120 mm further forward than the five door hatchback model.

Compared to Proton Emas that has only have 4 seats, Proton Emas Country comes with 5 seats. This is accomplished by replacing the 2 independent rear seats with a sliding three seater that could be well-adjusted for passengers comfort at the back.

The sliding rear seat can be folded to increase the baggage area volume from 390 liters to roughly about 780 litres.

To create noticeable off road look, radial ribbing are used to toughened the wheel arches, perimeter base, sidesill and bumper. Plus, the low the lower part of the tailgate are highlighted by a bronze metallic finish. 

The PROTON shield is placed at the top of a grille surmounting a large longitudinal air intake. The two fog lights are round and embedded into the body. Metal inserts are used to toughened the lower part of the front bumper, rear bumper and the side-sills.

The car also has the following features.

• High tech multifunction display
• Good aerodynamic for better fuel efficiency
• Excellent visibility with panoramic glass
• By having compact design, it's easier to park at tight spot.

Proton Country is powered by a serial hybrid plug in drive system that was designed by Lotus Engineering. It can run on petrol, ethanol, methanol or natural gas.

It includes a 3 cylinder 1.2 litre internal combustion engine developing 38 kW at 3500 rpm.

The front transverse internal combustion engine is connected to a generator and serves only to recharge the 11.5 kWh capacity lithium ion batteries.

Drive is assured by an electric motor with continuous power of 45 kW and 75 kW peak power. It can achieve the maximum torque of 240 Nm.

Proton Emas Country can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h within 14 seconds and has top speed of  170 km/h.

In hybrid configuration, the battery range is about 50 km. By using a 240-volt outlet it takes 3 hours to fully recharge the battery.

PROTON EMAS COUNTRY

Proton Emas, Proton's idea of comfort driving

PROTON EMAS, represent Proton'sconcept of comfort driving with minimal impact on the environment.

Developed in collaboration withItaldesign Giugiaro and Lotus Egineering, is based on a plug-in hybrid drive system and was designed with the objective of optimising the available on-board space and car access ergonomics.

EMAS which means gold in Malay language actually stands for "Eco Mobile Advance Solution".

According to Proton Group MD Dato Haji Syed Zainal Abidin, "EMAS concept car projects PROTON's golden opportunity to stand in competence with global automotive market".

Proton Emas is a 5 door hatchback that emphasis on passenger comfort, because the rear seats are identical as the front seats this create 4 business class seats with only 3550 mm of total length.

The front-end has got the PROTON Shield housed in a longitudinal slot beneath the bonnet. Proton emas has 2 distinctive diamond-shaped fog lights. Located between the fog lights is the engine cooling air intake that is concealed within a dark grey trapezoid theme. Its size depends to the type of engine installed, without changing the look of the front-end.

The large wheel arches are the most recognizable and substantial aspect of the car body. The wheelbase is quite long: 2590 mm of 3550 mm car length. Therefore, the wheels are situated at the end of Proton Emas. This makes the car to look much larger than it's actual size.

The side got a belt line that drops down resolutely toward the windscreen column to improve side visibility when parking the car. The side is also beautified by a sculpted shape, enhanced by a rib which passes from the front wheel arch then swoops up toward the rear.

The B pillar is painted black to produce visual continuity with the side windows, while the C pillar has a motif based on letter E, initial letter of Emas. By incorporating lots of glass element into Proton Emas, it allow lots of light into the car.

To make the car more user friendly when paying tolls or at car parks, you only need to open the lower part of side windows. Protective sun blinds are put up in the central cross-member and extend longitudinally toward both the front and backseats.

The rear view is dominated by a ample rear window incorporating all the taillights, which uses LED technology. These are located beneath the glass and are invisible when the car is turned off. A subtle lip links both light clusters and surrounds the reversing lights and direction indicators.

When the tailgate is open, the lights are replicated by two additional tail-lights situated in the lower part of the bumpers on either side of the rear air intake.

Proton Emas, Proton's idea of comfort driving

Awesome display of garbage bags inflation and deflation by Nils Völker

Nils Völker's grid of inflating and deflating plastic garbage bags is really cool.

one hundred and eight from Nils Völker on Vimeo.

inflatable garbage bags



2.40 x 1.80 m

fans, plastic bags, MDF, relays,

countless screws and a microcontroller

Summer 2010

www.nilsvoelker.com

Tilt-shift photography photos

Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique technique of manipulating the camera to create miniature scene from real live photos. You could also use photoshop to create the same type of effect.

By manipulating the camera or by using Photoshop, photographers could easily create awesome miniature like photos. Normally to create this kind of photos, the photos are taken from high angle or aerial photos.

There is a website calledhttp://tiltshiftmaker.com, where you could create this type photos online for free.

To know better about Tilt-shift photography technique, you could join the following groups in Flickr for further details.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/tilt-shift-fakes/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/tiltshiftmaker/

Enjoy the photos below.

Tilt shift grid.

Tilt shift effect produced by tiltshiftmaker.com. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9057490@N08/3236731667/

Sauchiehall street tilt shift

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/lupinehorror/3314247087/

Experimenting with tilt-shift effect

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldstein/2642408435/

Felixstowe sea front miniature

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevoarnold/2630521111/

Miniature railway

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennecontentos/485984114/

Toy Boats

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonstar909/3144367584/

Manhattan fake-miniature tilt shift SIMCITY!

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/elaws/3750624765/

London

Photo Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/oseillo/2113201710/

Tiny World

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA, GIVE ME POWER

The latest addition to the Prancing Horse’s 8 cylinder family is the Ferrari California. The Ferrari California, represents power and performance.


The new Ferrari California has great vehicles dynamics and driving pleasure that will bring great joy to the owners. The new model will only be available as convertible with a folding hard top. The chassis and the bodywork are made of aluminum. For the first time in the marque's history, a new V8 engine is mounted in the mid front position.


The California’s 4,300 cc V8 engine features direct fuel injection and a “flat” crankshaft. It generates 460 CV at 7,500 rpm with a torque curve that enhances vehicle dynamics and provides maximum driving pleasure which is typical for Ferrari.


The Ferrari California could accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 4.0 seconds.


The drive is more comfortable with new multi-link rear suspension system. The Ferrari California is also equipped with the exclusive F1-Trac traction control system and has been further fine tuned to suit the typical driving conditions expected for this new model.


For efficient braking, Ferrari California uses Brembo brakes featuring carbon-ceramic material disks. The cabin has been beautifully designed using high quality materials. Plus, it gets new accessories and equipment, steering wheel, instrument panel and entertainment system.


The Ferrari California is certainly a sporty car, has great innovations and versatility that bring joy to the owners.

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA

Convertible with a folding hard top.

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA

Fin

Front View

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA

THE NEW FERRARI CALIFORNIA

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010 - New Look & Better Power

The Brutale 990R is better and more powerful with a new 998cc engine.

It still looks similar to the beauty of previous version, but 85 % of the components are newly designed by MV Agusta to improve the precision and performance of the bike.

The headlight has the same drop profile, but has a new look with polyellipsoidal element and a system of 8 LED lights that gives Brutale 990R that notorious look.

With more powerful engine, expect better performance of the bike. Brutale 990R four-cylinder engine gets new balance shaft to help lessen the engine vibrations.

Plus, it is integrated with sophisticated traction control and latest electronics which take cares of the double EFI map.

It comes in three color variants

• Pastel Red
• Pastel White
• Pastel Black

Whether you want to ride slowly in your town or ram up the speed up to 167 mph (270 km) per hour, Brutale 990R is the bike that you want to have.

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010, Top View

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010, Outdoor

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010, Pastel Black

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010 - New Look & Better Power

MV Agusta, Brutale 990R 2010

Better good looking politician gets more coverage from media

The better a politician’s looks, the higher the frequency of television news coverage, shows a new study carried out at the University of Haifa’s Department of Communication, published in the International Journal of Press/Politics. “Earlier studies have shown that people generally tend to prefer the company of people who are physically attractive and even value them as more worthy people. Our study reveals that journalists probably behave just like the rest,” the researchers noted.

The study, carried out by Dr. Yariv Tsfati, Dana Markowitz Elfassi and Dr. Israel Waismel-Manor and based on a thesis written by Ms. Markowitz Elfassi, explored the association between the physical appearance of politicians and news coverage on Israeli television channels 1, 2 and 10. The researchers surveyed the coverage of all members of the 16th Israeli Knesset on these channels. In parallel they had the appearance of each member of Knesset -based on their official website photos - rated by Dutch students who were not familiar with the personalities, so as to avoid political bias or any sort of partiality. In order to examine whether the physical attractiveness has actual bearing on coverage and that it does not result from other differences between those who are more attractive and less attractive, additional control variables were inspected, such as age, sector, political tenure and political centrality.

After controlling for these other factors, it was found that the more attractive politicians are covered in the television news more than the less attractive politicians, physical appearance having more influence on the amount of coverage for women than men. Even though female politicians got the highest rankings for their looks, however, the overall television news reporting on them was significantly less than that of men. Young members of Knesset got higher marks for appearance, but their media coverage was lower.

“Seeing as there are those politicians who enjoy and seek out media coverage more than others, we wanted to examine whether motivation and effort to achieve media exposure are the factors that actually determine the amount of coverage. But this study has revealed that these are not mediating factors for physical appearance, and attractiveness has an effect regardless,” the researchers noted.

What other factors affect media coverage? Political tenure and seniority both have positive influence on coverage. Army rank also has quite some weight, probably due to the prominence of security matters on Israel’s media agenda. The more senior the politicians were in the Army prior to entering the political arena, the more coverage they get in the present.

“Nowadays, publicists and campaigners, as well as politicians themselves, are aware of the importance of media skills. Our study demonstrates how being attentive to outward appearance must be included in these skills, seeing as it can increase the politician’s exposure through the media,” the researchers concluded.