Aiming to design their new concept car with the young gamer set in mind, Nissan interviewed several teenagers aged 15 to 17 from countries around the world and asked what they want from an automobile. The result? Meet Nissan's new Mixim, the car that looks like a cross between a gaming center and a machine from the future.

The car was introduced at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, and it really is something out of the ordinary. "Our ultimate objective was this is something their parents would hate," said Francois Bancon, Nissan Motor Co.'s Exploratory and Advance Planning. He said that they made sure to take into account the preferences of teenagers from around the globe, getting input from teenagers hailing from Europe, Japan, the United States and China

Indeed, with its airplane control-like steering wheel, the Mixim looks like something that most conventional drivers would hate. The driver's seat is also placed in the center, not unlike the driver seats in arcade racing games. The Mixim also sport other strange new features, such as an HUD display on the top part of the windscreen.

True to its anti-conventional design, the Mixim also runs on battery power rather than on fuel. "These people would never consider anything that is not electric. They are a plug-in generation," said Bancon.

If Nissan will approve the Mixim's design, the car will cost 12,000 to 16,000 Euros, or US$ 16,000 to US$ 22,000. Kids, better start being good boys and girls now.

It seems as if China's making its stand in the format wars now. They're going to be adopting a new kind of HD-DVD come 2008, all 51GBs of HD-DVD at that. Considering that these guys live in the most-populated country in the world, this might pose as a setback for the Blu-ray camp.

Following Toshiba's 51GB HD-DVD, the Chinese Government has just approved a 51GB HD-DVD format that's currently dubbed as the "CH-DVD" - that's short for China High Definition DVD - for production. This new disc standard has been developed by the Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center (OMNERC), with the backing of other engineers and government officials.

So what's the diff between your normal HD-DVD and CH-DVD? Well, CH-DVD is actually based off of the HD-DVD specs, but this time, it's beefed up with some Chinese intellectual property (guess it's going to be exclusively released for them). Since one of China's biggest problems is piracy, they've designed the CH-DVD to boast some advanced copy-protection features which could prevent the proliferation of pirated discs.

Chinese officials are backing up the new format standard and are already hoping to release a CH-DVD player come 2008. Ooh! Right in time for the Olympics! Do note that the CH-DVD and HD-DVD are designed to be compatible with each other - meaning, a CH-DVD player would be able to play an HD-DVD and vice versa.

BenQ has recently announced that its Elegant camera line will be getting a new addition. The new member of the line is the E1000, which currently has the deepest sensor of any model in the Elegant series.

Apart from its 10-megapixel sensor and a standard 3X zoom optical lens, the E1000 also comes with two different anti-shake modes including one that adjusts ISO and shutter speed on the fly depending on the conditions. It also has a physical shortcut button that instantly kicks in an ISO sensitivity boost of up to the peak of 1600 and reduces the shutter speed.

The E1000 also has a total of 24 built-in scene presets including modes such as Oil Painting and Sketch. The camera also has a special scene mode that can capture 12 different scene types in one second.

The E1000 will reportedly be available in China this month. International availability will follow soon afterwards, but a North American release has not yet been confirmed.

  

A man by the name of Peng Shulin from China was cut in half by a lorry back in 1995. Statistically, this man should be dead, but he beat the huge odds and survived the accident. He is living up to the moniker "miracle man" once again, because after twelve years since the day he lost his feet, he has begun to walk.

Shulin had been bedridden for a good part of those twelve years. But he recently began exercising his arms to make them strong enough to do everyday tasks such as washing his face and brushing his teeth. Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about him late last year and developed a method to get him walking.

Their solution was to create a cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it. As of this article's writing, he has been learning to walk around the centre with the aid of his specially adapted legs and a resized walking frame. Hopefully, this technology can be adopted for the use of more people who have walking disabilities as well.

It seems like Blu-ray players are beginning to get cheaper, especially now that the move is being spearheaded by Sony itself. It was only this month when the company confirmed the US$ 100 price drop for its BDP-S300, officially bringing its price down to just US$ 499.

Anyway, online site DigiTimes was able to get a copy of Japanese-language newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun and found out that Funai Electric will be shipping its 42-inch full high-definition LCD TV and next-generation Blu-ray Disc (BD) player in North America this coming Fall.

While there are no official announcements regarding pricing, we are pretty sure that the BD player will be tagged lower than that of Sony's BDP-S300. Funai is known for making low costs electronic products and consumers in North America recognize its products under brand names Sylvania, Emerson, and Magnavox.

Regarding the HD LCD TV sets, it was reported that the panels will be adopted from Taiwan-based players while the TV itself will be assembled in China. The first batch of shipments will be around 100,000 to 200,000 units.

84% of smokers hate the habit, according to a study we talked about earlier. This contraption from Chinese company, Golden Dragon Group, Ltd. aims to make smoking fun for the fed-up smokers and hopefully, this new kind of cigarettes could help smokers kick the habit once and for all.

The Chinese company is currently busy promoting the world's first electronic cigarette called Ruyan. The Ruyan smokes are battery-powered, cigarette shaped contraptions that would give smokers their nicotine fix by giving nicotine to inhalers in a bid to give the illusion of smoking. Apparently, nicotine is delivered to the lungs within 7-10 seconds. Scott Fraser of SBT Co. Ltd. - the company who developed Ruyan added:

It feels like a cigarette, looks like a cigarette, it even emits vapor. In many ways, it is like an actual smoking experience, and that's what makes us different.

This would sell for roughly 1,600 yuan (or US$ 208) apiece. Currently, it is already available in China, Israel, Turkey, and a handful of European countries. No word of a U.S. release has been uttered by the company.

Well, we guess if you pick up the Ruyan, you won't be needing your coughing ashtray anymore, huh?

Hot news yesterday, debunked rumor today. PC Magazine reports that Wal-Mart has denied rumors that it placed a substantial order with a Taiwan supplier for ultra-cheap HD-DVD players. The rumors, which centered on Taiwan-based consumer electronics manufacturer Fuh Yuan partnering with TDK in China to manufacture US$ 250 HD-DVD players surfaced earlier this week.

In an e-mail to PC Magazine, a Wal-Mart spokesman said that the rumor, which first appeared in AVS Forums and was picked up by other websites, "was full of inaccuracies and we had no participation in it. Most of the facts, including the purchase, were untrue."

The spokesman also added that she was "not sure how it originated," but declined to comment when asked about a statement appearing on Fuh Yuan's site, which, according to PC Magazine, implies the retailer is at least interested in ordering the players. Fuh Yuan, on the other hand, released the following statement in their website on Thursday:

We are sorry to correct the statement that we have two million HD-DVD players order from Wal-Mart and manufactured by China Great Wall Group. The actuality is that we had not received yet. We are asked to provide the schedule to Wal-Mart and cost to determine the quantity even more than two million, if the cost is good enough and timing is correct. So the capacity is under consideration. Any qualified manufactured base group will be welcome.

Wal-Mart is currently selling both Blu-ray and HD-DVD in their approximately 750 stores nationwide. If the retail giant decides to choose one format, though, it could very well be the death knell for the other.

Inspired by the success of the Nintendo Wii's motion-sensing controller, developers of motion-sensor solutions have been thinking of different ways to make their wares more marketable to the general public. In this light, the InvenSense corporation has flashed its wares in Beijing, China at the Intel Developer forum today.

The developer stole the show with its new proprietary iG technology which stands for Instant Gesture. The iG technology was shown off with the help of applications running on Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (UMPCs) and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), which were both developed by Intel.

Intel Marketing Manager Kelley Johnson says "InvenSense’s iG technology and motion sensors will enable many killer applications in the UMPC." He adds "Intel-based UMPC and MID platforms and the InvenSense iG technology will deliver an industry leading solution for intuitive user interfaces, interactive gaming, image stabilization, and dead reckoning for vehicle and pedestrian navigation."

InvenSense VP for sales Dan Goehl said "we are very pleased to be a part of the next generation UMPC platform from Intel," he also emphasized the possibilities that their patented technology can open up to the consumer market.

The exhibition was held in the Ultra Mobile Community area where the Instant Gesture applications ran several tasks using motion-sensing tools. InvenSense views the event as a successful one for the firm.

The "Green Ranking" by world-lovin' Greenpeace rates the world's consumer electronics industry to determine which company, in quarterly periods, is the most eco-friendly. After returning CEO Michael Dell challenged other electronics manufacturers to provide "takeback" policies on throw-away, useless hardware, it seems that China's laptop brand Lenovo outgreened just about everybody else, except itself.

Now while takeback policies aren't exactly new, only EU member nations have strictly enforced the recycle old hardware policy by asking electronics companies to offer discounts on newer hardware purchases as old, unusable parts were traded in. Greenpeace hopes that companies will adopt this policy worldwide, as did Dell.

Sony (and Sony-Ericsson) are now also complying with chemicals for silicon doping and fire resistance with their elimination of beryllium and phthalates. Unfortunately for Earth-lovers and Captain Planet, only 14 companies are currently included in the rankings.

As a big surprise to all, Lenovo, a China-based firm for electronics and mobile computing, has leaped from last place to top place, despite the massive amounts of e-waste that are generated in China. Greenpeace's International Toxic Campaigner Iza Kruszewska said:

Given the growing mountains of e-waste in China - both imported and domestically generated – it is heartening to see a Chinese company taking the lead, and assuming responsibility at least for its own branded waste. The challenge for the industry now is to see who will actually place greener products on the market.

Lenovo could possibly lose the number one spot if the next product that it puts out to market is not free from the worst of chemicals. The top five most eco-friendly of e-companies are as follows:

1. Lenovo
2. Nokia
3. Sony Ericsson
4. Dell
5. Samsung

The ranking takes into consideration the equal treatment of all customers, so if any double-faced takeback policies have been reported, companies suffer rank drops all across the boards. Unfortunately, Apple is the last of all the companies. But good news: Apple hasn't dropped a spot ever since!

Silverbrook may not be a company name that the average person will recognize, but it's possible that in the next few years, even housewives in China will recognize the name.

The company has shown off an unprecedented advance in printing technology by allowing analysts from all over the industry to examine Memjet, its flagship concept printer which prints 60 pages of text per minute and 30 pages of images in the same amount of time. Even more incredible is that the cost of the printer once introduced in the market can be as low as US$ 200.

The printer is about ten times faster than new printer models currently retailed. The closest competitor in terms of speed would be Edgeline, HP's best printer which isn't even available to regular consumers. The Edgeline is priced at about US$ 16,000 and is much bulkier than Memjet.

   

Does it all sound like a pipe dream? We assure you it's not. Follow the read URL to see the video and other specifics on the exciting new technology.