WordPress Themes is an area that is just loaded with helpful details, as you just have read. Create Amazing Content: It might seem surprising but there are quite a few WordPress websites that don’t meet this standard and it causes them points with the search engines. If you want to grab the attention of the search engine spiders you need to impress them in every way possible while also getting as many good backlinks as you can while also creating fantastic valuable content. While this is a simple thing to understand and do, not many manage to actually do it. The first and most important thing that you need to do is work on your content so that your WordPress site works well for you.

Turn on Trackbacks: One of the main things that helps you WordPress blog get good ranking is the trackbacks. By using this it is not hard to link back in the comments to the person who is linking to your WordPress blog. When you allow trackbacks on your WordPress blog, this gives other people an avenue for linking to your articles and creating a backlink for you. If you look around, you’ll find that the majority of large WordPress blogs have their trackbacks enabled. This is setup like this so that anyone can conveniently link to your article if they really like it.

Use pinging services to announce to the world, and to the search engine spiders, that there’s something new on your site. Ping-o-matic is the service that is commonly used by WordPress. Part of its popularity stems from the fact that once it is pinged, it turns around and pings other sites. One thing that you should keep in mind is to bring down the number of pings automatically issued by WordPress, because each time you edit your post and update it, a ping is sent out. In most cases it isn’t that easy to avoid being accused of spamming if you aren’t. But in this case the only thing you need to do is adjust the frequency of your pings. Acting responsibly when it comes to pinging can ensure that you’ll be able to use your favorite pinging service for many years to come. WordPress SEO happens to be a step by step process that will gradually help you boost your blog’s visibility in the search engines. The weightiness of WordPress is capable of bringing great consequences for your blog. One particular search engine that admires WordPress is Google; and actually will deliver high marks for your blog. So before you go all complex with your approach to WordPress SEO, first get the basics right and ensure that you’ve built a strong foundation for the future traffic.

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One thing you are going to find if you haven’t had a cell phone before is that if you end up signing a contract with a company, they might also require a deposit. You may possibly also discover that the deposit that these businesses may ask for can be up to $250 or even more. regarding signing up for a contract is that if you discover that the service you are using doesn’t give you coverage where you need it, you’ll not be able to switch services for up to 2 years, unless you wish to pay a cancellation fee. Which is why increasingly more people are searching for a cellular phone service that does not require a contract to be signed.

Now in relation to not signing a contract you are going to discover that this is not something you’re going to need to do with the LG Thrive Prepaid Android GoPhone with AT&T. You can keep your phone service on by simply buying the minutes you need for the phone. You’re only going to need to purchase the minutes that you need every month, and you will also realize that when you invest in minutes your phone will be activated for 1 month up to a year with regards to the amount of minutes you purchase.

You will find that not only will this phone come with the android operating system, but it is a very good quality phone. The android operating system is something which most individuals are actually searching for in a phone. The screen which comes with this phone is actually a touch screen that is 3.2 inches in size, and you’re also going to discover that the qwerty touch screen keyboard makes texting very easy. The above really only just begins to scratch the surface of what is available concerning WordPress Landing Page. And when you’re looking to browse the web, you will recognize that this touch screen keyboard will also make this rather simple. This phone has a lot more features that we do not have the room to cover here, but you can see all the options that come with this phone on the Amazon product description page.

One more thing you are going to find is you can save 25% should you end up buying this phone from Amazon, so you will only end up paying $150 for this phone. One more thing that you may like about buying this from Amazon is that they are going to pay the shipping fees to have this phone shipped to you.

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If You Don’t Want A Cellular Phone Contract Take A Look At The LG Thrive Prepaid Android GoPhone With AT&T is a post from: Tips, news and autopart reviews

All right, we have reviewed the first couple of points regarding Best WordPress Theme, of course you recognize they play an important role. One thing that will serve you well is making people in your niche aware of what is just around the corner with your site. Think about existing businesses and how you can leverage them to help you get the word out. If you do a good job of it they will be interested in what is coming. Sit down and make a list of all the positives about your site, and you need to be clear on what is in it for them. Be careful about attempting this too early before the launch, and you should not wait too late, either. Whatever you do, don’t have a countdown timer on your website. But if you’re stubborn and really want to challenge us, go ahead and put one up. Perhaps the biggest drawback of the countdown timer is that it puts you in a position to mess up from the very beginning. Beyond that, it is sometimes impossible to both make and then work toward that kind of deadline. This is primarily because there could be factors beyond your control. You could wind up depending on a third party to deliver a bigger part of your project. This timer doesn’t do anything productive to help you and most of the time it just annoys the people who do visit your site.

It is always a very important idea to have a contact form or page so you can answer questions once you launch your site. Naturally, you want to make a good impression, so be there for them if they inquire. Anytime someone sends you a message or question, be sure you reply in a timely fashion. The people visiting your site initially are the early adopters, and remember their suggestions are highly valuable and can’t be ignored. Also, be sure you test your form or email address just to make sure all is well. There you are! Launching your own website and doing it successfully isn’t necessarily hard. As long you’re done with your homework and have a clear plan in front of you, you can’t possibly go wrong. Sure you’ll definitely face some bumps and hiccups but that is absolutely normal. The primary thing you need is to simply focus on getting just one element to work correctly and then you can support another over the course of the launch. The launch of your website is incredibly important so make sure you keep that in mind as you work. The launch of a site is so important; it is what will make or break things for you.

How to Have a Successful Website Launch is a post from: Tips, news and autopart reviews

No question, we are just getting going with all that can be acknowledged about Mortgage relief. What do you think about when considering new floors in your home? You might be thinking about all of the money you’ll be spending on contractors that will do your flooring. The good news is that you do not have to do this anymore. At a fraction of the cost, you can get laminate flooring which will appear to be hardwood flooring that you had professionally installed. More than that, laminate flooring is easy to install yourself. You won’t have to work hard at all as this flooring goes right into place with little or no effort. Just go to your home improvement store and ask them what you will need.

Clean any rugs or carpets. You will find commercial carpet cleaners in most local stores; they will give you the best cleaning. You will be amazed how the colors of your rugs will regain some of their clarity. This is a logical option because it will not cost a lot of money. You rent the machine from the grocery store, bring it home, use it and then return it after your carpets and rugs are clean. Before you decide to rip out or replace your carpets and rugs, give them a good and thorough cleaning. Their bright appearance might shock you!

Find out how to do some landscaping on your own.

Home improvement doesn’t stop with the inside of your home. It also pertains to the outside of your home and the yard that surrounds it. So many people pay for professional landscaping when the truth is that you can learn to do just about anything that a professional landscaper would charge you to do. Working in the garden can have a calming effect for some folks. Once you have finished developing your garden or yard all on your own; when you stand back at look at your work you will have a great sense of satisfaction. That will feel great!

People on tight budgets can also do home improvement projects; it just depends on what you get. You will save money by doing a lot of the work yourself wherever you can. Just take the afternoon off, or the weekend, and finish some small home improvement projects that you can do on your own. It is amazing at how much the little things can add up to create an entirely new looking and feeling home. Start working today!

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Article by Shawn Parker

Floor Mats for your Car are an accessory which any car owner absolutely needs. They are an investment, not only in your comfort, but also your safety, and the continuing value of your car. Available in multiple styles, one can use Floor mats both to express your personality, and also to meet a range of flooring needs. Given the number of hours the average adult driver spends commuting, this kind of investment in our car’s interior has become essential.

The most obvious benefit garnered from Floor Mats for your Car, are the mats ability to preserve the cars original carpeting. By absorbing the mud, snow, and soda spills which would otherwise cause unavoidable stains, mats protect the original color and texture of your car’s carpeting. Perhaps more importantly, mats can protect the metal flooring below that carpet from deterioration resulting from moisture and salt exposure that comes from your shoes in the winter months. This dual protection of your flooring not only insures the quality of your vehicle will be maintained for your own use, but also protects its resale value.

Floor Mats for your Car also serve to protect your personal safety. By creating a surface that absorbs the moisture from your shoes, you lower the risk of slippage both in and outside your car. Studies show that the use of floor matting can prevent falls outside the car, because one steps with drier shoe soles, maximizing traction. Likewise, the increased traction lowers the driver’s risk of accident caused by foot slippage on the brake or accelerator pedals.

When selecting a set of mats, the options are as endless as the drivers who buy them. Choose a design that fits your personality, displaying your favorite cartoon character, or featuring a color that accents your cars interior. For the utility vehicle, or a vehicle which transports small children, select a rubber mat with deep ridges to provide extra protection containing spills. The cost of Floor mats for your car is relatively low when considering the substantial benefits they provide, and personalization which they lend drivers to meet both wants and needs.

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Multi-Purpose Reversible (Bright Colors or Neutral Charcoal) Foam Floor Mats (BIG Tiles 25″ x 25″ x .53″!!!), Anti-fatigue Mat, for Business, Home, Basement, Workshop, Kitchen, Children’s Rooms (Child Safe), Pool Area, Gym and Exercise, Gardens, Garage, Laundry Rooms, Etc.
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MattingExperts.com Expands Recycled Material Mat Selection
Manufacturers of floor mats and matting offered on MattingExperts.com website have begun manufacturing more products constructed of recycled rubber and other consumer items. What was once a small fraction of the mats for sale on this website has grown …
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Rubber Flooring, Inc. Now Offers Portable Dance Flooring
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Sudbury estate property is impeccable in every way
It is divided into four dedicated rooms, including a 22-by-20 game room with wood-burning fireplace and 14-by-25 exercise room with rubber mat flooring. A full bath is accessible from both these areas. A wet bar with custom cabinetry, …
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Floor Mats For Car Videos and Other rubber floor mats for cars News is a post from: Tips, news and autopart reviews

The first thing you will need to do when you go shopping for a used car is to look at the car’s condition. You have to check the vehicle over very closely, not just the exterior and the interior, but inside the trunk, and under the hood. If checking out the outside of the car inspect the paint closely to see if there are any rusty places on the exterior body. You want to also verify that the car is level by ensuring it is parked on a flat and level surface. If it appears like the car is inclined on one side, the frame or spring might be damaged. lighting really should be working properly, and the tires should be inflated the way they are supposed to be.

You should check the tires also for deterioration, especially noticing if the tire might be wearing unevenly. You should definitely examine the rims, the windows, the disc brakes as well as the other little things for any sign of damage or scratches. There were some debates on our end about what all to include about rims.

So what we did was try to break things up as well as possible, and we have written other articles about this.

We recommend that you perform research at applicable authority sites that are known for being reputable and credible.

That will always be a great idea, and you will find that it will be extremely useful. Do not deprive your self of the ability to create the best decision environment because that is the most intelligent thing you can do. When you go through the inner surfaces of the car, make sure that every one of the controls and rubber parts are not peeling or flaking and check that the seats are not ripped or heavily stained. You must also sniff around the car for dog or cat orders. Sometimes individuals have allergies to pets, so a car that has transported pets might be a bad idea. Final thing is to check to make sure that the air conditioner is functioning.

The majority of people never even inspect the trunk, even if it’s just to see if there is a spare tire. You ought to see what kind of state it is in. Confirm if there are any likely leaks or rust damage. The customer must know what he or she is looking at when checking under the hood. In the event you really don’t know what to look for, find a trusted mechanic and have them check it for you. Be sure that you look at the wiring, the belts, the battery, the radiator and that also there are no leaks or cracks in the hoses. Be sure that you don’t see any warning signs of damage like rust or dents.

There were some debates on our end about what all to include about buy rims .

There is a limited amount of space in any one article, but of course we have written more about this which is available on our site.

But that is all right because what is best for you is to do more searching on your own for added content.

Any time you can build on existing knowledge you possess, then you have done a smart and good thing for your self. Anybody can research something and read it, but it is how you assimilate that knowledge that makes a huge difference. When everything passes the inspection, the next step is to test drive the car. The important factor would be that the car feels good when you drive like the handling and the efficiency on the road.

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The first and greatest tip is to look at the condition of the used car you want to buy. You have to check the vehicle over very carefully, not just the exterior and the interior, but inside the trunk, and beneath the hood. If checking the outside of the car inspect the paint closely to ascertain if there are any rusty places on the exterior body. You should also check if the car is level by ensuring it is parked on a flat and level surface. If it tilts, that might be telling you that the spring or frame is damaged. Be sure that the lights for the car operate and that the tires are properly inflated.

must check the tires also for wear, especially noticing if the tire may be wearing unevenly. You’ll want to analyze the rims, the windows, the disc brakes and all the other little things for any sign of damage or scratches. Even though we are offering a solid overview with some pertinent details about rims, there is much more than you may realize. Sure, we know this is just one article, but take it from us when we tell you there is so much more to know.

Of course not absolutely everything will be used today by you, and that is normal and quite typical. Do not make the error of judging too soon, and that is really all we can say about that.

The best results will be from taking action on hard core facts, and then also seeing what can be done in other ways in a creative fashion.

But there is much more to come, today, and you will see that it will come together quite nicely. We always think that it is always all good, and it just needs to percolate a little bit in your mind. When you go through the inside of the car, make sure that every one of the controls and rubber parts are not peeling or flaking and check that the seats are not ripped or heavily stained. You should also get a whiff of the car for pet orders. Occasionally folks have allergies to pets, so a car that has transported pets might be a bad idea. Mainly make sure that the heating, and air conditioning are working well.

Most people never in fact inspect the trunk, even if it’s just to see if there is a spare tire. You ought to see what sort of shape it is in. Do you see any places where water has gotten in and produced some rusty spots. Make certain that you understand what you are looking for when investigating the car engine. If you don’t know the right way to check the engine, get a skilled auto technician to examine for you. examine the wiring, the belts, the radiator, the battery, along with the fluids and hoses. are not any signs of damage, in addition to rust or dents.

You probably are aware of the scope that car rims covers, and that proved to make it difficult to decide on what we wanted to cover.

There is a limited amount of space in any one article, but of course we have written more about this which is available on our site.

What you can and should do is look for your self because we know there are other great sources on the net.

Everything you can find out will be of service to you in some way, and maybe that will be in the far off future; but that is all right. There are always options, and the path to finding the best ones is through accurate content. all the examinations, now you have to do the crucial test drive. The important aspect would be that the car feels good when you drive such as the handling and the efficiency on the road.

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If you own a classic automobile as your only vehicle and you drop your kids off and pick them up from school as well as do weekly shopping in it, it might cause problems for you on the road because these vehicles were not made for such frequent use. As a result, since you don’t know if it was well taken care of, buying a classic car does pose a certain amount of risk. When you get a car whose previous owner meticulously cared for it you’re home and dry – so long as you keep up the care the car should give you much pleasure and few problems. You should believe it is easy to buy a reliable classic car if you stick to the advice that follows.

You could see an advertisement for a classic automobile virtually by searching in any daily newspaper. You do need to think carefully well before making up your mind. Do not launch into a decision just by looking at the photograph of a classic car in the newspaper. Take into account your needs and budget and then make a determination. See the vehicle and consider its current overall condition. When it is well looked after and well maintained by its owner, you could think about buying it. A present day car is perfect for many years of reliable use, but a well-chosen classic car can do the same.

Certainly, you must be happy with the price you pay to get the car; however, it is essential that you also understand how expensive it could be to keep it on the road. A number of classic automobiles are sold cheap, which makes them attractive, but later you find out that they have very expensive spare parts and many faults which require a huge investment to fix. If you need to use this automobile on a daily basis, you have to look at this aspect even more carefully.

You’d be well-advised to look into the availability of spares in case your fancy has been caught by an imported car. Watch out for very old models, since you could find that some spares cannot be bought for love or money. It would be smart to do some advance exploration into potential problems that may arise with the car you’ve finally set your heart on. To this end, you can investigate the local market or go to online shops. The amount of data and information regarding wheels can be a bit intimidating if you have not read so much about it, yet. When you are feeling a little more comfortable with this information, then you simply must continue your education.

Yes, you will not only understand this better, but the knowledge you gain will have a positive impact. Not everybody has the initiative to learn more in any truly meaningful way. It is natural for us humans to want to have some degree of command over the events and situations in our lives. Web based communities are usually very eager to offer advice. It should be easy to connect with an online forum where you can get advice on things that may go wrong.

These handful of facts and tips will help you in making a good judgment

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When you buy a house, there’s someone next to you every step of the way, starting with the broker who must find the right house for you. You might have an attorney confirm that the contract is not prejudicial, and then there’s the title company which verifies that you will get clear title before allowing you to pay for the house. There isn’t a single person to help you when you decide to go in to buy a new car. It is quite possible to stroll into a dealership, and drive away later that day with all the paperwork and other aspects completed. It actually is doable, but know that it will cost a lot more than necessary.

One thing you want to do is check out one dealership with the firm intention that you will under no circumstances buy a car while you are there. Develop a pact with yourself that you’ll limit yourself to taking a look at cars, and test-driving them. Then you will leave to complete some research at home. Search online and examine the costs of the dealers, if there are option prices and what the safety ratings are, and don’t forget manufacturer to dealer incentives that may not have been disclosed to you. Before you decide to go to the dealership you should decide the amount you can afford, and be resolved to resist any attempt at upselling to something more expensive. You are the one who could lose the car, and have it repossessed when you can’t make the payments.

Do not just accept his word, insist on seeing any calculations the finance manager makes. By just attaching a couple of dollars to your monthly payment, which you will never be aware of, car dealerships can increase the amount of money they make. We have covered a few basic items about rims for sale, and they are essential to consider in your research. You could for example say that you can afford $600 each month, and the salesman, knowing full well that he could give it to you for $570, tells you he has a deal for $590. Wow that’s wonderful, is what it is likely you think, but back at the ranch you are going to be paying an additional $20 per month. rims is one of those topics that is important to so many people, and the reasons are personal and varied. What we like to do is be as neutral as possible because it is more important for you to consider each part on its own merit. Whether or not every single point or item will totally apply to you is unknown to us, so we try to present a good overview. If you get too bogged down with the minute details, you can easily get lost in the haze. We know that is very helpful to do even though all of us are very busy and maybe do not have the time. If that describes you, then you know that you need to make the very most of your time. That is really what each of us tends to do, anyway, we go with what applies to our unique situation and try to find what is most helpful. Any time you keep them truthful you’re able to keep your money. What works well is always to record notes about everything that you learn, even the salesman’s talk. This will keep every person on the same page, and hopefully more honest.

Purchasing a new car should be something that you enjoy, so keep control and keep the thought in mind that this new car is yours. When you’ve got misgivings about a deal, or feelings that you are being had, go away at once and try somewhere else. It is your investment and your decision, after all.

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Ebay Car Auction Site – Our Guide To Car Auctions On Ebay

Article by John Winam

An Introduction on eBay – eBay car auction site

EBay has become one of the most popular ways to sell goods currently available in the world. Thanks to eBay, virtually anyone with a computer, an internet connection, and a simple to make eBay account can trade online.

People are free to sell goods, buy goods, sell unwanted goods, buy goods in bulk and sell for profits, whatever the cause, eBay can suit your n needs. The auction site has become so popular over the last few years that the company is now expanding to heights never before imagined by the founders.

EBay is well known around the world and it has users based in many countries. The good thing about eBay is that can sit in the comfort of your own home selling away until your hearts content.

eBay car auction siteNow, on to the car auction side of eBay..

Although eBay is more than just a car auction site as we have discussed above, it is indeed also a very popular car auction site. Many people who trade in cars are turning to eBay to sell their cars.

You can sell cars fast on the eBay car auction site, write out full detail on the car you are selling, offer specific viewing times, and to be honest, probably get a price on your car than you would offline. This is simply because you are advertising your car to much people. You can reach thousands of people via eBay, so the marketing power of the auction site is tremendous.

How long to list the car for on the eBay car auction site

We generally don’t give a guideline to this because it depends on how fast you want to sell the car, however, if you want to advertise to more people for longer, you could put the car on for 10 days, set a reserve price, and see what happens.

A reserve price is simply a price that you wont take any less than, viewers wont get to see this, but lets say your car is worth $ 2000, and the auction finishes with $ 1500, you wouldn’t have to sell the car, this means eBay offers some form of protection for sellers who want the money they feel the item is worth.

However, if you don’t set a reserve, you have to sell the car at whatever the auction price is, so if the car sold for $ 1500, you would have to sell the car for this price.

156,963/year – 3 Ebay(r) Auctions Per Week
Why Sell Measly Items On Ebay(r)? Sell A High Ticket Item Everyone Buys!
156,963/year – 3 Ebay(r) Auctions Per Week

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For the first time in twelve years, an electric vehicle is rated the greenest new car sold in the US.

The Mitsubishi i — known in the rest of the world as the i-MiEV —  came out on top when the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) crunched fuel economy and emissions numbers. To calculate their ratings, the ACEEE took into account manufacturing and recycling processes in addition to fuel economy and tailpipe emissions. Of course, we all know that the greenest car is the one you already own and use rarely, but these rankings can help if you’re in the market for something new.

In its debut model year in the US, the i beat out the Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius — which fell second and third, respectively. It also topped natural gas powered models of the Honda Civic, which have dominated the top spot for the past eight years. For 2012, the CNG Civic tied for second place with the Leaf. The Chevy Volt didn’t even show up in the top twelve, which consisted of six hybrids, two EVs, three gas-only compact cars and one natural gas vehicle.

Also missing from the list: hybrid offerings from GM, Ford, Hyundai, Kia and Infiniti. Diesels from Volkswagen and Audi appeared in the “best in class” rankings based on vehicle size, but not on the overall “greenest” list. The new Range Rover Evoque took the top spot among SUVs.

That doesn’t mean the ACEEE thinks EVs are for everyone. “As the list demonstrates, consumers can make ‘greener choices’ whatever their vehicle needs may be,” the organization said in a statement.

For now, the choice with the least overall environmental impact is the Mitsubishi i, which earned the highest overall score in the history of ACEEE’s testing. The four-seater officially went on sale in the US in November, 2011 in Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington, with a nationwide rollout ongoing. Customers in all states should be able to purchase an i by the beginning of the summer.

See Also:

• Mitsubishi’s Electric i-MiEV Grows Up
• Honda’s Gassy Civic Wins Green Car of the Year
• Go Green — Buy a Used Car. It’s Better Than a Hybrid

Photo: Mitsubishi Motors

Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here

Autonomous Cars Through the Ages

Navigating the Legality of Autonomous Vehicles

Five Reasons The Robo-Car Haters Are Wrong

Autonomous cars, once the stuff of science fiction, are here. Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius hybrids have racked up more than 140,000 miles on public roads. Audi has sent a driverless TTS racing to the summit of Pikes Peak. Just about every major automaker has similar projects underway.

Despite the rapid advances — four years ago the most sophisticated autonomous vehicles were capable of only short distances and low speeds — we’re still a long way from the day we’re all letting the robot drive.

Wired recently talked to half a dozen experts about the road ahead. Their views are presented here in a roundtable-type format.

Wired: Google’s self-driving cars are logging more miles per year on California freeways than the average driver. What needs to happen — technologically, legally, culturally — to get autonomous vehicles on the road?

Sven Beiker, co-director, Center for Automotive Research, Stanford University: Are we talking about a car where the driver can sit back and doesn’t have to do anything? I’d be very, very surprised if we see anything like that in this decade, maybe even next decade.

Think of supposedly automated airplanes. I haven’t seen the situation where the pilot and copilot come back to the cabin and say, “Hey get a me a brandy,” where the whole thing is on autonomous mode. You have two highly trained professionals monitoring the system, reading out loud to each what they’re going to do next, very diligently checking the mobility apparatus before and after each flight. How often do we even check tire pressure?

Ralf Herrtwich, head of Telematic Research Laboratory, Daimler: I would say it comes down to two things: the availability of technology and the certifiability of vehicles. Of course, to some extent, that goes hand and hand. The more mature technology becomes, the more willing authorities are to grant you the ability to put such a product on the road.

Stefan Liske, auto industry consultant, PCH: We have to respect the fact that we will never be able in the next 10 or 15 years to come up with a budget that would be needed in order to turn cities into environments for autonomous driving, so I would like to give you a very differentiated answer.

I think for safety reasons [autonomous vehicles are] very helpful; also for traffic efficiency for reducing pollution, for reducing traffic jams, for making the commute more efficient — like for people living in Los Angeles who have a one-and-a-half-hour drive in the morning and a one-and-a-half-hour drive in the evening.

If autonomous driving possibilities can reduce this commute every morning, every evening by 30 minutes or an hour, I think it’s a solution that makes sense. It’s a roadmap that makes sense but we as customers, we as drivers, will take a long time to get used to this. And we will have a huge customer group and a huge number of cities or even rural areas where we won’t see autonomous driving on a large scale in the next 10 or 15 years. If you really want to introduce autonomous driving on a large scale, you have to fulfill so many prerequisites. Like for example the connectivity between the cars, the connectivity between cars and infrastructure. That would be a given in order to introduce autonomous driving on a large scale.

Junior, the autonomous Passat that Volkswagen entered in the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge, during an early test run. Photo: Volkswagen

Paul Saffo, futurist: There’s the question of customer acceptance. How much does the machine control, and how much does the human control? You have to find that sweet spot, keeping it device-centric while giving humans the illusion they have some control. At Procter and Gamble I heard a story about a new cake mix the company had created. The scientists said, “This is perfect, we can make cake mix that doesn’t require eggs or anything else.” They came up with the product, taste-tasted the result and testers loved it. But it was an absolute dud in the marketplace. A marketing guy said, “We need to add one sentence to the directions: ‘Add one egg.’” The engineers said it doesn’t need an egg. But if all you do is add water, the housewife doesn’t consider it her cake. If you add an egg, it becomes her cake.

Clifford Nass, co-director, Center for Automotive Research, Stanford University: The first cars had no intelligence. Then we developed cars with hidden intelligence. If I told you, “You know how ABS works? When you press your brakes, that’s a suggestion for the car to stop. It can take it or not as it judges appropriate,” people wouldn’t have bought antilock brakes.

No one ever said the car is now in control. Think of fuel injection. You think that when you press on the gas pedal, gas goes and when you take up the gas pedal, it stops? No, it’s an incredibly complicated thing. Automakers have been able to keep that all secret. The advantage is I don’t have to think about it or know how it works. But compare that to functions in the semi-autonomous car, where it does adaptive cruise but not auto lanekeeping, or it does lanekeeping and not adaptive cruise control. There’s a weird mishmash of functions. I think the industry has done itself a disservice by not having standards in how they roll this out. One car company has adaptive cruise control but not lanekeeping. One has auto parking but not adaptive cruise control. People don’t get practice with these technologies; they don’t get to build mental models of what the car is doing.

Wired: What’s the significance of Google essentially grabbing pole position for autonomous driving? Is it a shot across the bow of the auto industry, or a sexy Trojan horse for a Google application?

Saffo: The genius of Sebastian [Thrun]’s approach is to put the emphasis on software over hardware. Good software can compensate at a much more cost-effective level for limitations of hardware than good hardware can ever do. He’s taking this weak info approach, with lots of sources of weak info rather than a single bullet of data. That’s the way to build safe systems.

The way I think about what they’re doing is they’re making it happen now, with the environment as it is. If more intelligence gets built [into the road environment], they can accommodate. We don’t have to wait for highways to get intelligent to have robots roll on them.

Beiker: I could imagine that they have a leading edge in the whole field of computer vision and decision making, and dealing with huge amount of data in real time. This is just what Google is very, very good at. The auto industry is still learning. Dealing with huge amounts of data is something that’s still a growing field in the auto industry.

Wired: What are the risks in ceding greater, or even full, control to the car?

Herrtwich: I always tend to say the road is longer than it is wide. Steering is the most dangerous thing.

Typically, what many of the emergency systems that are out there do is give the driver a warning. If nothing happens, the system kicks in. If you go into the pre-safe brake system, you get a few beeps. If you don’t pay attention to the beeps, the car will brake automatically. In parallel [highway] traffic, you have all the time in the world to go through this cascade. But when you have obstacles crossing your path, that’s so spontaneous there’s little room for such a cascade of warnings. Even if you did it, you’d hardly be able to initiate something by yourself. Originally, the driver was considered the safety net, and now the system is the safety net because even if the driver were to take over, things are happening so fast that human reaction time does not allow that to happen.

Donald Norman, consultant and author, The Design of Future Things: The hardest part about automation is when it fails and you have to immediately take over. In aviation, you have highly skilled pilots. You’re five miles up. You may even have a minute or two before you hit the ground. There’s time to analyze and see what happens. In the automobile, you have unskilled drivers who don’t have a clue, they may not have been paying attention — and they may have a second in which they have to respond.

Beiker: The biggest challenge is the mix of human and autonomous vehicles on the road. You might end up with an autonomous vehicle that absolutely obeys all traffic rules. It might be sitting forever at a four-way intersection because no one else is coming to a stop. It might be the most expensive but slowest vehicle in traffic. It might behave kind of funny.

Some people in the industry argue that once you combine lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control with the latest level of sophistication — like stop and go assist — then you essentially have an autonomous car. But it needs be integrated more, which is another significant step toward highly automated vehicle. That’s really something that we must not underestimate: How much the driving task already is changing through this.

Photo: Audi. Audi’s autonomous TTS, on the road.

New research out of MIT shows that going electric could save urban delivery fleets some serious money in the long term, as long as their trucks end up giving power back to the grid when they’re not in use.

Buying a battery-powered vehicle is a tough decision for a fleet manager to make. The initial cost of an electric delivery truck is usually around $150,000 — about three times the cost of a traditional gas or diesel truck. Longer-term gains exist, but currently take years to realize.

A new study from MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) took that well-worn math and added another component: Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tehnology. In such a scenario, fleet owners would plug in their trucks when not in use and sell electricity back to the power grid. Depending on when trucks get plugged in, fleets could earn between $900 and $1400 per vehicle in electricity sales.

Using data culled from the New England power grid and the office supply giant Staples, who already operates a fleet of electric delivery trucks alongside those with internal combustion engines, the researchers found that total operational cost per mile would drop from 75 cents per mile for a diesel truck to 68 cents per mile for an EV.

Best of all, almost any fleet manager could realize those savings — even an individual owner/operator. “Almost all these costs scale down to the individual vehicle,” said Jarrod Goentzel, one of the study’s co-authors.

Since V2G technology depends on managing the flow of power to and from EVs, fleet vehicles would be particularly attractive candidates for V2G inclusion. They operate on a set schedule, which guarantees that utilities would receive a steady source of power.

“The initial opportunities for V2G are likely to be for fleets, because they can be managed and controlled,” Goentzel said.

Photo: Keith Barry/Wired.com

See Also:

• Postal Service to Test Electric Truck
• AltWheels Has Everything But Gasoline
• Who Needs A Smart Grid When You’ve Got Smart EVs? 

Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here

Autonomous Cars Through the Ages

Mapping the Road Ahead for Autonomous Cars

Five Reasons The Robo-Car Haters Are Wrong

I wasn’t long in the backseat of Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius, cruising smoothly down California Highway 85, before a sober, gray-flannel question pierced my giddy techno-utopian buzz: Is this legal?

On principle, it would seem downright churlish to penalize Google’s upstanding Prius — which kept letter-perfect lane position, following distance and speed-limit compliance — while all around us human drivers committed a panoply of illegal acts: talking on their phones, speeding, changing lanes without signaling, tailgating, you name it.

But what does the law say about autonomous vehicles?

“The law in California is silent, it doesn’t address it,” Google’s Anthony Levandowski told me. “The key thing is staying within the law — there’s a always a person behind the wheel, the person in the seat is still the driver, they set the speed, they’re ready to take over if anything goes wrong.”

Ryan Calo, who studies, among other things, the legal aspects of robotics at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society, notes, “generally speaking, something is lawful unless it is unlawful — that’s the whole idea of having a system of so-called ‘negative liberties.’”

He has parried on this issue with economist Tyler Cowen, who counters with one local driving code, which states “No person shall operate a motor vehicle upon the streets of the city without giving full time and attention to the operation of the vehicle.” And yet by this definition alone there was nothing illegal about what the Google engineers, sitting up front and busily monitoring the Prius’ various operations, were doing. They were within both the spirit and letter of the law.

In fact, you could argue they were paying more attention than any of the drivers around us.

One reason Google’s autonomous Prius was not unlawful is autonomous vehicles have not been on society’s radar — or roads. As with drivers talking on cellphones (or any number of Internet issues) legislation tends to follow the adoption of new technology. Google, of course, isn’t taking chances and sent representatives to Nevada, which has a history of autonomous vehicle testing, to lobby in favor of Assembly Bill 511. The law “requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles on highways within the State of Nevada.” It defines an autonomous vehicle as “a motor vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator.”

As at least one commentator has noted, although the bill defines artificial intelligence as “the use of computers and related equipment to enable a machine to duplicate or mimic the behavior of human beings,” many modern cars already do this, in any number of ways: Adaptive cruise control, anti-lock braking, lane-departure warning systems, self-parking, even adaptive headlights.

One of Google's autonomous Toyota Prius hybrids struts its stuff. Photo: jurvetson/Flickr

So is Nevada simply reaffirming what’s on the road, or raising the specter that existing in-car technologies would be subject to the requirements laid out in the draft regulations? For example, would the requirement that “prior to testing, each person must be trained to operate the autonomous technology, and must be instructed on the autonomous technology’s capabilities and limitations” apply to someone test-driving a new Mercedes-Benz?

Calo doesn’t think so.

“It sets out a definition of autonomous technology that is based in part on the statutory definition of autonomous vehicle that the legislature gave to the DMV, and then it very explicitly excludes essentially all of the individual technologies that are commercially available today,” he says. “It’s an open question if it would exclude them in their combination or in their particular uses but it reflects the DMV’s effort to say no, no, no, we’re really not talking about things you can buy today, we’re really not talking about the driver assistive technologies, we’re talking about autonomous in its extreme sense.”

Welcome to the brave new world of autonomous vehicle law. When the rules become official, Nevada will become the first state to broach the subject (largely thanks to Google’s influence). But as increasingly autonomous technologies enter our cars, the legal questions, liability in particular, have grown more relevant. As a report by the RAND Corporation notes, “As these technologies increasingly perform complex driving functions, they also shift responsibility for driving from the driver to the vehicle itself…. [W]ho will be responsible when the inevitable crash occurs, and to what extent? How should standards and regulations handle these systems?”

But the legal picture is still incredibly murky. For one, standards for many of these systems are still evolving, and there’s a certain level of mystery regarding their performance and their performance failures. Consider, for example, that it took the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and NASA investigators months of involved study to determine that the notorious Toyota unintentional acceleration incidents were less likely an electronic malfunction and “most likely the result of pedal entrapment by a floor mat [holding] the accelerator pedal in an open throttle position.”

“In the slipstream of this uncertainty,” Dutch researchers Rob van der Heijden and Kiliaan van Wees note in an article in the European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, “another source of uncertainty concerns doubts on whether legal regimes are adequate to cope with ADAS [advanced driver assist systems] or that they might create problems with regard to their development and implementation.” The fear of product liability always looms as an obstacle to innovation in the auto industry (and liability is a particularly American issue; one study noted that in 1992, Ford was hit with more than 1,000 product liability in suits in the United States and exactly one in Europe). As Rand notes, automakers initially opposed air bags because they worried about shifting responsibility from drivers to themselves; Calo points out that people have sued when a car in a crash does not have an air bag “because someone said at this price point you should have an airbag.”

It’s not hard to spin complicated crash scenarios involving autonomous vehicles and the tangled webs of post-event liability. Take a scenario envisioned by Rand: “Suppose that most cars brake automatically when they sense a pedestrian in their path. As more cars with this feature come to be on the road, pedestrians may expect that cars will stop, in the same way that people stick their limbs in elevator doors confident that the door will automatically reopen.”

But what if some cars don’t have this feature (and given the average age spread of the U.S. car fleet, it’s not hard to imagine a gulf in capabilities), and one of them strikes a pedestrian who wasn’t aware the car lacked this technology? If a judgment is found in favor of the pedestrian, are we encouraging people to be less careful? Or simply hastening the onset of universal pedestrian-crash avoidance features in cars? As Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society, asks, “do we force the vehicles to adapt to our legal regime, to our motor vehicle code that sets out what is reasonably prudent or what a vehicle must do?” Or, he asks, “do we make some changes to these legal and social infrastructures to incentivize or encourage or speed up the adaptation of autonomous technology.”

Imagine another scenario: What if a driver in a car that uses lane markings to maintain its position goes off the road on a section where the markings have worn away? Is the local department of transportation at fault? Or the manufacturer of the road striping paint whose product didn’t last as long as promised? Or the automaker for not having a more robust backup system? Or the driver for failing to maintain the necessary vigilance? As der Heijden and van Wees write, “under fault-liability regimes drivers and vehicle owners will not be liable if they acted as a careful person.” But what’s the definition of a careful person in an autonomous vehicle? How could we prove ex post facto they were monitoring the car’s performance and not simply daydreaming?

Or what if the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle is a Mercedes-Benz using a hypothetical Google geolocation product and it crashes into a barrier while headed for an off-ramp because it misjudged its location? Is fault attributed to Mercedes (acting on the information), or Google (providing the information), or the driver for not correcting for the error?

An interesting and related area of inquiry here is product liability in the case of crashes that occurred as drivers were given incorrect coordinates by navigation systems. As legal scholar John Woodward notes in an article in the Dayton Law Review, finding fault in that case requires not only locating the source of the malfunction (software, hardware, or a triangulation snafu involving a wayward satellite in the heavens), but ascertaining whether the navigation instructions doled out by GPS constitute a product or a service — which would render product liability claims moot.

Observers like Rand are optimistic that it all will be sorted out, and that liability concerns will not hold up the adoption of safety-oriented autonomous technologies.

“On the contrary,” they argue, “the decrease in the number of crashes and the associated lower insurance costs that these technologies are expected to bring about will encourage drivers and automobile-insurance companies to adopt this technology.”

Photo: Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval took a spin in one of Googles autonomous cars on July 20, 2011 in Carson City. He called the experience “amazing.” Sandra Chereb/Associated Press

This thoroughly modern custom out of England tastefully mines the past to create something that never was but could have been.

It’s called the Triumph Speed Twin Concept, a reference to the iconic 1937 Speed Twin 5T. It was designed by a pair of young British designers, Roy Norton and Tom Kasher, in what became something of an unofficial styling exercise for Triumph. The two were working on placement at the Xenophya industrial design studio when they approached Triumph with a proposal for “a bike taking retro themes in a modern direction.”

Triumph Product Manager Simon Warburton loved the idea and wrote a brief. He wanted a bike “styled to appeal to younger riders … the bike the Bonneville might have evolved into, in an alternative universe.”

The choice of the Triumph Bonneville is a good one: The 865cc twin is a retro throwback in itself. When the production bike was upgraded to fuel injection, the system was carefully disguised to look like traditional carburetors.

Norton and Kasher set to work, drawing influence from the cafe racers and bobbers of yore. Input from Triumph ensured the Speed Twin concept was feasible from a manufacturing and homologation standpoint. Barbour outdoor clothing, another venerable English brand, helped out with materials for the seat and grips.

Warburton is pleased. He says elements from the concept could influence future projects. We’d love to see those eye-catching girder forks on a production bike. Although they’re mock-ups here, the technology is ripe for resurrection with modern materials and engineering know-how.

Photos: Triumph Motorcycles Ltd.

Buick has released a new suite of smartphone games that encourage fuel saving habits. Hypermilers, rejoice!

The Buick Fuel Efficiency Games app might not have the flashiest name out there, but it’s a free app for Android or Apple that contains three separate games that teach about stop/start technology, regenerative braking and aerodynamic optimization. The games are promotional tie-ins with the automaker’s new mild-hybrid Regal and Lacrosse eAssist, and they make maximizing miles per gallon surprisingly fun.

The first two games require players to navigate through a course on a single tank of fuel. Regeneration Road shows off the eAssist system’s regenerative braking technology, forcing players to slow down for pedestrians while driving through a city. If that’s a little too much like driving to work, there’s also Roll and Boost — a “beautiful weekend drive through a flowing countryside” that’s only less relaxing due to the lack of nearby gas stations. Cover the most distance before running out of fuel, and you’ll win.

Finally, there’s Wind Tunnel Tester, which lets players reshape a Regal or Lacrosse in order to optimize fuel efficiency. The moral of that game? Spoilers and roof racks will sap your mileage. We’d be lying if we said we didn’t play a similar game on our Apple IIe back in our younger days. Unfortunately, with limited graphics and only four arrow keys instead of a full touchscreen, most of the cars we built back then ended up looking like Triumph TR-7s.

Currently, Buick’s game only gets twelve ratings in Apple’s App Store, but most of them are pretty positive. If the games prove popular, don’t be surprised if other automakers release promotional software with names like “Angry Merging” and “Parallel Parking Hero.”

Images: Buick

Roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP are able to get as many as 20 of their autonomous microcopters to fly in formation and perform complex maneuvers flawlessly.

In an impressive new video, the GRASP — General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception — team makes their swarm of flying microbots flip, change direction, navigate through obstacles and even fly figure-eights with jaw-dropping agility and precision.

GRASP has since 2010 made remarkable advancements in the capabilities of their tiny quadrotors, developed by Kmel Robotics, and documented them with a series of videos showing bots flying hoops and building a tower-like structure. The lab is developing the ability to fly autonomously in formation, communicating with each other to maintain position. Last year the team demonstrated a basic formation flight with a lost-communication demonstration where one of the aircraft drops out on its own.

There is still plenty of human input as the tiny UAVs are programmed to fly various tasks. No Skynet yet. Such machines could be used for surveillance or search-and-rescue missions. They’re also just plain cool to watch.

As we wait for the next trick, we hope becoming self aware is indeed just science fiction.

Video: YouTube/TheDmel

Jet engines on airliners can swallow a fair amount of ice during a flight, and to make sure they’re up to the task, engine makers bombard them with all kinds of frozen water. This week General Electric pulled the cover off its newest engine testing facility in the appropriately cold location of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The testing ground is designed to take advantage of the cold Canadian winters for ice certification of new jet engines.

Because a jet engine can encounter icing conditions as it flies through clouds, the Federal Aviation Administration requires several tests to ensure engines can operate in freezing conditions. Tests include blasting engines with tiny ice particles similar to those found in clouds, as well as coating engine parts in ice. That’s done to check the associated risk of those parts being iced over and the risk of ice breaking loose and going deeper into the engine.

General Electric says Winnipeg’s 50-plus days of sub-zero temperatures annually makes the new location ideal for cold weather testing. The company runs another test facility in Peebles, Ohio, but the weather there isn’t reliabily cold enough.

Seven fans push air through the 21-foot wind tunnel before 125 nozzles spray tiny water droplets that freeze before pelting the test engine, which normally would be mounted where the plastic is in the top photo. The facility also will perform other tests, including bird ingestion testing (typically performed with dead turkeys tossed into the engine.) and water/torrential rainstorm simulations.

The seven high powered fans that push the air through the wind tunnel at GE's new engine test facility.

New jet engines are key to commercial aviation’s push for greater fuel efficiency. Airplane makers like Boeing and Airbus rarely miss the chance to tout how new airplanes such as the 787 Dreamliner or A350 XWB consume much less fuel than comparable airliners. Engines from General Electric, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney and others account for a large part of those fuel savings.

The first version of the new GE engines on the 787 initially missed some key efficiency requirements. But the next generation GEnx-1B engines flew for the first time Wednesday on GE’s 747 test airplane over California’s Mojave desert. The new engines include small changes to the design that should recover most of the missing efficiency GE hoped for when the engines were designed. The engine is expected to receive certification this summer.

The Boeing 787 is offered with both General Electric and Rolls Royce jet engines. The only 787s currently flying, with All Nippon Airways of Japan, use Rolls Royce engines.

In other news, last week saw a few headaches for some early long-haul flights by ANA’s new 787, according to Flight Global. On two flights from Tokyo to Frankfurt, passengers ended up flying on Boeing 777s instead after a flap malfunction and software issue forced the new Dreamliner into the maintenance shop. The relatively minor issues were quickly repaired and the plane returned to service.

Photo: GE

The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) is launching a campaign to help cars lose weight in order to gain efficiency and performance.

By bringing together members of the aluminum and plastics/composites industries, CAR hopes that automakers will reap the benefits of new lightweight materials to meet stricter fuel economy standards without sacrificing acceleration or handling.

Obviously fans of descriptive acronyms, the folks at CAR have named the group Coalition of Automotive Lightweighting Materials, or CALM. Among its members, CALM will count over 200 automotive suppliers who will collaborate on weight-saving technologies in what they call “precompetitive” efforts. That way, the greatest number of automakers will be able to take advantage of lighter components.

“One of the first tasks for CALM will be to meet with engineering groups at the automakers to understand their mass reduction strategies and challenges so the supplier industries can develop and apply their technology solutions with each auto company,” said CAR president and CALM director Jay Baron.

Automakers can add hybrid powertrains, downsize engines and change up gearing ratios, but reducing a vehicle’s overall weight is still one of the most efficient ways of improving gas mileage. It’s an argument often made by fans of the late Geo Metro and Honda CRX HF — both of which achieved hybrid-worthy fuel economy at the expense of safety features, creature comforts and wheels larger than a lawn tractor’s.

While overall fuel economy has increased dramatically in the past few decades, so has the weight of passenger vehicles. MIT economist Christopher Knittel recently found that the average vehicle’s curb weight increased 26 percent between 1980 and 2006. If today’s powertrains were fitted to cars as light as the Chevettes and Civics of yore, the average fuel economy of cars sold in the US would be as high as 37 mpg in 2012.

Like most Americans this time of year, car manufacturers have started looking at the numbers on their scales and are vowing to do something about it. GM, for its part, has talked about using carbon fiber across their vehicle fleet, even on entry-level models.

The benefits won’t just be all about fuel economy. Lighter cars can be more nimble on the road, offering performance and handling benefits. For that reason, we suggest CAR change the coalition’s name to something like the Colin Chapman Center for Automotive Weight Loss, after the Lotus founder who famously said, “To go faster, just add lightness.”

Photo: Flickr/tibchris

See Also:

• Bring Back Cars That Are Fun And Fuel Efficient
• Economist: Fuel-Efficiency Gains Saddled by Trend for Beefier, Faster Autos
• GM Is Bringing Carbon Fiber To The Masses