A 6.5-inch colour touch screen infotainment system is now standard in every Holden Commodore, part of the VE Series II upgrade that also includes flex-fuel V6 and V8 engines for the first time in a locally-made car.  But Holden is making the move without the Statesman, a name that is being dropped in 2010.

There are only minor body and cabin changes for the VEII, as GM Holden concentrates its spending on customer benefits and equipment that will give it a showroom advantage. It claims fuel economy improvements up to 12 per cent - on the 6-litre SS-V manual sedan - and CO2 reductions up to 11.5 per cent - on the 3-litre V6 Omega ute.

The infotainment system - called Holden-iQ - operates with Bluetooth, wireless, cable and USB connections for music and mobiles and is intended to give the red lion a competitive advantage.

The same applies to its flex-fuel, bioethanol engines, although the 3.6-litre V6 will not run on the greener E85 - 85 per cent ethanol, 15 per cent petrol - mix until 2012.

GM Holden says E85 will be available from around 100 bio-ethanol service stations nationally in 2011.  It is keeping pricing and final specifications secret until the official press launch of the latest model on September 10, but is teasing today with pictures and some early information.

Read the full article here.

Now, the official Duke Nukem Forever press release offers more details about the resumption of development of Duke Nukem Forever, which they say is due next year for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, and having fun with the protracted development cycle of the shooter sequel, saying “Hail to the King! 2K Games Announces Duke Nukem Forever - Seriously Flying Pigs Spotted Heading Towards Penny Arcade Expo,” and mention that it “was originally announced during the tail end of the Clinton Administration.”

The Duke Nukem Forever Website is live with forums and pointing the way to this page with info on how you might get to test the game at Gearbox’s offices.

Read more over at BluesNews.

The FPV GS, which will remain as FPV’s entry level model, features 315kW and 545Nm of torque. The FPV GT on the other hand gets the high-output version and produces 335kW and 570Nm of torque.

The most impressive part of the performance graphs is that both variants hit their respective peak torque figures at a staggering 2200rpm, with the torque holding on relentlessly right through to 5500rpm.

Read the full article here.

The U.S. government on Monday announced new rules that make it officially legal for iPhone owners to “jailbreak” their device and run unauthorized third-party applications. In addition, it is now acceptable to unlock any cell phone for use on multiple carriers.

http://bit.ly/cD2Gm2

Read in full here: http://bit.ly/cay98E

Twenty-five years ago today, a new personal computer was unveiled at a black-tie, celebrity-studded gala at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center. It debuted to rave reviews and great expectations–heck, InfoWorld said it might be the “third milestone” in personal computing after the Apple II and the IBM PC.

Read the rest here… http://bit.ly/cS37T0

Check it out here:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/07/youtube-easter-egg-lets-you-play-snake/

While the exterior of the current VE model continues to enjoy widespread appeal, the styling of its interior has aged significantly against more recent offerings from rivals, including the Ford Falcon.

Holden has been working on an interior revamp to bring the interior up to date for the first major styling update of the billion-dollar VE since its 2006 introduction. In the 32 years Holden has been producing Commodores the VE has gone the longest without a significant visual update.

Read the full article over at drive.com.au.

A Ford factory worker toes up to the bumper of a Ford Fiesta, dips down over the engine compartment, and clips in one lead coming from a multi-headed hydra of wires leading back to the car’s brain – the ECU. It’s only one in thousands of steps required to turn a pile of steel, plastic and leather into the Fiesta that will eventually drive off the assembly line under its own power, but remarkable because the connector doesn’t actually exist.

Neither does the ECU. Or the manifold he’s plugging it into. Or, for that matter, the 2014 Fiesta he’s working on, which is three years ahead of the 2011 model the public has only recently laid eyes on.

At Ford’s digital preassembly lab in Dearborn, Michigan, workers simulate not just the parts and design of upcoming vehicles, but the physical labor needed to put them together by thousands of workers in factories across the United States. Using motion-capture technology borrowed from Hollywood, actors studded in motion-capture points like miniature ping pong balls simulate building virtual cars on a skeletal aluminum mockup, while computers capture their every movement from 15 different cameras. Ford compares the data from the actors to existing biomechanical models to determine whether workers will strain too much to put a car together, then they modify the design to compensate. Working nearly two years out from first production means the changes take place with keystrokes, rather than recasting thousands of parts and scrapping the old ones.

Read the full article here.