The Novus Mini Coyote lets drivers radio in the location of hidden, newly-placed and mobile speed cameras, compiling a central database that will alert aggressive BMW drivers to when they need to slow down.

It isn't illegal - but presumably soon will be. We can't imagine THE LAW putting up with this sort of anti-social, rule-flouting behaviour for long. Here's how Novus describes its all-seeing, all-warning anti-radar machine...

"Mini Coyote is always up to date as it maintains a GSM/GPRS communication link with the Coyote servers to exchange information relative to fixed and mobiles speed cameras as well as frequent danger zones. Mini Coyote is very simple to use, it helps you travel securely and avoid the dangers of the road."

The Mini Coyote launches next week and can be pre-ordered from Novus here for £199. If you want one you'd better be quick, before owning and distributing them attracts a minimum five-year sentence and gets your car towed and crushed into a small cube.

(Via The Times)

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Check out this very-professional-looking hack of an Asus Eee PC 701 into a car dashboard. It's the work of a young Russian named Dali, who also added a touchscreen, camera, bluetooth, GPS unit, USB hub, card reader, wireless keyboard and a joystick mouse. Phew!

What you've got here, therefore, isn't something you'll likely be able to do in your lunch hour. It took the chap about four months. It runs a re-skinned Windows XP, and with software, works as a location-aware entertainment system. I wouldn't be surprised if it operates as a sat-nav too.

Eee PC.ru and Photo Gallery (via Gadget Lab)

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Poor old Oyster looks set to have its name ripped from our mini-wallets and cast back into the sandy estuaries from which it came with Tfl announcing that they're looking for a new London transport ticketing system.

What with suffering not one but two meltdowns in the last few months and the slight issue of being hacked by some Dutch techies and then facing the embarrassment of having the hack published online, it shouldn't really be the biggest surprise.

If you happen to be in the market for a gigantic, ready-made steel bridge, the man in charge of keeping Winchendon, Massachusetts tidy has a deal for you.

He's stuck the local bridge on eBay, for a starting price of $100. Buyer must pick up. If you have the relevant insurance and equipment to pick up a 90-foot steel bridge, it's yours. Winchendon doesn't need it any more as it's fixing up the area.

"I got the idea from Sarah Palin. She said in one of the debates that she auctioned off the governor's jet, and I thought it was a great idea," said Town Manager James M. Kreidler Jr., adding that, as of yesterday, nine people had placed the bridge on their eBay watch lists.

(Via Worcester Telegram & Gazette News)

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Buckypaper is similar in concept to papier mache - layer it up thick and it gets stronger. So strong, in fact, that aeroplanes and rockets and even common household chairs could all be made from buckypaper in some distant future world. We are therefore calling it papier mache 2.0.

The invention of scientists at Florida State University's High-performance Materials Institute (headed by Ben Wang, pictured), buckypaper is a simple way of compositing sheets of carbon together so they get stronger. Over 500 times stronger than steel and 10 times lighter, is the eventual aim of this futuristic "space paper."

The only thing ridiculous about unicycling is having to constantly pedal backwards and forwards to keep yourself on the thing. So how about a unicycle where you don't have to pedal at all? Ladies and gentlemen, meet the self-balancing unicycle from Focus Designs or SBU for short.

Apparently you steer it by leaning left or right, much the same way as a normal unicycle, not that I've ever managed to stay on one for more than a clutch of picoseconds to confirm that. Other than that, you just pootle along at 8mph courtesy of the same kind of gyroscopes you find in the ever-popular, and sadly UK-unroadworthy, Segway.

Back in July, some researchers at the Radboud University in Holland discovered a way to hack the RFID chip used in a number of mass transit cards worldwide, including London's Oyster card.

The company behind the card, NXP, attempted to get a court order preventing them from doing so, but failed. Out of generosity, the researchers offered to wait until October to publish their findings, giving NXP time to develop a fix. It's unclear whether they've managed to do so or not, but the research has now been published.

New MyKey technology, developed by Ford, will be rolling out next year. The development will allow parents to put limits on their kids' driving. They can implement speed restrictions, give fuel warnings, or prevent kids from using the radio until their seatbelt is fastened.

The full listing of features is over the jump, but as someone who has never driven, teenage or otherwise, the only message this sends is mistrust of your poor kids. Unless you have a particularly troublesome child, this seems remarkably unnecessary. Speeds artificially limited? Reduced radio volume? If you don't trust them not to exceed 80mph, then why let them drive at all?

This one fits firmly into the hobbyist category, but a bloke on a set of message boards has managed to create a little mini-Segway using parts worth about thirty quid or so. All it consists of is some Lego and an Arduino.

We've seen the phone/oyster card hybrid, and the barcode scanner/phone hybrid, and we've long had mp3 cameras and cameras built into our phones. Enough? Not for Japan. Their attitude is "let's see what else we can cram in there!". They've put your car key into your mobile. At the moment it only works with Nissan vehicles, but it can remotely lock or unlock your car, as well as starting or stopping the engine. It's not on the market yet, but they'll be demonstrating it at the CEATAC conference in Tokyo on Sept 30th.

You know the drill. When you get on a plane, it's all "Seatbacks up!", "
Stow your tray tables!", "The exits are here, here, and here!", and "For the love of god, turn your phone off!". Well, perhaps not any longer. Ryanair have outfitted ten of their planes with the capability to allow you to make in-flight phone calls.

Flying in the face of existing logic that says that the slightest text will send your plane dropping like a stone and crashing in a huge fireball, Ryanair reckon that they've managed to make a mobile phone mast small enough not to interfere with the plane's important not-crashing-and-burning systems.

Parrot, the unfeasibly-difficult-to-Google-due-to-the-bird producer of in-car hands-free kits has just brought out a range of new iPod-enabled music control systems for your vehicle. These devices hook up to your car stereo and allow you to play almost any device through your car speakers.

At the bottom end, there's the MKi9000, which just consists of a control unit that can be used to control music and telephone functions. The unit comes with connections for iPod and iPhone, as well as line-in, bluetooth and USB.

More models, and full specs, are over the jump.

Oh, so that's what happened to your previous phone. And your previous MP3 player. And your previous laptop. And your previous house keys, wallet, trainers, watch and coat.

A survey by security firm Credant Technologies asked London cabbies what devices they've found in the backs of their cabs recently, coming up with the amazing figure that more than 60,000 gadgets have been forgotten in taxis by people we would assume to have been massively intoxicated, over the last six months.

The survey did not ask the cabbies if they attempted to return the items to their owners, or just hacked them open, ripped the SIM cards out and flogged them on eBay in lieu of getting a tip.

O2 have just completed a test of "near field communications". It's the technology used in Visa Paywave cards, Oyster cards, cards that let you into your block of flats, and all sorts of things. A similar sort of thing to the Barclaycard OnePulse card, but they want to put it into your phone so you don't have to carry around a physical card. Good idea in theory. But what about in practice?

Well, O2 have been field trialling it. They gave 500 people a Nokia 6131 with the technology inside and asked them to use it exclusively for six months. The results are pretty positive - 78% wanted to carry on using it in the future, and 9/10 were happy with how the technology worked, so it's nice and idiot-proof.

My bus to work currently takes me about 50 minutes - a distance of about 5 miles. Using my good old physics A-level, that means it travels at about 6.5mph. That's rubbish. Walking is about 3mph. This train, however, would shorten my commute somewhat.

It's a new bullet train, currently being built in China between Shanghai and Beijing - a distance of 1,318km. The designers reckon they'll be able to do that distance in five hours, meaning that their train is 37 times faster than my bus. In other words, if I were to take this train to work, my commute would be just 1 minute and 12 seconds. That would be nice.

Tangshan Railway Vehicles Co Ltd are the chaps developing the train, and it should be operating by 2012, just in time for the Olymp.... oh. Roll out some bullet trains in the UK, please!

Tangshan Railway Vehicles Co Ltd (via Gizmowatch)

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You've got to admire the Dutch. Besides having some of the most lenient marijuana laws in the world, they also make some amazing cars. This particular model boasts 14 speakers, from woofers to tweeters, and you can bet it makes quite a racket. It's actually a piece of artwork, designed so that it can be driven somewhere, and then decks hooked up on top as a portable soundsystem. Oh, and it's available to rent.

The creator, artist Olaf Mooij says "The idea for the DJ Mobile is inspired by the song "God is a DJ" [from faithless] and the car of our HOLY-POPE. These two things were mixed together and there it was the DJ Mobile." Brilliant. Thanks Olaf. A special place in heaven awaits you, and you can bet it'll be soundproofed.

Olaf Mooij (via DVice)

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This kit, aimed at couriers and delivery drivers with safety in mind, will integrate with a embedded computer on your bike and show everyone exactly how fast you're going using electro-luminescent wire.

You've got to build it yourself, but it's not too tough if you've ever soldered before and you know which end of a needle is the sharp one. It'll apparently run for up to six hours on a single AA battery.

Rather than enhancing safety though, I can only see this increasing accidents as people race each other to see who can get the highest number on their back. Hit the jump to see a video of it in action.

Roads get really hot. Really really hot. But 2cm below the surface of the road gets hotter still, and some researchers at Worcester Polytechnic University reckon that we could use that heat in power generation.

The scientists did everything they could to get a stretch of asphalt as hot as possible - embedding highly conductive quartzite into the surface, and painting everything with an anti-reflective coating so that more sunlight is absorbed. The result was a road which got insanely hot, and stayed insanely hot for a while after the sun went down.

The imminent 90-minute product advertisement that is Quantum of Solace has just got a little more rammed with unique marketing opportunities, thanks to car-maker Ford signing on to feature its products in the movie-cum-advert.

So as well as whoring himself dry by using a Sony Ericsson C902 to phone HQ every few minutes, Bond will also be looking on approvingly as love interest Camille rolls up in a gold Ford Ka.

"We are delighted that the launch of the film coincides with the launch of such a significant new model for Ford of Europe," said Ford man Stephen Odell, while using his sleeve to rub a little more magic off the disintegrating Bond franchise.

(Via Reuters)

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Yesterday Nissan previewed a clever new sensor technology that does more than just beep when you're in imminent danger - it actually intervenes a little bit.

Sensors are put into the driver's blind spots - typically to the immediate sides and just behind the driver's seat - to detect if you're getting dangerously close to any other vehicles. Presumably if the technology is adapted for white vans, this mean will mean that everywhere but straight-ahead will be covered in danger sensors.