Somehow, the last thing we expected to see Formula 1 champ Sebastian Vettel endorsing is a crossover utility vehicle. But that’s exactly what Infiniti will roll out next month at the Frankfurt auto show when Vettel unveils the FX50 concept car he helped design. The 390-horsepower CUV is slathered in matte white paint. Other tidbits include [...] Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/08/sebastian-vettel-crosses-over/ Paz Vega

As far as Tetris goes, most variations look quite similar. You’re usually looking at a “wall” of bricks directly from the front. Torus takes that notion and throws it away; as you might have guessed from the name (or screenshot), this Tetris clone is played on a ring-like 3D surface. You rotate the ring itself with the arrow keys, while a Tetris-like piece slowly (excruciatingly slowly, in fact) descends from the top. As soon as [...]

In the four years since Beirut’s last album, The Flying Club Cup, the band took a sojourn into Mexican style with a mariachi-feeling EP. It seemed as though wunderkind band leader Zach Condon might not return to the group’s Balkan-tinged musical stylings. But he did. Beirut’s new album, The Rip Tide, is a return to form, [...] Source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/08/mp3-beirut-santa-fe/ Sophia Bush

In BattlePaint, you play a cube. In fact, you’re not even a cube — just a square. But boy, are you fast! And you can shoot in all directions. That’s important, because there are baddies coming in from all over the place. The “baddies” are swarms of other squares, in all sorts of pretty colors. They track you all over the screen, and you run around very quickly and just shoot, shoot, and shoot some [...]

Some of you who own Windows Phone 7 devices are still waiting for your pre-NoDo preparation update — never mind NoDo itself. A few workarounds have been posted, but unfortunately they didn’t work unless your carrier had completed testing and was ready to schedule the update. Now, however, the Chevron WP7 team’s Chris Walshie has delivered a handy little utility that will allow you to update any Windows Phone 7 device — regardless of your [...]

BMW’s racked up more than 3,100 miles testing a semi-autonomous car that can handle the commute for you. Source: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/08/bmw-tests-an-autonomous-vehicle/ Vanessa Simmons

Google, according to reports from “a dozen executives working at key companies in the Android ecosystem” is finally locking down the open source and easily-fragmented Android operating system. As it currently stands, Google hands over the ‘final’ code for each version of Android, and OEMs and developers then spend some time customizing the OS to fit their hardware, and to create a unique and marketable flavor. That’s all set to change, however. Over the last [...]

Not content with limiting its dominance in streaming uploaded videos, YouTube is now ready to take on competitors like Justin.TV and Ustream. The new YouTube Live service is being rolled out to select YouTube partners and will enable real-time broadcasting. In its official announcement, Google states that “The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead.” You can check out live broadcasts at [...]

While this slick little HTML5 audio player might not pack all of the features of your favorite desktop media application, it’s still a very cool demonstration of what a Web app can do with access to local resources — like MP3 and OGG files. Just fire up http://antimatter15.github.com/player/player.html in your HTML5-compatible browser and browse to the topmost folder in your music library. The app will quickly build an index of all your tunes and let [...]

In case you weren’t paying attention, Samsung and partners Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T announced the arrival of the Galaxy S II line to the US this evening in New York.  We’re on site grabbing footage and asking as many questions as we can get answers for, but in the meantime let’s have a look at Samsung’s official announcement — including accessories!  Samsung really stepped things up a notch and will be offering some awesome accessories [...]