Tag: car

Perhaps we shouldn’t use our mobile phones while we’re mobile

In an effort to stop people fiddling where their phones whilst driving, the people from the Western Cape Government have taken a slightly different approach. A recent advert appears to have lifted a number of CCTV images showing a phone-relate accidents. There’s people falling into ponds, walking into …

Wanna borrow a car for a bit? Zipcar Flex comes to London

In my head this seems like a strange idea, especially in a city which is already well-known for traffic problems. However, Zipcar is now here in London and they’ve added 300 petrol (don’t ask me why there’s no electric) cars to London streets. Their idea, via the new …

SEAT Adds their very own Android Auto app to Google Play

The car company has now become the “first European industry to feature an app that is compatible with Android Auto”. The SEAT DriveApp is available only for Android at the moment and supplements the other Android apps that the company has already added to the store. It’ll let …

New tougher mobile laws live today for drivers

Whether you’re a new driver or a more experienced one, it’s really worth paying attention to this. From today, if you’re caught using your mobile phone at the wheel in the UK, you’ll get 6 points on your licence and a £200 fine. New drivers who have passed …

Using your phone whilst driving? Points and fines to double

Despite it being law for a number of years, people are still continuing to use their phone whilst driving. The RAC has released some rather worrying statistics from a recently commissioned survey. There’s been an increase in drivers owning up to using a handheld mobile phone – from …

The Coolsmartphone Mobile Video Studio

OK. Slightly off-topic today, but the regular readers will no doubt be aware that I film a lot of our product reviews in my car. As an example, my SanDisk iXpand overview or this FM transmitter review. I was even doing this some 10 years ago in glorious …

Apple reveals intentions to build self-driving car

It’s only a few weeks that reports suggested that Apple’s ambitions to enter into the car market had pretty much ground to a halt. Despite lay-offs and hints to suggest priorities have changed, Apple is very much back in the self-driving car game according to recent letters. A recent letter from …

This is worth 10 minutes of your time

OK I’ll fess up. Sometimes I do get distracted by my phone when I’m in the car. It’s all too easy to take a quick glance at the traffic lights and some of us think we can compose complicated messages while we’re driving. You can’t. You just can’t. …

Topless student crashes into police car as she tries to take a selfie

Yesterday I went to McDonald’s to sample their huge range of delicious burgers whilst using the greasy tablets. On the way someone nearly crashed into us as he tried to navigate a roundabout while texting on his phone. It’s human nature sometimes. Some people think that they can …

A plug-in self-drive solution – Remoto Pilot

Part of me didn’t like this pretty much immediately purely due to the video below. I mean, what’s going on with the face fur on this guy? And does he have to look so cocky? “I’m not just going to use my phone while my car is driving …

Lumsing 4-Port USB Car Charger – Review

Agh!! You’re running back to your car and your phone is running low on battery. It happened today and my car has now become a recharge centre. However, if you go and buy a car charger thing from the local market it’ll probably be a cheaply-made thing that …

The smartphone – A vital piece of evidence after a fatal accident

In the last few hours lorry driver Danny Warby has been given a six year sentence for crashing into an off duty police officer’s car. The collision killed Det Con Sharon Garrett, aged 48, and caused a five-vehicle crash. A police investigation revealed that Mr Warby was speeding …

Three take you on a road trip with the RoadFi

Three are now selling something to keep the kids happy on those long drives. Whether you’re off on holiday, going to relatives far away or you simply need to keep the iPads, iPods and tablets connected for a journey to the shops, the new Huawei RoadFi should sort …

Thinkware F770 Dashcam review

A few weeks ago I was filling my car at the local petrol station and noticed that if you purchased a certain amount of fuel you could buy a dash cam for £20, which I promptly did. However, this camera can only be described as awful. It was …

Fancy playing your MP3’s in an 8-track player from the 1960’s?

Well no. Not many people have thought about doing this, I’m sure, but I’ve got in the rather geeky habit of following the Techmoan YouTube channel and his most recent video features a rather old piece of technology from the 1960’s called the “8-track”. The 8-track cartridge or …

SEAT turns to VR

When I received this press release I honestly thought SEAT had launched a new way of selling their cars. Perhaps, after strapping your phone to your face via Google Cardboard or similar, you could experience a SEAT before you bought one? Well, it’s not quite that – not …

Tronsmart Type-C and micro USB cables overview

Can we call this a review? Possibly. We’re not totally sure what to say in order to qualify this as a review, especially as they’re just cables. However, saying that, they are very decent cables. Tronsmart do lots of Type-C cables and lots of microUSB cables, and we’re …

Smartphone app now used to check Ford car quality

Manually checking cars at a highly advanced car factory in Valencia might sound old-fashioned, but this is how Ford maintains quality at the plant. Until fairly recently, these checks were recorded on a bit of paper, and then workers had to walk to a central point to record …

iClever FM Transmitter IC-F40 – Review

Imagine the scene. You’re driving along and you put the radio on. You tune around, but every station is either pumping out the same tune or there’s a never-ending barrage of adverts for local window companies and the like. You dig around your CD’s but they’re either scratched …

Ford and Fiat Chrysler to support Android Auto

Las Vegas isn’t filled with just gamblers and drinkers this week, oh no. It’s a tech-fest as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off and the very latest gadgets get shown off. Two big car manufacturers are there too – Ford and Fiat Chrysler. They’ve announced that Android …

Meet the iPhone hacker who can make your car drive itself.

This is George Hotz. He’s a bit of a character. He’s 26 and lives in San Francisco. At the age of 17, under the name “geohot”, he became the first person to unlock the iPhone. Shortly after he started working on the Sony Playstation 3 and became the …

Move over HTC, Ford want to be quietly brilliant.

Modern cars tend to have a lot of sound proofing, especially if you’re driving one of those diesel cars. It’s to reduce engine noise, but despite how nice your tyres might be, there’s still road noise to deal with. Ford have been thinking of new ways to sort …

AVANTEK BC-L6 Bluetooth Stereo audio receiver

Your phone will no doubt have all your tunes on it, but when you get in your car there’s just a few methods of getting those tunes pumping out of the powerful speakers in your car. First, you could perhaps use one of those FM transmitters. They’re usually …

EasGear Qi Wireless car charger and phone holder review

I’m terrible with the whole car mount / phone holder situation. I get to my car, open the door, then throw my wallet and phone onto the passenger seat. If the phone is lucky, it’ll be plugged in and will perhaps reach the destination without sliding off the …

Driver decides to broadcast drive home on Periscope… whilst drunk

There’s a few things that Florida resident Whitney Beall did wrong on Saturday. First, she decided to hold her phone aloft to film herself driving. That’s a bad move. Fiddling with your phone whilst driving is never a good idea and is against the law here in the …

iClever 3 and 4 port USB car chargers – Review

We have a couple more devices for turning what was once a cigarette lighter into a rather nicer USB charging point. The cigarette lighter, which you may see now called a power point in your car, can be used to charge your portable device. However, with lots of …

Speak in your own voice with clever Ford in-car tech

A minor bug-bear for us Brits can be the fact that we have to force technology to speak to us in proper English. If you use Word, you’ll need to fiddle around to switch it to “English UK” and we have to put up with devices called “Honor” …

Suaoki 7.2A 36W 3 port USB car charger – Review

Some of the items we get to review area quite complicated. They need research and a fairly wordy write-up. This, on the other hand, not so much. The Suaoki car charger is everything you’d expect it to be out of the box. It’s portable, easy to use and …

Texting and driving. Try it. You’ll crash.

I’m not totally sure how this video has gone viral suddenly, because it’s around three years old now. Anyhow, this happens all around the world. Nobody is perfect and I’ve seen drivers across Europe, America, China and here in the UK doing it at the wheel. The familiar …

Inateck 4-port Rapid Car Charger – Review

Car journeys with my family usually follow the same pattern. It goes something like this… Dad can I watch my iPad? Yes son. Dad! The battery’s flat! OK, use the iPad mini then. Dad! The iPad mini is flat! Ok, use mums phone. Dad! Mums phone is flat! Can …

MONTAR 360 degree car mount – Review

I’ll admit to jumping in my car and generally throwing my phone onto the passenger seat. There it’ll be, sliding around and then falling off the side of the seat as I go around a corner. After I arrive at my destination I then get to play the …

The daddy of remote-controlled cars

Remember this scene from Tomorrow Never Dies? Bond drove his utterly fugly BMW 750i (worst Bond car, ever) with his Sony Ericsson mobile phone. Oh how we laughed. Wait though, because it’s now actually possible. Jaguar have a Land Rover that you can control with your smartphone. It’s …

TuneIn gets some Google Now action

Got TuneIn? Like using Google Now? Combine the two my good friend, because now you can simply speak to your phone and tell it what station you’d like to listen to. It’ll fire up the TuneIn app and start streaming the station in question. So, if you’re in …

Mophie Juice Pack iPhone 6 Plus – Review

Battery cases and portable chargers are becoming ever more popular. Just look at EE, who had a million requests for their Power Bar scheme. I’ve been a fan of the Mophie Juice Packs since I bought my first one for the iPhone 4S. I’m a heavy user of …

CarLock Review

Tracking your car is possible with just a smartphone. Various apps will let you do it, but it’s a matter of having a spare smartphone with a data plan and GPS, plus you have to leave it plugged into the 12v charger and that alone will probably attract …

Creating a low-level smartphone strap-on for your car

We’ve featured the READYACTION mount a number of times here. It’s basically a low-cost system for strapping your smartphone to your bike, yourself, your windscreen or anything else you fancy. Initially I showed how it could hold onto a digital camera via a chest-harness mount to film some …