Segway May Become Street Legal in Japan

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Transportation

Segways have been prohibited from Japanese streets (and sidewalks) by Japanese road laws, but now, because of Yokahama’s push for tourists and use of environmentally friendly vehicles, the city and Segway Japan are apparently in negotiations to make them street legal. The average price of one in Japan is $10,000.00 and about 100 of the vehicles have been sold so far for use on private property. We guess that means they may also embrace GM’s new PUMA.

Read More | <3 Yen

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GM and Segway Team for PUMA

Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Transportation

Struggling GM has gotten together with Segway to create the PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility.) The two-wheeled USV (ultra small vehicle) will have a maximum speed of 35 mph and can go as far as 35 miles. When the vehicle stops, training wheels can be utilized. Fortunately, it is a bit more protected than the original 2-wheeler. Even if that is the case, we don’t think that it will be a big seller in the colder parts of the U.S., especially in SUV driven Detroit. Look for them to appear by 2012..

Read More | Wall St. Journal

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CES 2008 Video: AMD PUMA demonstrations

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Gizmatic, Short Bytes, CES, CES 2008, Features, PC / Laptop, Podcasts, Videocasts

In this segment, we look at two similarly equipped Dell notebooks to examine the benefits provided by ATI‘s integrated graphics option versus the competition’s, and take a first-hand look at a Half-Life 2 demo run on a Puma-based reference system, in hybrid mode, utilizing both the system’s discreet and integrated graphics chips over Crossfire.

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CES 2008 Video: A Hands-On look at the AMD Puma Notebook platform

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Full Episodes, Gizmatic, CES, CES 2008, Corporate News, Features, PC / Laptop, Podcasts, Videocasts

We take a close look at AMD‘s recently announced “Puma” notebook platform. Puma is a tightly-knit system for notebook suppliers comprising of the chipset, CPU, GPU and wireless chipset. Similar in some ways to their Spider desktop platform, Puma takes it to the next level by allowing for a hybrid integrated and discreet graphics solution. While Intel has something similar, AMD is apparently the first to offer a dynamically switchable system, allowing your notebook to automatically switch to integrated graphics when it detects you’ve gone on battery, or to allow you to switch manually. I asked if they plan on making it automatic, based on load, which they seemed to think was a pretty great idea and relatively easy to achieve as well. What’s more, despite the fact that the integrated and discreet GPUs are chips of differing abilities and specs, they’re still able to operate in Crossfire/hybrid mode, providing an extra boost in power and achieving some very impressive framerates.

AMD shows us their reference bench system and two other identically-configured systems, the only difference between them an Intel versus AMD integrated graphics chipset. (And CPU, naturally.) With a price difference of around $25 to AMD’s favor, the AMD integrated chip actually performs considerably better in their demo, grain of salt included. The reference system shows off their hybrid processing and lets us see what framerates we might be able to hit on an entry- to mid-level hybrid Puma system.

Puma also brings about something that’s been announced with Intel as well—the ability to deactivate CPU cores and speeds, instead of just stepping down speed. This, coupled with an intelligent HD decoder will bring about several hours of additional battery life.

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