The lucky buyer who took a load off for Seattle was Butch Behn, owner of Racecar Supply in Rochester, Wash. He plans to use two of the units at the South Sound Speedway. The other three will be resold or reused later. "It'd probably be good to have a couple around for spares. We get pretty busy at the track sometimes," he said (double entendre, anyone?).

The article over at the USA Today mentions nothing about whether or not the fine city of Seattle refurbished these things before sending them along. From the sounds of things that might be OK, as they were used for anything but nature's call. [USA Today]

For your money, you'll be getting one of the fastest all electric vehicles around. The 2009MY can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, has a top speed of 125 mph, and can go 227 miles on a 3.5 hour charge. If you're especially opulent, you can add sweet extras like a painted carbon fiber top for $3,200 or a premium leather interior for $1,800.

Want to think a little more before you let this sweet lil' ride burn a hole through your bank account? Here's a couple of reviews to help you make your decision. Or if you're in California, scuttle over to their dealership in LA. [Tesla Motors]

On the other hand, owning a Roadscan could easily backfire if you are the one to blame—so if you are an accident prone driver it is probably best to steer clear of a device like this. Roadscan is currently available for $299, which is a reasonable price to pay for something that could potentially save you thousands in an accident. [Autocamcorder]

Snakes? Masks? Sure! But the most eye-catching feature is that the ground effects are suffering from a melting effect, and even the wheels appear to be sinking into the pavement (though they might just need a visit to the air pump). Bravo, faceless inventor. Now go park this next to a haughty Prius owner and see a yup piss their diligently pressed Banana Republic pants. [snegopad via jalopnik]

The artwork is apparently inked on with genuine, automotive-quality paint and the console will also ship with a snazzy, all metallic case, housing a number of different peripherals. Now, why haven't we received our unit yet? Did we piss someone off by accident? Hit the link to checkout some more cracking images. [Complex via Kotaku]

If there is anything that makes us weak at the knees, it's Batman, his arsenal of gadgets, his souped up vehicles and anything that resembles them. So, excuse us while we watch the video one more time, allowing its content to turn us to jelly. Ooh, Furai, unleash your Furai on us. Hit Jalopnik for the video. [Jalopnik]

The catch: While these new models are really just updates to what Belkin's been offering for years, there aren't really any catches since if you don't like the sound of FM, they offer a line out that can be used for a direct stereo connection.

Belkin claims "a majority of MP3 owners listen to MP3s in their car," so we guess these Belkin devices still have relevance in the market, which is sort of amazing considering how long ago Belkin started making FM iPod accessories.

The TuneBase FM will run you about $100 when it's available this April, while the TuneCast Auto is surprisingly less expensive at only $80 this February.

Designed for the streets of Taiwan, the car uses a airplane-grade Nomex honeycomb body that makes it just 550lbs with seats. The light weight brings efficiency, so much so, in fact, that the developers claim that the car just needs a few hours of sunlight to recharge its batteries for another 3 hours of driving. But we'll admit it—with a solar panel that tiny on top of the car, we can't help but be a little skeptical about that figure.

Then again, for its groundbreakingly low $24,600 price tag, we'll be willing to give it a chance over this more expensive, equally hideous alternative. [taipeitimes via treehugger]

The same process repeats in reverse when the phone is closed, keeping your screen in good viewing condition at all times. It's a good concept, much like communism is a good concept. Ultimately, it will end up making more problems than it solves. That fiddly cleaning utensil is sure to snap off, at which point the remnants of the device will end up scratching your sexy display. Even if it doesn't break, the cleaning process will soon get really annoying, unless it is super speedy, (which it definitely won't be). Either way, you're better off just washing your filthy, chubby, clammy, blotchy, putrid paws. [Unwired View]

If the shotguns aren't enough to scare you, what if all the robots had Taser shotgun rounds, shocking your ass with enough electricity to make you wish you were dead? Now imagine this sucker dropping off a six-wheeled robot with TWO MORE of those formidable guns on board.

Good god, what's going to happen if this thing gets loose on its own? Until then, enjoy the potential mayhem of this doomsday weapon. [More video at Fortune Magazine, and Defense Review]

The Spotlight, which gives you over an hour's worth of light on a three-hour charge, is expected to cost around $14.99. [Weiguo Solutions via Tips]

Sheesh. It'll not only break the windows in your car, but maybe every window within 50 feet of where were you're driving as well as the sanity of all those within earshot. Not only will you be first required to drop serious bucks on a car audio system worthy of such power, one of these amps will cost you a buck a watt—$10,000 total. Look at the monster specs of this beast:

Kicker WX10000.1 Mono Channel Amplifier Specifications:
Mono-Channel Model (at 14.4V)
Power (watts), Signal-Modulated 2 Ohm mono: 10,000 x 1
Dimensions: 3.75″ x 17.75″ x 35″
Frequency Response (Hz): 20-200, +0/-1dB
Input Sensitivity: 170mV-5V
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 95dB, a-weighted, re: rated power
Low-Pass Crossover: 24dB/octave, variable 50-200Hz
High-Pass, Subsonic Crossover: 24dB/octave, variable 20-60Hz
KICKEQ Bass Boost: Variable to +18dB, centered at 40Hz
Warhouse Control Module: Available separately
Weight: 67 lbs.

[Kicker, via Audio Junkies]

Sure, there are plenty of car seat massagers on the market, but this £59.99 ($124) contraption is explicitly designed for m'lady's pleasure. Now you can add one more distraction to your morning commute in addition to talking on the phone, eating breakfast, listening to the radio and applying makeup: taking a ride on the hootchie koochie vibration train. Just let us know which highway you take to work before you purchase one of these poontang shakers, and we'll alter our route accordingly. [Love Honey, via Shiny Shiny]

Made of more than 900 individual parts, it has dual disc brakes, seven gears and the body is made of aluminum. The interior is so rich, it uses the same leather the company puts in its Audi TT sports cars. It's going to be built in a limited run of 999 cars, so you'd better hurry up and get one for that brat kid of yours, either that or don't let him see it or he'll threaten to burn the house down if you don't buy it for him. [Classic Rallies, via The German Car Blog]

[AVING]

It also has Bluetooth for phone functionality, including address book sync and speakerphone. (I assume when a call comes in, it shows callerID and pauses your music, but don't quote me on that.) It has an SD card slot and a lousy 64MB of internal storage. My bet is at $500, it's not a big HDD. There's a $400 version (NVM-4050), which loses auto-rerouting, traffic, photo and video playback and the FM transmitter. [easystreetnav via PRNewswire]

The company says the unit's eight button-sized lithium batteries on board will last 15,000 hours, which is somewhere between two and three years of use.

Having had drunk and incompetent drivers crawling up my car's ass three separate times, this is a device that I think could have helped me avoid at least two of those three mishaps. After all, this little device could shave off .25 seconds from a driver's reaction time, and that translates into 20 feet of stopping distance at 60 mph. The unit's $29.99 price sounds like a good deal to me. [SuddenStop]

It was also demoing in-car video, but the XM rep said not to expect it for a while because they're unsure of how viable it would be and rolling it out would commit them to the service for years, even if it was flop, chewing up tons of bandwidth.

The screen uses touch controls, but in actual production models it will be built into the dashboard rather than stuck up on the windshield, so it will be much easier to reach. Rundown and gallery of the "info" features after the jump.

The point of XM Weather—besides sating Weather Channel junkies—is to give you an idea of what kind of conditions you're driving into, and offer alternative paths if you want to avoid minor inconveniences like rain or tornadoes. All the data's live (obviously) and has an impressive amount of depth and customization options, in terms of what data you want to see and how.

ParkingLink tells you how many spots are left in a parking garage in a given location, though for now the only garages in the database are those owned by Standard Parking Corporation. Not exciting, but useful.

I obviously can't show you any pictures, but the voice controls seemed to work well enough—as long as you had key words in the phrase, it seemed to sort out of the fluff of normal speech to get at what you wanted, though the woman's robotic tone and the weird modem dialing sound in between responses has got to go.

– Matt Buchanan

New York Auto Show [NY Auto Show]

The "Infiniti Around View Monitor" banishes blind spots with small cameras (I didn't notice them, and I looked) mounted on the front, sides and rear to compose a 360-view of the SUV and map out potential paint-chippers on all sides of the vehicle. The image is displayed on the nav screen, whose controls have an odd angle to them, I think, but that's a minor point.

Also using the camera setup is an upgraded "lane departure prevention" system, which scopes out lane markers in front of you—if you start to change lanes without turn signal, it harasses you with both sight and sound. I hate people who don't use turn signals, so I think this is awesome.

Another kind of geeky, though perhaps pointless, feature is its liquid crystal glass roof panel, whose transparency you can change on the fly with a touch sensor in the dash. They weren't showing it off when I checked out the car, but I'm pretty sure it's cooler than the whirring, rickety sunroof in my '91 Corolla. – Matt Buchanan

New York Auto Show [NY Auto Show]

But here's the disturbing part:

all they give you for the iPod is the cable. No protected pocket, pouch, stand, or any way to lock down your precious iPod. It has to fend for itself, flying around inside your glove box or armrest as you tear ass around town. They built iPod compatibility into the car. How hard can it be tack on a piece of plastic or add some netting to hold it into place?

Check out two of the offenders (Scion and Mini) in the gallery. (And laugh at the copy error in the Mini's sign.)

– Matt Buchanan

New York Auto Show [Gizmodo]

It's a pretty slick setup, and it'll be available on the new Lexus 570s this year. –Adam Frucci with video by Richard Blakeley

Product Page

On the right as Honda's creatively named Small Hybrid Sports Concept. It has front wheel drive and was designed by Honda's European research and development center. There was little other information about this little pocket rocket, but you can see more of it in this gallery. More about these hybrids versus electrics, after the jump:

Both of these concepts stick with the combination of internal combustion engine and electric motor, but we were hoping for plug-in models, or completely electric cars such as the Tesla Roadster.

Even though hybrids seem like a great idea, they're still guzzling fossil fuels from countries that hate America, and then, well, those batteries might cause more problems than they solve when it's time to dispose of them. So we're thinking maybe the solution is for all of us to work at home instead of driving so much. Or ride bicycles. – Charlie White

Honda Small Hybrid Sports Concept and Toyota Hybrid X Concept [Jalopnik]

These guys over in Google's hometown of Mountain View use the search engine's free Wi-Fi to power their mobile next-gen gaming rig, which features a 23-inch Samsung LCD screen, Xbox 360, and most importantly, the Xbox Vision Cam for those tense deathmatch games of UNO.

What should they go for next? Get EV-DO in there for some serious cross-country action. –Alexander Yoon

Playing Xbox Live While Driving [via Kotaku]

XM-Sirius Merger Plans to be Announced Today? [Orbitcast]

We snagged a couple of video clips inside of the Next Gen House that's been transported here to CES. Up top is a video of the touchscreen you got a look at yesterday and some of its functions in action, such as controlling a security camera outside while watching a live video feed. After the jump, you'll see the massive wall mount for a flat panel in one of the bedrooms, zooming, retracting, and just generally moving all over the place with the touch of a button...

Since the mechanical parts are wrapped in plastic, they didn't get as touchy as Samsung did the other day about me taking photos. Granted, the Samsung mount was much cooler, with more flexibility and less bulk. Regardless, I'd buy that for a dollar. Or two, even. – Matt Buchanan