automatic

Drivers in the United Kingdom will have another thing to worry about every time they pull up to the pump. In addition to wondering if they'll have enough money in the bank to pay for the exorbitant price of fuel, they may need to check if they paid their car insurance premium on time.

In an effort to crack down on auto insurance scofflaws, the British government wants to team up with gas stations to identify drivers who haven't paid their premiums, and prevent them from filling up. The proposed plan will use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) … Read more

You may recall the violinist who played the Nokia ringtone after a member of the audience forgot to silence his phone. Luckily, this gentleman had a sense of humor and decided to make light of the situation. Unfortunately, not everyone is so forgiving of interruptions. If you don't want to be that person, your best course of action is to completely silence or turn off your phone. But what if you forget?

Most people don't turn off their phone notifications until they arrive at their destination. This is likely why many movie theaters show a cute animated feature … Read more

Paper towels, being the handy little kitchen helpers that they are, can be found at a moment's notice in kitchens everywhere. Whether mounted in a rack or left right out in the open on top of the counter, paper towels are almost always available for quick access. Not all however, would agree.

Apparently--and this is just a rumor--some people prefer to store their paper towels out of sight; perhaps mounted underneath the sink or tucked away in a cupboard. The questionable unsightliness of paper towels aside, there is a certain organizational appeal to having them put away. Yet, when … Read more

Nissan's Pivo 3 EV concept is a futuristic three-seater that expands on the Pivo and Pivo 2. The driver sits in the center position of the Pivo 3 EV, which allows for better visibility. However, the concept car has some rather innovative features to make driving and charging easier.

According to Nissan, the Pivo 3 EV features technology called Automated Valet Parking (AVP), which allows the driver to find a parking spot without driving around and around a parking garage. With AVP, the Pivo 3 EV can also charge itself and return to its driver when called by smartphone.… Read more

When a program suddenly quits in OS X without any user direction, it usually means the program has crashed. The system will likely show the crash reporter window that you can submit to Apple to help the developers troubleshoot their code and correct the problem. However, if you are running OS X Lion then you may run into a situation in which applications you have open will close without showing any indication of a problem.

As an example, go ahead and open TextEdit and close any windows that open up. Then go through your Applications folder and launch a number … Read more

Dear Krispy, I'm breaking up with you. Thanks to the new Automatic Mini Donut Factory, there is no longer any reason to venture out into the world.

The $179.99 doughnut maker from Nostalgia Electrics sits on your kitchen counter and magically transforms raw doughnut batter into little halos of sin. All the flipping and frying is handled automatically, with your treats popping out at the far end of the machine.

Safety windows let you observe the action without accidentally frying your fingers. It even has a component called the "donut slide."… Read more

While some technologies, such as smartphones and laptops, change by the month, others evolve at a far more glacial pace. Bathroom tech isn't an area where one expects great strides from year to year, but I couldn't ignore an invite to test Kohler's new Numi toilet. It's not every day I get asked to test-drive a commode.

The Numi is U.S. bathroom furnishing manufacturer Kohler's first big stride into a top-to-bottom high-tech toilet. While Kohler had previously introduced an attachable seat with several functions built in, the Numi is more of a complete toilet overhaul.

High-tech toilets are very popular overseas, particularly in Japan; in fact, I first used a high-tech toilet while on my honeymoon in Tokyo. Toilets with seat warmers and automatically adjusting bidets are strangely luxurious, but many times the toilets that employ them end up looking like astronaut equipment.

Comparatively, the Numi is shockingly minimal. At first glance it looks more like a piece of high-end kitchen equipment. Compact, squared-off, and glowing, it has barely any visible buttons at all on its smooth facade. Instead, the toilet's functions are controlled with a full-color touch-screen device that magnetically docks with a wall-mounted panel. … Read more

Some of the folks at Microsoft were perplexed by last week's post on the spacing problem affecting some documents traveling between Office 2010 and Office 2007. I can't say that I blame them. Anyone who set his or her copy of Office to update automatically had the fix for the problem delivered more than two years ago.

The Microsoft Office Sustained Engineering Team addressed the issue in a TechNet blog post that followed last week's report. That post suggests that Office users enable automatic updates of all Microsoft software.

The problem is, some past updates for Windows, … Read more

Approaching a writing project logically has many benefits for the writer, not the least of which is better organization. This is where WhizFolders Organizer Pro enters the scene. It's a powerful word processing and outlining suite designed to help writers improve their productivity and work habits, but where it shines is in helping people capture new ideas when they strike. It's optimized for writing tasks, but its ability to quickly save your ideas, notes, and jottings and integrate them in an overall narrative is useful not just for writers but also for entrepreneurs, artists, project managers, executives, and … Read more