driver

A lot of cars from a variety of manufacturers made their world debut at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy automobiles to emerge out of Frankfurt was the Audi R8 E-Tron concept car. Yes, it is certainly flashy and eye appealing. But what may be more appealing to an increasingly eco-friendly world of car consumers, this car has no engine (WHAT?!!!). Yeah, I said it - NO ENGINE. This baby is powered by a feisty lithium ion battery packs, and supposedly runs completely off electrical energy. Impressive, eh?

Today we're putting the "Tech&… Read more

Advanced System Optimizer 3 gives people a comprehensive suite of utilities fronted by an interface that showcases an excellent use of color-coded icons, making banal system tasks easy to complete--if not exciting. However, its restrictive trial could prevent some people from fully exploring the program.

The program attempts to be all things to all people, and includes tools that can be split into three categories: maintenance, security, and backup. Advanced System Optimizer focuses on the maintenance side of things, and includes a Registry optimizer and cleaner, a disk defragmenter, a disk repair utility that claims to fix errors before drive … Read more

A year ago, I covered DriverSide, then in beta, a site designed to help people own cars--not buy new ones or fetishize the ones they can't afford. Since then, with the crisis in the U.S. economy, the automobile market has changed dramatically, making the boring utility of DriverSide likely even more attractive than it was when it launched.

The site is coming out of beta now and it has a few new features designed for people who don't feel their cars are disposable items. "Car awareness is different today," founder Trevor Traina says. He quotes … Read more

The results and fighting from this past weekend's Carfax 250 wasn't the only NASCAR-related news in the last few days. It's not a secret that many NASCAR drivers aren't happy with the modifications made to NASCAR vehicles, often referred to as the "Car of Today" (which is sometimes abbreviated as CoT). As recently as this last Friday, famed driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. addressed NASCAR sanctioning officials pleading for further development of the so-called "CoT" as a suggestion to improve the sport in terms of drivers' use and how the drivers compete. Despite … Read more

Consumers have had the option of 64-bit Windows computing since the release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in May 2005, four years after the release of Windows XP 32-bit. At the end of 2006, Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit versions were released simultaneously. Yet chances are you're currently using a machine that runs the 32-bit version of Windows.

This is about to change. Windows 64-bit has started to gain a significant foothold in the past two years as more systems ship with 3GB or more of memory. However, with Windows 7, 64-bit computing is likely to become even more common.

What's the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit computing? In a nutshell, the numbers refer to the amount of bits a computer can process in one computation. They also translate into the amount of random access memory (RAM) a computer can address. A 32-bit Windows computer can address a maximum of 4GB of RAM, while a 64-bit Windows machine can address up to 128GB and even more (64-bit applications can address theoretically up to 16 billion gigabytes of memory). So the higher number of bit means better computing, both in terms of precision and capability.

Despite the potential, the transition to the new platform has been slow. This is because of the high price of RAM and the lack of device drivers and 64-bit software applications. (Drivers are a special type of software that make hardware components work with the operating system. Without the sound driver, for example, your computer wouldn't be able to play music.)

Back when Windows Vista was released, 2GB of RAM, which is the recommended amount to make Vista run properly, could easily cost a couple hundred dollars. (This is one of the reasons Vista failed so badly as a new OS release.) There was virtually no 64-bit application then, either, other than a few game demos, and most hardware vendors didn't provide the 64-bit version of the drivers. Apart from this, 32-bit computers have been able to satisfy most of our daily computing needs. … Read more

Do I detect the faintest hint of a smile in your driver's license photo? The smile that says, "Gee, I've been here for three days, it's amazing what popping a little E can do to help you through."

Well, perhaps you might rejoice that you don't live in Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia, or Nevada.

Those states--and perhaps more to come--have decided to enact a no-smiling policy on driver's license photos.

Their intentions are noble. You see, these states have invested in very fine software that compares photos on licenses to other photos already taken. … Read more

DeviceIOView is supposed to give you the ability to watch data transfers between software and device drivers. Besides producing several error messages, its overall lack of direction left a lot to be desired.

The user interface is plain and seemingly straightforward, with menu and command buttons at the top, and two panels at the bottom. We clicked on the Start button since it was the only active button. A separate window appeared with a list of active processes to choose from. But no matter which process we chose, the program became unresponsive and produced an error message. Once the program … Read more

First things first: racing cars of any sort is an expensive, time-consuming sport. Many drivers begin their training when they outgrow their Big Wheels (although a previous CNET post shows that size doesn't matter when it comes to Big Wheel racing), but just because you weren't born into a racing family or started karting when you were 6 doesn't mean it's too late to become a professional race car driver.

Volkswagen has teamed up with iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations to develop an online racing simulator video game of its SCCA Pro Racing Jetta TDI Cup series. … Read more