I was invited to check out two prototype models of Chevy’s upcoming Volt plug-in electric vehicle today. I can safely say nobody has ever offered to let me drive a pre-production vehicle before so I jumped at the chance.
These cars were handmade in at GM’s design factory and are in town during the Olympics (GM is a vehicle sponsor). The fit and finish (and even some of the tech) wasn’t final yet as they are still tweaking the designs at this point.
It’s the first fully electric, plug-in vehicle and it was a lot of fun to drive. We were in a parking lot with a little track made out of cones around it and were able to get it going at a pretty good clip. Definitely ‘peppier’ than I was expecting.
I really like the idea of being able to simply plug the car into a normal wall outlet (you actually plug it into a box that plugs into the wall). It can currently go approximately 64 kms per charge running in practically silent electric mode. It will cost just under a $1 a day to charge the vehicle.
The driver’s dashboard:
The centre console:
This is what happens when you get the Volt up over 88 mph:
They even have an iPhone app that allows to you monitor many aspects of the vehicle as well as unlock/lock, start and charge it all remotely.
It’s all tied into the OnStar system. A free demo version of the Volt ‘Experience’ app is already on the (US) App Store if you want to check it out yourself…search for “OnStar Experience”.
I was also able to attach a camera to the windshield to get some driving video. Because it was a prototype, with a custom paint job, the engineers didn’t want me to attach the camera to any painted surfaces. I didn’t want to be the guy that damages a very expensive prototype either.
Here’s the resulting video with a cheeky soundtrack I added by Basement Jaxx that I think GM should licence for the Volt’s promotion:
It was a pretty cool opportunity to check out this pre-production vehicle, chat with a couple of the engineers who designed it and for the chance to drive it. I’ll be curious to see what changes get made when they finally put it into production next year. It’s supposed to hit the Canadian market in mid-2011.
Earlier this week, I was contacted by CBC News to see if I’d be interested in talking on camera (as a technology expert) about various bluetooth devices and handsfree technology on the market. The reason for the story was the new law which goes into effect in British Columbia as of January 1st, 2010 where drivers are basically banned from using any kind of electronic device while operating their vehicle. This has led to a huge increase in sales and interest in handsfree devices and the CBC wanted to give consumers some information in order to wade through all the products on the market.
Hopefully, I helped to clarify some things for folks out there.
Here’s the segments edited together from the news broadcast which originally aired on December 31st on CBC News (Vancouver) which I captured with my TiVo (sadly not in high definition but I needed a haircut anyway):
Thanks to my pal, Tris Hussey for the recommendation to the CBC producers.
Recently, I stumbled across a useful and free iPhone app that I’ve been meaning to review on this site. This post is not that review. This post is about my recent experience(s) with it at Save-On Foods, which is a local grocery store chain.
As the post title implies, it doesn’t end well.
First of all, a little background. The useful iPhone app I found is called Cardstar which allows you to catalog all your retail reward cards in one little place. You simply find your merchant in the list within the app (they support a lot of major Canadian stores), enter the number from the barcode on your reward card and it creates a nice little screen on your iPhone that displays the merchant logo along with your barcode like on the right.
Pretty simple little app that means I don’t have to have a keychain that resembles the high school janitor’s or a wallet like Mr. Constanza. I’m pretty indifferent to these rewords programs…but they can save you some cash on sale items so it seems to be a necessary evil…plus I don’t like paying full retail if I can avoid it.
I was pretty sure that the scanning technology in my local grocery store wouldn’t be able to scan off the highly reflective iPhone screen but I wanted to try. So a few weeks ago, I went to Save-On Foods which is close to home and bought a few things and asked the clerk if she could use this method for my rewards card. She said she had never been asked before but would try. As expected, it didn’t work no matter what she tried. Cardstar says that in the event your info can’t be scanned, the number is there in a large, readable font (unlike on some of the rewards card) and the clerk should be able to simply type it in, which she did. No problem.
My wife also tried the same thing after I told her of my success and she had no problem getting the clerk to type it in.
So today, after being shut in for 5 days thanks to the flu that I seemed to have picked up while at PAX, I decided it might be a good idea to get some supplies since the cupboards were empty after being stuck indoors for almost a week. I spent about half an hour picking up stuff then went to checkout.
Me: “can you try this? (I show her my iPhone with Cardstar screen up) My card is at home”
Clerk: (tries) “it’s not working”
Me: “Can you type it in? The number is right there”
Clerk: “Oh no, I could lose my job if I did that”
Me: “Seriously?”
Clerk: “Oh yeah, we can only use the card numbers if they scan in since you could change it. They even changed the system so I can’t enter the number in manually”
Then the woman in line behind me offers the clerk her card.
Me: “then can you use her card?”
Clerk: “No…then she’d be benefitting from your purchase”
Me: (incredulously) “I’m okay with that…it’s not that much stuff, I just don’t want to pay full price for some of these items”
By now, the supervisor (or manager – I’m not sure) has come over and wants to tell me why I can’t do something that I’ve already done a couple of times recently. She mentions that I signed a contract to get the rewards card that I wouldn’t alter the number and only produce the real card to benefit from the reward. She (and the clerk) also mentioned that I could bring my receipt in and get the difference back later. So instead of paying about $35 for what I had in my basket, I’d get to pay 20-30% more now and have to remember to bring in my receipt (and real card) to get my refund. No thanks.
Perhaps if I wasn’t hungry and still a little out of it from the flu I would have argued with her but decided it wasn’t worth it and told them I wasn’t going to argue with them about it and simply go somewhere else…and that’s what I did, leaving all my stuff right there.
Strangely, the Safeway clerk didn’t appear to lose her job when I gave her my phone number for their rewords program which she manually entered. I haven’t had their card in my wallet for years because of this simple, easy method of delivering it to them.
I don’t blame the employees at Save-On for my experience…they were just doing as instructed. I can also understand (on some level) the desire to only scan real cards. But to not even accept someone else’s card behind me? That’s just stupid.
Fortunately for me, there are plenty of other stores nearby that I can shop at.
Just a quick review of this handy gadget I picked up for my iPhone. Battery power is always an issue for iPhone users that use their phones alot. I had looked at things like the Mophie Juice Pack and the InCase Power Slider but found these to be too bulky. I rarely need to double my battery life, usually just give it another 20-40% to last all day and into the night.
That’s when I stumbled across the Griffin PowerJolt Reserve ($45 @ Future Shop) which seemed to be the perfect thing. It’s a small little battery pack that ‘lives’ on a dock that you leave in your car which also has a pass-thru USB port in case you want to actually charge your iPhone while driving too which is a nice touch. Even cooler is the dock actually uses inductive charging to top up the battery pack – it literally just sits on the dock – no cables or pins to line up and it magnetically stays put while charging it up.
It charges while you drive and then when you get to that night time outing after a day of work, you just grab the battery pack and take it with you. If you run low on juice, plug it in…no bulky case to weigh you down.
I actually mentioned this item when I was on Couch Beers with Jordan…I had actually just bought it minutes before being on the show and hadn’t even opened the package or tried it yet so this is the follow up review.
The battery pack has a single button on it which lights up the five leds on it to let you know how much juice is left in the battery pack. On my iPhone 3GS it seemed to charge it up at a rate of about 1% per minute – while still using it. I’ve used it a couple of times now when my iPhone is down to about 20% and a fully charged battery pack will easily get me beyond 50% in no time while I’m still using the device.
It has a kind of strange shape when not in the dock but easily goes into your pocket while charging it up without too much trouble.
Another added bonus of this pack being small and not a full sized case – you can easily share it with your iPhone toting friends. I was out for drinks with a bunch of folks and we were all running low on juice and we just passed the pack around each grabbing a few minutes of charge each….not a full charge but certainly enough to finish out the night or to make it through the bus ride home.
Griffin also makes a wall plug version, called the PowerBlock Reserve as well as a Powerduo Reserve which includes both the car charger dock and the wall plug dock. Had I seen the Duo first, I would have probably bought that instead.
I’m pretty happy with this item and I don’t have to worry about charging my iPhone on the go after a long day of use. I bought mine at Future Shop but it seems you can find these anywhere that sells iPhone stuff – I’ve seen them at the Apple Store, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.
Today Apple unveiled the latest iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 3GS. The ‘S’ stands for speed. It will be available in North America on Friday, June 19th.
This is a big deal for a number of reasons. I won’t get into all the new features of the device (and 3.0 firmware update), just a few that stand out to me since there is a lot to talk about.
First of all, for me personally, it means that I’ll have a new, faster, bigger iPhone in less than two weeks as my iPhone 3G was stolen last December so I’ve been getting by with my first gen iPhone for 6 months now. While it hasn’t been that bad, I really do miss the 3G speeds, the GPS and having double the storage space (16gb vs 8gb).
We also finally get an improved camera now at 3 megapixels with touch auto-focus and macro! While 3mp isn’t the most amazing thing ever, it’s still an improvement. I’ve been a big fan of the iPhone camera and all the fun apps that have taken advantage of it. I can’t wait to have a little more pixels to play with. With it also brings the ability to shoot video (too bad it’s only VGA quality and not HD). It also will be able to do some minor editing on the iPhone itself. It’s unclear if the video function, combined with new APIs will open up the app store to Qik and UStream type applications. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what Apple approves.
The new Voice Control feature also comes with the 3GS. I’m going to reserve judgement on this one until I get to play with it myself…voice apps have always been disappointing and you ALWAYS feel stupid yelling at a device in public because it doesn’t understand your mumblings…although the voice activated bluetooth feature in my car is making think that voice recognition software may have improved a fair bit in recent years.
Pricing has been set at $199/$299 for the 16gb or the 32gb iPhones respectively and that appears to be the price in Canadian dollars according to the ‘Social Media guy’ for Rogers which is hopefully a welcome sign that Rogers might be catching on. Unfortunately as I write this, specifics about the upgrade path for those that got the iPhone 3G last July (11th) haven’t been released yet. Considering it’ll be about 3 weeks shy of a year between those dates, hopefully Rogers allows those that waited in line on launch day to simply extend their contracts from the July date forward and pay the new customer price. Rogers and Fido have also stated they will be reintroducing (for a limited time), the 6gb for $30 promotion. With tethering now a fairly straightforward affair for those with the 3.0 firmware, having that much bandwidth may finally start paying off.
It’s also interesting that the ‘older’ iPhone 3G will still be available at the very attractive price of $99 at Rogers and Fido on June 19th.
And finally, something that I’ve been eagerly awaiting is TomTom’s iPhone application which was finally announced today. Until the 3.0 firmware, iPhone developers were restricted from creating applications that used the iPhone GPS for turn by turn directions. TomTom even created a nice iPhone windshield mount which extends the GPS antenna and charges the iPhone. It can also rotate to hold the iPhone in portrait or landscape…which is also a nice touch for watching video in your car (while parked of course). I’ve used TomTom GPS units for years…I even had the software installed on my Treo 650 and used it with a bluetooth GPS module on my dash which worked perfectly since you could search for a location and even get and dial phone numbers for stores and restaurants.
Here’s their video demoing the application and windshield mount:
It will be interesting to see how they price both the app and the windshield attachment. I wouldn’t be surprised if they take advantage of the new subscription model (for the map data) the app store now allows under 3.0 not to mention the fact that the dedicated in-car units have seen quite a price drop over the last few years thanks to competition.
as well as a 
which includes both the car charger dock and the wall plug dock. Had I seen the Duo first, I would have probably bought that instead.
