Cafe Society Racer: The BMW M3
Even drivers who don't consider themselves car nuts (or enthusiasts, if you will) often love the idea of owning a car that feels like a real race car, whether for the bragging rights or just to pretend that the freeway ramp is really a turn at the Nürburgring. Of course, real race cars are usually rough, noisy, temperamental, and fussy in a way few would care to tolerate on a day-to-day basis, but many buyers happily lay out serious money to indulge their Walter Mitty fantasies. By those standards, there are few cars more desirable than this one. Not only does it look like a track car, it's a hardcore "homologation special" whose track-bound brothers dominated touring car racing throughout the late eighties and early nineties. It's not the fastest of its kind, but there are still those who will swear to you that it is the best.
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iPhone 4 and the Top Android Phones: Compared on Cost-to-Own and Features
Cost analysis geeks BillShrink have given the iPhone 4 and all of its top Android the side-by-side treatment, putting their features and performance up against their long-term costs. You might be surprised at the cheapest and most expensive offerings. BillShrink's offered up this kind of smartphone comparison before, and the product is equally impressive. Each category of performance (battery life, screen resolution) and cost is granted a winner, but you'll probably skip down to the two-year cost of a data plan. With an "unlimited" (read: almost-all-you-can-eat) data plan, the Nexus One on T-Mobile is the cheapest option, but the iPhone 4 on a 200 MB plan is the cheapest option, all told.
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Aznom and Romeo Ferraris trick out the Land Rover Defender
Form and function dictate the design of just about every vehicle on the market today. But if there's one that prioritizes the latter over the former, it's surely the Land Rover Defender. Produced essentially unchanged since 1983, the Defender is the very definition of the go-anywhere off-road workhorse, a favorite of military and expeditions worldwide. Leave it to the Italians, then, to give the British truck an extra dose of style. A customization atelier best known for their Mini conversions and that outrageous custom Corvette, Aznom has given the Defender a similar visual treatment to the Abarth 500C, with a matte two-tone white and black paintjob with red detailing and front and rear bumpers made of carbon fiber. The interior has also been decked out in orange-tan leather, Alcantara and carbon fiber trim with Sparco racing buckets. And underneath the hood, Italian tuning house Romeo Ferraris has tweaked the 2.4-liter turbo-diesel four from 122 horsepower to 152, channeled to all four anthracite-finish wheels wearing Kumho Road Venture rubber.
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iPhone 4's Yellow Spot Issue Goes Away With A Bit Of Time?
We're starting to hear a few reports of the dreaded yellow spots disappearing from the iPhone 4's display after a day or so of use. Interestingly, someone posting on the AppleInsider forums seems to know why: Apple is using a bonding agent called Organofunctional Silane Z-6011 to bond the layers of glass. Apparently, Apple (or more likely Foxconn) is shipping these products so quickly that the evaporation process is not complete. However, after one or two days of use, especially with the screen on, will complete the evaporation process and the yellow "blotches" will disappear. How do I know? I was involved in pitching Z-6011 to Apple.
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