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BREAKING NEWS: Boeing 737 passenger jet crashes killing all 62 passengers and crew in a fireball at a Russian airport

3/19/2016

A FlyDubai Boeing 737-800 has crashed in a fireball while it attempted to land at a Russian airport killing everyone aboard.

Flight FZ981 was carrying 55 passengers and seven crew members from Dubai when it crashed at Rostov-on-Don airport, according to a statement released by FlyDubai. Earlier reports said that 61 people were aboard the flight.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry said in a statement: 'The plane made a second round coming in to land because of bad weather conditions.

'At landing the tail touched the runway, began to break down and burst into flames. At present, no combustion.'

Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov told media during a press conference that it was scheduled to land at 6.20pm ET, which is 1.20am Moscow time, but crashed at 8.50pm ET, which is 3.50am Moscow time.

The fiery crash of a Ferrari Enzo exposes a billion-dollar scam

3/18/2016

Between 2002 and 2006, Bo Stefan Eriksson and Carl Freer raised $400 million for their tech start-up, Tiger Telematics, and grew their company to a billion-dollar corporation by 2005. Less than 10 months later the stock would be worth pennies, and over $380 million in cash would disappear. It was an unprecedented multinational scam that burned investors from London to Los Angeles. How did a Swedish gangster end up overseeing a billion-dollar tech firm? How did it collapse so quickly? And where did all the money go?

In the early dawn of February 21, 2006, on an empty stretch of Pacific Coast Highway just north of Decker Canyon in Malibu, the remnants of an eviscerated Ferrari Enzo lay scattered across 400 yards of warped steel, rubber, and shattered glass. The engine spilt like innards across the asphalt. Sliced in half when it hit a power pole at over 190 mph, the million-dollar supercar was unrecognizable except for the carbon-fiber driver’s compartment, still intact and a stark illustration of the engineering’s hefty price tag. Inside, the deployed airbag was spattered with blood.

The driver was nowhere to be seen.

“The crash was so loud I was completely jarred awake,” recalls Sarah Kelsey, a Malibu nanny and one of the first witnesses. A local TV news reporter interviewed her later that morning. “It was around 5:30 or 6, and I just heard this horrible, loud noise—I thought it was huge garbage dumpsters rolling down the mountain. It was so loud I didn’t even think it could be a car crash.”

As the Enzo lay on the road, Officer David Huelsen of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department started piecing the scene together even before the sun came up. The task was made all the more difficult by the alleged passenger, whose story defied logic. Stefan Eriksson, a mountain of a man, sat visibly agitated on the curb, head in hands. Eriksson was a director of the collapsing company Gizmondo Europe Ltd. That may have weighed on his mind as he sat in shock. He said he was the passenger in the now-wrecked car, and claimed the driver was a German named Dietrich who had run into the surrounding hills after the crash. There was a third man at the scene, an Irishman named Trevor Karney, who further complicated the situation. Karney told Officer Huelsen he’d stopped as at the scene to see if anyone survived. The driver of his car, Karney said, left the scene and stranded him there.

The idea that two men would be found at the scene of a two-seat, single vehicle accident, and that both would claim to be passengers, was met with skepticism. Still, officers were dispatched into the hills to search for Dietrich.

“At 7:30 am we still couldn’t leave the house because there was a huge piece of car stuck in our gate, blocking our exit—I think it was the hood,” said Kelsey. “The whole highway was closed off, and I could see policemen climbing in the mountain, searching things out. And I remember thinking, ‘That’s weird, what are they looking for up there? Pieces of the car?’ It was incredible to see how far fragments spread out.”

As Officer Huelson was interviewing witnesses, a blacked-out Hummer H2 rolled up. Two men in suits leaped out and started flashing what appeared to be Department of Homeland Security badges. They claimed jurisdiction and insisted on an immediate interview with Eriksson. Huelson, taking a "don't mess with the DHS" mindset, obliged.

Inside the blacked-out SUV, the interrogation began. The cops were confused. What if these DHS agents weren’t agents at all? What they were conspirators removing items of interest from the crime scene?

The officers observed Eriksson in an agitated state. It turns out that he also had a notorious affection for cocaine. There has since been speculation that narcotics were involved in that night’s activities. Witnesses claimed to have seen a Ferrari Enzo speeding around LA earlier that night at 160 miles per hour. Eriksson blew over the blood-alcohol limit on a breathalyzer test administered nearly two hours after the crash). There are also theories that there were weapons in the car. One of the witnesses to arrive on the scene, and who allowed Karney to borrow his mobile phone just moments after the accident, later reported finding the loaded clip for a large caliber handgun stuffed under his seat—possibly stashed there by Karney in the post-accident chaos.

According to other reports, Eriksson handed over an Austrian-built .40 caliber Glock pistol to the agents in the black Hummer. What other evidence could they have collected?

In the confusion, the Sheriff’s Department screwed up the investigation from the beginning. Why did they release Eriksson, despite the fact that he was the only participant in a horrific high-speed accident that totaled his car, which was traveling between 140 and 190 mph, and then failed a Breathalyzer test? Few Angelenos would escape arrest with an alibi as laughable as his. They could have also arrested him on a litany of other charges, including DUI, reckless driving, possession of illicit drugs, felony weapons possession, and illegal street racing in a residential area. Finally, because Scotland's Capital Bank claimed that the car belonged to them, and that Eriksson had illegally imported the cars to America and then stopped making payments—well, add to the list grand theft auto and possession of a stolen vehicle.

We Like The Cars That Go Boom

It is meaningful that Gizmondo would punctuate its demise with a car crash, as cars figure into the genesis of this story as well. What propelled Gizmondo—a company best known for the spectacular failure of its lone product—into existence was the relationship between Eriksson and company president Carl Freer.

In the late 1990s, before Gizmondo existed, Freer ran a luxury car dealership and importer in Monte Carlo. According to court records, around this time Eriksson was leading a criminal outfit, dubbed the Uppsala Mafia, outside Stockholm. He had already been convicted and imprisoned for weapons possession, cocaine distribution, assault, counterfeiting, and fraud charges. Apart from extortion and drugs, the Uppsala Mafia also dealt with stolen cars. Freer was later convicted in a Stuttgart court for using bad checks to buy four luxury cars in 1999 and sentenced to 18 months probation and fined 200,000 euros. Freer claims he canceled the checks when he suspected the cars were stolen.

“The way that Stefan and Carl connected was that an investigation opened on Freer to see if he was dealing with stolen cars in Monte Carlo, and word got back to Stefan that Carl might possibly snitch on him. Although they didn’t know each other directly, they were both involved in the same network,” explains a source we're calling James (fearing retribution from Eriksson, our source prefers using this alias to his real name). James worked closely with Eriksson and Freer for three years in the inner circle at Gizmondo, and was privy to much of the company’s inner machinations. “So Stefan sent someone to ensure Carl would keep his mouth shut. But Carl has an absolute silver tongue, and somehow managed to not only avoid getting ‘quieted’, but he actually secured a business meeting with Stefan,” James says.

From this meeting a business partnership emerged that would end with a fiery Malibu car crash and the embezzled disappearance of hundreds of millions of investment dollars. But perhaps the most telling aspect of this origin tale is Carl Freer’s masterful skills of oratory persuasion. Somehow, in the face of imminent underworld pressure, he managed to not only avoid punishment completely, but actually twisted the situation to his benefit—inverting possible mob justice into a business opportunity. “[Freer] has a tremendous verbal capacity,” Swedish investigator Kjell Soderberg is quoted as saying in a Los Angeles Timesfeature. “He could sell sand in the Sahara and refrigerators to Eskimos.”

In fact, the official reasoning for Gizmondo’s parent company, Tiger Telmatics, to initially hire Eriksson was to provide the company with “strategic introductions” to high-profile car racing contacts. Which Eriksson did, to a degree, securing sponsorship to the Jordan Grand Prix team. (When Gizmondo stock eventually crashed, and they never paid their sponsorship bill to Jordan, the team sued them for nearly $3 million for breach of contract.) As an official sponsor, Jordan placed one of their race cars in the Gizmondo Europe corporate headquarters lobby, just off the Farnborough Airstrip, a mere 45 minutes outside of London. While most companies would be satisfied with an innocuous modern sculpture or impressionist painting, Gizmondo preferred to have a $6 million, canary yellow Formula One car in its glass-walled entryway, ogled by all.

Mystery of the giant arrows scattered across the States

3/17/2016

They are the peculiar concrete markings that have been spotted all across America, prompting hikers and travellers to wonder what on Earth they could mean and where they are pointing to.

But these giant arrows, which can measure up to 70ft in length, are actually a forgotten remnant of a bygone age.

Dotted among scrubland, placed in seemingly random spots, these huge arrows were once markers for early airmail flights across the US - forming the first land-based navigation system in the world.

The concrete arrows were placed at the base of lit beacons near airways, showing pilots the direction they needed to fly in to reach the next stop-off to deliver mail.

Airmail in the US began as early as 1911, with the first official flight departing Petaluma, California, and arriving in Santa Rosa, California. As the flights got longer, with more frequent stop-offs, so the beacons and arrows were placed to help pilots on their way.

Following World War One, the US Postal Service began to use surplus war planes for mail delivery and many were flown by former army pilots.

The giant arrows started to be placed across the country, sometimes at 10-mile intervals, from 1924. Painted bright yellow and placed alongside beacon with a gas light at the top, the idea was that the markers could be seen for a distance of up to 10 miles so pilots could find their way.

In the summer of 1924, they stretched from Wyoming to Ohio and by the following year, the arrows had reached New York. By 1929, the arrows could direct flights all the way across the width of America.

The main New York to San Francisco air route stretched from New York to San Francisco, following the yellow concrete trail.

In the days before radio and satellite communications, the arrows were a way to ensure pilots could find their way, even in poor weather.

While the arrows are now long-forgotten, with many lost forever, there are fans who, having stumbled upon an arrow or two in the countryside, have started mapping those concrete markers that have been left behind.

Retired couple Brian and Charlotte Smith were sent an email which piqued their interest and have been hunting down the arrows ever since.

The email playfully explained: 'Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest, a hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling: a large concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length, sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere.'

The couple say they have found 102 arrows so far and have set up their website Arrows Across America as part of their photography site dreamsmithphotos.com so fellow fans can share their own pictures and help map where the remaining arrows are.

The Smiths told MailOnline Travel: 'We have located 102 arrows or portions of arrows, some are badly deteriorated and not much is left.

'Our interest grew out of an email circulating in August 2013, we wanted to know where they were, and set out to find them.

'We have managed to take photos of approximately 40, and have a trip planned this fall to take more photos of some that we were unable to get to last spring.

'Eventually we hope to have photos of all the arrows that we have located, but time and money will dictate how long that will take us.

'Before our research we knew nothing about airways, beacons or concrete arrows, it has been a marvelous journey of discovery and we cannot believe that all of this has been "forgotten."'.

Aston Martin claims Adrian Newey hypercar will lap faster than an F1 car

3/17/2016

Aston Martin says Adrian Newey's new road car will be quicker than a Formula One car around some of the world's fastest race circuits.

The new car, codenamed the AM-RB 001, is being built as part of a new collaboration between Red Bull and Aston Martin, with under 100 examples expected to reach production in late 2018. Newey has been given a clean slate to design the car and is incorporating ground-effects and a mid-engined layout to create unprecedented levels of performance in a road car.

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer said the target is to make a car capable of lapping Silverstone quicker than an F1 car.

"As we sit here today, the raison d'etre that we've given the team is to be faster than an F1 car around Silverstone - or indeed any other F1 track," Palmer said. "I am sure there are other cars that can go in straight lines quicker than this, but we don't make drag cars, we make cars you can use. That is the raison d'etre we use."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the potential performance of the AM-RB 001 will underline how much quicker Formula One cars could be with different regulations.

"I think it showed with unrestricted aerodynamics what is possible," he said. "I think that F1 has got scope to move the lap times considerably quicker. There is a step coming for 2017, we personally would like it to go further but we seem to be a lone voice in that. But F1 should be the ultimate.

"Taking unrestricted aerodynamics, this car will be seriously, seriously quick. And the initial indications we have had from it have generated more downforce than any car that we have ever produced."

Concrete details of the car remain slim, with the engine, tyres and expected performance figures yet to be released.

"We're not going to talk about tyre suppliers or anyone at the moment, but we are well down the line with talking to all of our suppliers," Aston Martin designer Marek Reichman said. "For anyone involved this is a very exciting programme to have your name as a supplier on this car. I don't know if you played Top Trumps when you were a kid, but this will be the Top Trump for everything."

The Day Apaches Plowed Through Downtown Houston

3/16/2016

Have You Ever Seen Anything Cooler Than That?We always love to show you epic flybys. If they’re low, loud, fast or a combination of those three, we find them share them with you. What we’re about to show you however is beyond awesome though.

We might be about nine years too late on this one as it happened during Veteran’s Day in 2007, but this incident is till impressive after all these years. During the parade in Houston, not one but three Apache helicopters cruised through a busy downtown street.

Boeing AH-64 Apaches are attack helicopters that were introduced into service in 1986.

They flew right between buildings and from the looks of it, they were some 30-40 ft. above the street. Now, we’ve seen some great airshows in our day, but how was this even allowed to happen? Trust us, we have nothing against this whatsoever, but with FAA regulations restricting everything that looks remotely fun, it’s surprising that it was allowed.

As for the footage itself, it was captured by someone at the parade. It’s really shaky and choppy, but the person recording explained that he was trying to take pictures with his other hand at the same time. We can’t blame him for that, and even though the video isn’t perfect , it still captures one of the neatest flybys we’ve ever seen.

Blackbird SR-71: Malfunction at Mach 3.18 Caused the Plane to Literally Tear Apart – the Pilot Survived!!

3/16/2016

Among professional aviators, there’s a well-worn saying: Flying is simply hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. And yet, I don’t recall too many periods of boredom during my 30-year career with Lockheed, most of which was spent as a test pilot.

Built as a strategic reconnaissance aircraft able to fly at 88,000 feet and Mach 3, the iconic Lockheed SR-71 required aircrews to wear a special silver pressure suit to ensure their safety. This proved to be much useful during the time, as the aircraft experienced several accidents at very high speeds and altitudes during its test flights.

The protection provided by these suits was put to test on Jan. 25, 1966 when Blackbird tail number 952 disintegrated mid-air during a systems evaluation flight. The mission was intended to investigate procedures designed to reduce trim drag and improve high Mach cruise performance while the center of gravity (CG) was located further aft than normal, reducing the Blackbird’s longitudinal stability.

The SR-71 was driven by Bill Weaver with a Lockheed flight test specialist, Jim Zwayer in the back seat and it took off from Edwards AFB at 11:20 am . They refueled from a KC-135, accelerated to Mach 3.2 and climbed to 78,000 feet, which was their initial cruise altitude.

During a programmed thirty-five-degree bank right turn they experienced an “inlet unstart” that caused the immediate unstart on the right J-58 engine, forcing the aircraft to roll further right and start to pitch up. An inlet unstart happened when a shock wave was rapidly ejected back outside the inlet. When an inlet unstart occurred a device called the cross-tie system was enabled to minimize the extreme rolling and yaw of the aircraft and to prevent the good inlet from unstarting. At the same time the cross-tie system also restarted the good engine. As Weaver himself told to former Blackbird pilot Col. Richard H. Graham in his book, “SR-71 The Complete Illustrated History of THE BLACKBIRD The World’s Highest, Fastest Plane”: “I jammed the control stick as far left and forward as it would go. No response. I instantly knew we were in for a wild ride.”

Since the chances to survive an ejection at Mach 3.18 and 78,000 feet weren’t very good, Weaver and Zwayer decided to stay with the aircraft to restore control until they reached a lower speed and altitude, but the cumulative effects of system malfunctions exceeded flight control authority. Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion, even if the time from event onset to catastrophic departure from controlled flight was only two to three seconds.

Weaver recalls that he was “still trying to communicate with Jim, I blacked out, succumbing to extremely high g-forces. Then the SR-71 literally disintegrated around us.”

Weaver struggled to realize what was really happening. “I could not have survived what had just happened. I must be dead. As full awareness took hold, I realized I was not dead. But somehow I had separated from the airplane. I had no idea how this could have happened; I hadn’t initiated an ejection. The sound of rushing air and what sounded like straps flapping in the wind confirmed I was falling, but I couldn’t see anything. My pressure suit’s face plate had frozen over and I was staring at a layer of ice.”

It was at that point that the pressure suit proved to be very effective protection for Weaver. In fact, once it was inflated, an emergency oxygen cylinder in the seat kit attached to the parachute harness was functioning. It not only supplied breathing oxygen, but also pressurized the suit, preventing Weaver’s blood from boiling at the extremely high altitude. In this way the suit’s pressurization had also provided physical protection from intense buffeting and g-forces. That inflated suit had become like a tiny escape capsule.

Another system conceived to safeguard the Blackbird aircrew during the bailout procedure was the SR-71’s parachute system. To prevent body tumbling motions and physical injury due to the centrifugal forces it was designed to automatically deploy a small-diameter stabilizing parachute shortly after ejection and seat separation.

Since Weaver had not intentionally activated the ejection sequence, he thought that stabilizing chute might not have deployed. But he quickly determined he was falling vertically and not tumbling, meaning that the little parachute had deployed and was doing its job. The next concern was for the main parachute, which was designed to open automatically at 15,000 feet, but again he had no assurance the automatic-opening function would work. So Weaver decided to open the faceplate, to estimate his height above the ground but as he reached for the faceplate, he felt the reassuring sudden deceleration of main parachute deployment.

After landing, Weaver was rescued by Albert Mitchell Sr., owner of a ranch in northeastern New Mexico, who helped him with the chute, then reached Zwayer who had landed not far away, with his own Hughes helicopter. Mitchell returned few minutes later reporting that Zwayer was dead: in fact he had suffered a broken neck during the aircraft’s disintegration and was killed almost instantly. Moreover Mitchell said that his ranch foreman would watch over Zwayer’s body until the arrival of the authorities and he flew Weaver to the Tucumcari hospital.

Investigation of the incident determined that the nose section of the Blackbird had broken off aft of the rear cockpit and crashed ten miles from the main wreckage. The resultant very high g-forces had literally ripped Weaver and Zwayer from the airplane. After this crash, testing with the CG aft of normal limits was discontinued, and trim-drag issues were resolved via aerodynamic means. Moreover the inlet control system was improved and the inlet unstarts almost stopped with the development of the Digital Automatic Flight and Inlet Control System.

Two weeks after the accident Weaver was back in a Blackbird. As he recalls: “It was my first flight since the accident, so a flight test engineer in the back seat was probably a little apprehensive about my state of mind and confidence. As we roared down the runway and lifted off, I heard an anxious voice over the intercom. “Bill! Bill! Are you there?” “Yeah George. What’s the matter?” “Thank God! I thought you might have left.” The rear cockpit of the SR-71 has no forward visibility – only a small window on each side – and George couldn’t see me. A big red light on the master-warning panel in the rear seat had illuminated just as we rotated, stating: “Pilot Ejected”. Fortunately, the cause was a misadjusted micro switch, not my departure.”

These 13 Google Chrome hacks will change the way you use the internet

3/16/2016

Since it debuted in 2008, Google Chrome has quickly risen to be the most popular web browser in the world, beating out Firefox and Internet Explorer.

But that doesn't mean you can't make it better.

There are many extensions and programs that innovative developers have built to make using Chrome more productive and more fun. With them, you can save articles to read anywhere, learn a new language, save money while shopping, and even improve your writing.

And the beauty is that they don't actually require you to put in any extra work.

These 13 extensions and apps can help you streamline your Chrome browsing and help you do things you didn't even know were possible. Read on to become a Google Chrome expert:

Honey automatically searches for coupon codes and sales whenever you are checking out online. Just click the Honey button and it will scour the web and apply coupon codes to your shopping cart. It's basically just free money.

Pocket is an easy way to save any article to read later — on your phone, tablet, or computer. If you come across an article — or any website — you don't have time to read right then, hit the Pocket extension and that article will end up in your Pocket queue. You can access this from any of your devices.

Download Pocket here.

Language Immersion is an ingenious Chrome extension that tries to simulate what it's like to be immersed in a foreign language. It works by switching random words and phrases from English into a language of your choice — you can always click them to put them back into English. This allows you to passively practice your new language while you are doing other things.

Download Language Immersion here.

Panic Button is a hilarious extension that lets you hide all of your tabs with the click of a button. If someone comes around who you would rather not let see what you were looking at, instead of quitting Chrome altogether, just hit the Panic Button.

This is useful for two reasons. First, it's less sketchy that someone seeing your browser quickly shutting down, and second, it saves the sites you were on in a separate folder. When the coast is clear, you can restore them and get back to whatever you were doing.

Download Panic Button here.

Google Mail Checker is a no-brainer for anyone who sends and receives email on a daily basis. The extension is wonderful in its simplicity, and shows you how many unread messages are in your inbox without your having to click or tab over and check.

Download Google Mail Checker here.

Adblock Plus is one of the most popular and well-made ad-blocking extensions.

The extension removes annoying things like banner ads and pop-ups from your web experience. That may seem like a slight difference, but visiting some sites that tend to be bogged down, especially with pop-ups, can be liberating. But if you do choose to use it, make sure to "white list" sites you feel don't have an intrusive ad experience — especially those who make their money on advertising revenue.

AdBlock Plus also works with Safari, Opera, and Firefox if you don't have Chrome.

Download Adblock Plus here.

OneTab is a lifesaver for anyone who keeps a lot of tabs open. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, OneTab will take them and turn them into a list, organized by date. This also frees up your computer's memory for other things.

Download OneTab here.

Simple Blocker is great if you're the type of person who gets easily distracted by Facebook or Twitter. This extension allows you to block access to certain domains for a given period of time (from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for example). It was designed with students in mind, but is really useful for anyone with a penchant for procrastination.

Download Simple Blocker here.

Chrome Remote Desktop gives you the magical ability to access other computers from your own and vice versa. Left a file at work? Connect via Remote Desk and grab it. It's also an easy way to share your screen with someone else if there's a problem.

Download Chrome Remote Desktop here.

Search by Image helps you easily identify things you see in pictures online. It is basically Google Images in reverse, letting you start a Google search from any image you find on the web. This is especially useful for identifying a location or unfamiliar landmark.

Download Search by Image here.

Chrome to Mobile is an easy way to take whatever you're working on with you when you leave the office. The extension lets you take live web pages and work on the go by replicating your desktop browser experience on your smartphone.

It works offline, too, in case you need to get stuff done in a dead zone.

Download Chrome to Mobile here.

MightyText does what iMessage has been letting Mac users do for a while: Send texts from a computer to other phones. Like iMessage, the extension gives you a nice notification when you receive a message. Until MightyText, there was no easy way to communicate from your computer to Android phones.

Download MightyText here.

Have you ever sent an email right before realizing there was a typo in it? That's what Grammarly is for. The extension looks for misspellings and improves the quality of your writing. And it's not just for Gmail. Grammarly works on social media, too.

Download Grammarly here.

2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 debuts with 640 hp, 10-speed auto

3/16/2016

If you thought the 1LE was going to be the biggest, baddest Camaro on sale this year, then you’d be wrong.

The folks at Chevrolet have just dropped a new Camaro ZL1 and the car is packing a staggering 640 horsepower and 640 pound-feet of torque.

Just let those numbers sink in for a bit. Six hundred and forty horsepower… in a factory-built Camaro. All those horses are courtesy of the familiar supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 found in cars like the Corvette Z06 and Cadillac CTS-V.

Combined with the lighter, tauter chassis of the sixth-generation Camaro’s Alpha platform, the engine should see the ZL1 easily put Ford Motor Company’s [NYSE:F] Mustang Shelby GT350R to shame. We could even see the ZL1 embarrass some much more expensive metal. We’re looking at you, Porsche.

We haven’t got performance numbers just yet but expect the car to be significantly quicker than the previous ZL1, which ran the quarter mile in the 11s. That’s because this new ZL1 has 60 hp more while also weighing 200 lb less. It’s also got a trick 10-speed automatic transmission. The unit was developed together with Ford which plans to use it initially in its new F-150 Raptor. The good news is that a 6-speed manual with rev-matching remains standard.

ut there’s also loads of technology that should ensure the new ZL1 is not just quick in a straight line (you’ll recall prototypes were extensively tested at the Nürburgring). The list includes magnetic ride control, an electronic limited-slip differential, performance-oriented traction control, launch control and a driving modes selector.

The car also gets massive Brembos with six-piston calipers at the front and four-piston calipers at the rear. You’ll find 15.35-inch discs at the front and 14.37-in discs at the rear. These reside within 20-in wheels shod with Goodyear Eagle F1 tires measuring 285/30 at the front and as much as 305/30 in the rear.

Setting the Camaro ZL1 apart from the regular Camaro pack on the outside is an aggressive body kit that includes a large front splitter, wider front fenders and a rear wing spoiler. We’re told the car also features some underbody aero elements. There’s also the “Flowtie” open front grille and a functional heat extractor in the hood. Inside the cabin, there’s a pair of Recaro bucket seats and a flat-bottom steering wheel lined in suede.

That’s all Chevy has to tell us right now but we look forward to learning more about the latest ZL1 following its world debut next week at the 2016 New York AutoShow. You can keep up to date on our coverage of the show by staying glued to our dedicated hub.

Teenager wins $250,000 in biggest drone race yet

3/16/2016

A British teenager has won $250,000 after placing first in the inaugural World Drone Prix in Dubai. 15-year-old Luke Bannister piloted his drone to victory along an outdoor track, using a camera mounted on its front to steer the craft through a series of illuminated hoops from a first-person viewpoint, and beating out competition from 150 other teams in the process.

Drone racing has rocketed in popularity over the last year, but Dubai's World Drone Prix is one of the biggest events yet, with a prize pool of $1 million. More than 2,000 people turned up to see the teams compete for a share of that pot, but it was Luke Bannister's team, Tornado X-Blades Banni-UK, that beat homegrown crew Dubai Dronetek into second place.

The sport has already attracted investment from the likes of NFL team owners, but it still has some way to go before it breaks into the mainstream. Particularly difficult is the question of how to actually observe the races. Drone pilots fly their racing craft in first-person, using special headsets to see as the drone sees, but for observers the footage can feel — and sound — like being strapped to the front of a particularly excitable wasp. A second camera following the action might help human brains contextualize the movements in space, but some of the nascent racing leagues set their courses inside buildings, making a chase camera's operation difficult. Still, though, the speed of the craft and the deftness of his control make watching Luke's victory from Dubai an exhilarating — if slightly nauseating — experience.

Watch this Turbine powered Speedboat do 244-MPH

3/15/2016

In an astonishing feat at the 2014 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Sunrise Beach, Mo., the Spirit of Qatar team ran its 50-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran Al Adaa'am 96 posted a remarkable 244-mph top speed to establish a new Shootout record, besting last year's mark set by the My Way Mystic at 224 mph. The Spirit of Qatar team celebrates an impressive 244-mph speed at today's Lake of the Ozarks Shootut. Photo by Jason JohnsonSpeedonthewater.com caught up with the boat's owner and driver Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani and throttleman Steve Curtis at the docks at Captain Ron's minutes after the jaw-dropping speed that had everyone on the property and out on the water hooting and hollering. Earlier in the morning, the catamaran posted a 210-mph top speed after its emergency parachutes deployed at the start of the one-mile course.

"We had so many things in the back of our heads that could go wrong, especially after seeing what happened this morning with Mike (Fiore, the Outerlimits owner who was involved in a tragic accident with Joel Begin, read the story)," said Sheikh Hassan. "I really hope Mike is all right. That whole thing turned me off a little bit and I told the guys let's postpone it until tomorrow.

"I know they wanted to get it out of the way, and I wanted to get it out of the way, too" he continued. "So when we got out there—I still had Mike's accident in my mind, I could see it cause we were right there—I said 'OK, let's just play it safe.' Halfway though the run, the boat started to porpoise a little bit. Steve got back on the throttles and nailed it. It hooked back up again and he hammered it all the way down."

Hassan, who said the team won't be making any more runs this week but will have the boat on display at Captain Ron's tomorrow, added that he kept reading the speedometer to make sure what he saw was what was recorded.

"We were approaching the finish and running about 230 mph and it felt like Steve backed off a little bit cause that's what he wanted to do," Sheikh Hassan continued. "Then he started back on and I saw 240—I'm pretty sure we reached 250 after the gate. That's one milestone we got out of the way with this boat. Now it's time to go out and relax and look ahead to what's next."

Curtis, who was smiling as he gave his driver a big hug, said he was still shaking at the docks.

"That was incredible," he said. "I'm still shaking—there's still a lot of adrenaline pumping through my bones. It's a great feeling yet I can't help but think of my really good friend Mike and hope he can pull through.

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