It’s Aston Martin’s hundredth birthday this year. As part of their celebration the company’s new Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S will be creating history by becoming the first hydrogen-powered car to compete in an international race. The car is all set to compete in the ADAC Zurich 24 Hours at Nürburgring in the coming month.

Powered by a 6.0 liter V12, the vehicle is capable of running on gasoline, hydrogen, or a mix of both, and the company aims to run the car in pure H2 mode for a single lap of the Nordschleife, with only water being emitted by it.

According to Aston Martin, the Rapide S hits 60 mph in just 4.7 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph. To ensure safety, the car is coming with ultra-high strength carbon fiber tanks. A total of 3.5 kg of hydrogen at a pressure of 350 bar will be stored in four hydrogen tanks. It is similar in appearance to its non-hybrid counterpart, but there is the Hybrid Hydrogen sticker on the windshield and ‘007’ on the doors.

The ADAC Zurich Nürburgring 24 Hours happens on May 19 and 20, where the new Rapide S will go against more than 150 cars on the 25 km circuit. The non-hydrogen Rapide S will hit Aston Martin showrooms in May, but the company currently has no plans to offer the hydrogen version commercially.

What do you think of hydrogen powered automobiles? Are they the future, or do think electric or another alternative source will eventually overtake traditional gasoline-based cars instead?

[Source]

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Want to spend $1290 – $1590 for a highly outdated Android smartphone? If so, get ready to whip out your wallet. Aston Martin is making a smartphone that runs on Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread. Besides using an outdate version of Android, other behind-the-times specs include 256MB of RAM (Yes, really), a 5MP back cam, and an 3.2-inch HVGA screen. To top it off, this thing has a not-so-blazingly slow 800Mhz single-core processor aboard.

The good news is that this thing is pretty. It’s also gold-plated. To be honest, I really don’t get it. Aston Martin is known for fast cars and luxury, 800MHz and 256MB of RAM doesn’t scream either of these things.They are already making a killing, even with the gold plating. Couldn’t they throw in at least a 1GHz single-core, 1GB of RAM and at least give us something that can reasonably run Android for such a price point?

Cool looking phone, but it’s more of a paperweight with these specs.Not the first time a major designer brand has put out crazy price tags for less-than-cutting edge tech- but at least the Prada 3.0 phone still sprung for a dual-core processor.

Bottom line: If you want luxury in a phone, stick to something like the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Apple iPhone 5.

[ source ]

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To some people, the idea of luxury for a cell phone is to riddle it up with diamonds and gemstones. That’s just unnecessarily gaudy. Aston Martin has a different idea when it comes to understated classiness and that’s demonstrated by the luxury car company’s upcoming smartphone concept. It’s clear.

Aston Martin is partnering up with Canada’s Mobiado to produce “a line of high-end handsets to be launched in May of this year.” The most impressive of the bunch is the CPT002, because it is constructed for a single slab of solid sapphire crystal, resulting in a completely transparent capacitive touchscreen.

Yes, you can see right through the phone… aside from the Mobiado and Aston Martin marques. What about the components, you might ask? Well, they’ve hidden the battery, SIM card, and other electronic doodahs into the platinum sides of the phone. That’s crazy and it really puts something like the Atrix or iPhone to shame.

Too bad the Aston Martin CPT002 is just a concept. It’d go really well with my DB9.

[GizMag, Mobiado]

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