I know I’m on a bit of a car kick and this is one hell of an idea.

The BMW Gina is like nothing I have ever seen before and very cool. A flexible skin car. has a great write up so I will not try and out wordsmith them…I can’t.

Also check out the video from Road & Track about the BMW Gina.

If the Smart Fortwo and the new Toyota’s iQ Microcar are not small enough, maybe the Lumeneo Smera EV does the trick.

With gas prices breaking the $4 mark and in some places $4.50, a Microcar is exactly what we need. Many other counties have mini/macro-cars because gas and space.

The Smart Fortwo has been a bit-of-a-hit in the USA with the people that are willing to spend a ton on so very little so I hope that the is going to be priced according to size. Below is a little segment about Toyota coming out to fight against Honda with 2 hybrids.

According to Technoride, the two vehicles will be allotted to the Toyota and Lexus brands respectively, and will add to the third generation Prius, due out next year. While little is known of the Lexus, the car maker’s head of r&d, Masatami Takimoto, emphasized that the new Toyota hybrid will not be just another iteration of the Prius. “It’s a totally new car,” he said, adding that it will be larger and will likely get a Li-ion pack by 2010.

In addition to new hybrids, the production version of Toyota’s iQ microcar is expected to hit showrooms later this year as well.

Wow, that is quite the video there. This reports on Chrysler’s offer to cap gas prices, which have skyrocketed to a whopping $3.63 in my area recently, to $2.99 a gallon. Of course they have their stipulations, but who doesn’t.

Microsoft has signed a world wide deal with Kia and Hyundai so their customers will have the ability to use voice commands to control a number of different features with the use of their in-car software. For already is in the contract with Microsoft, but theirs will expire in November.

T-mobile has already launched their 3G network in New York, but now they have announced that Seattle is the next lucky city to get their 4x faster download speed. The new network launch will take place this fall, so get ready you Seattleites.

I don’t know many Zune people, but there are some out there, and this should excite them. Microsoft Zune fans will soon have the ability to download popular t.v. shows directly to their Zune!! At $1.99 each you can get shows like South Park, Battle Star Galactica, Heroes and my favorite The Office.

Webby Awards took place and guess who are the winners! That is correct, buzz travels fast, but Colbert is the Webby Person of the Year for connecting to his fans using the Internet. Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas won Webby Artist of the Year for his music video supporting Barack Obama. A few others are

Best Political Blog - Huffington Post

Best Cultural Blog - Post Secret

Best in the Politics category - FactCheck.org

Best Community - Flickr

All that in one video, how informational! Enjoy!

Subway pole dancers won the hearts of DareJunkies.com.

These friends decided to enter the DareJunkies contest to win $10,000 by pole dancing in a New York Subway. Check out the crowd, two men admitted to missing their stop several stops ago, some lady is turning her nose up to the dancing, while another shells out cash to the dancing queens of the evening.

Check out DareJunkies for more on the contest, there are some other good videos.

I am not going to lie about this one, I love European commercials.

European commercials are, how should I put this, funnier and more outrageous than American commercials… Either that or I just do not prefer the American adverts.  The European commercials seem to go over the top, meaning they are more risque.

America doesn’t like risque, America likes plain cut and dry commercials where men fight over beer.  I know I’m generalizing, but seriously think about the possibilities Europe invokes.

Here is a Fiat commercial crossing some boundaries with a little hanky panky.

Need non-stop flights?  Southwest advertises that idea with this clever elevator commercial.  The tiny Asian woman blocking a bigger guy from pushing a button on the elevator, funny.

Check out non-stop flights with Southwest.

I love this video, maybe because I am partial to Volkswagen, but this is a funny way to display how much the VW customers love their vehicles.  The commercial starts out all sweet and you think that the voice over is talking about the girlfriend or wife sitting next to him, but when he steps out of the car and refuses to back down from his ‘baby’ using his key as a knife… You get the picture…

The paths of air traffic over North America visualized in color and form. By Aaron Koblin. This might not seem like something cool but the visualization of data is extremely cool. It shows raw collected data in a new way, ways that never could have been seen before.

Does it make you see things differently, hell yes. Looking at things in new ways creates new points-of-view that are valuable and worthwhile.

And it looks cool.

American cars are hard to buy, I wish I didn’t feel that way but I do. The exterior design of the cars are usually average but it’s the interior and cheap looking materials that turns me off before I even start thinking about the technical quality and longevity.

This new 2008 Ford Focus has sparked my interest. The design seems solid (inside and out) and the gas mileage is good.

I just got back from a business trip and was given a Chrysler Sebring. The car itself was okay but the interior was total crap. In fact the interior was damn right plastic and hurtful. The armrest between the front seats had a hard plastic top that followed the angular design of the car style which ended with a point (made of the same plastic material of the rest of the car) that was positioned directly behind the automatic gear shift.

Every time I shifted, my elbow hit the point of the hard plastic point of the armrest, jabbing into my elbow. I even asked a business partner to sit in the car and see if it was me, it was not. It just reaffirmed my opinion of American auto making.

This view might be too judgmental. I shouldn’t base my opinion on one car, I have not been in the new 2006 Ford Focus but from the interactive elements I have seen online tonight, it looks far better than other American cars I have driven or sat in. They have also added the Microsoft SYNC technology which is damn cool.

So, I will give Ford and American cars a chance based on what I have seen in commercials and these interactive promotional spots pulled from Yahoo.

The design inside and out seems to be better than most American designs. The 2008 Ford Focus web site does a very good job of showing off the car and its new design (inside and out).