A while ago we covered DriveSafe.ly’s app for reading out your texts while you’re driving. Their apps initially covered BlackBerry and Android, but they’ve now extended their service to the iPhone and added some new exciting features…

When you receive a text while driving, the app will read it out to you and then ask you how you want to proceed. If you wish, you can choose to respond and the app’s speech recognition software will type out your message and send it back – cool! The app can also read out your Tweets and emails.

If you choose the ad-supported version you can get the apps for free, otherwise it will cost you $4/month (or $14/year) for a personal account, or to cover 4 phones on a family account $10/month (or $35/year). For business users it can work out how much you’ll save on car accidents by using the app.

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More info from the manufacturer
Price: Free! (ad-supported)
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

It’s not just regular consumer cars that are going green – race cars are doing it too.

Electric connector manufacturer FCI has just signed a partnership with Formulec in order to sponsor a Formula One electric car race. According to its website, Formulec’s mission statement is “to promote motor racing of tomorrow through new and ambitious technological solutions.” To achieve this goal, Formulec took the first step of designing and building an electric version of the Formula 1 race car. Known as the EF01, this car was built in conjunction with the consulting firm of Segula Technologies and the Formula 1 team for Mercedes GP Petronas.

Formula One race cars are open cockpit and open wheel single-seat race cars. The engine is positioned behind the driver, and the car has front and rear wings. Not just any race car can be a Formula One; the FIA Formula One World Championship has laid out strict guidelines for what distinguishes a Formula One race car from a regular race car. These guidelines address nearly everything about the car, including the engine, transmission, aerodynamics, fuel, brakes and tires. In addition to technical requirements, the Formula One Championship requires the racing teams to actually construct the car themselves, but they are allowed to have others do the designing and manufacturing.

The new electric Formula One race car follows all of the Formula guidelines with an obvious exception in terms of fuel. The batteries in the EF01 were provided by Saft, the engine was provided by Siemens, and the high performance computer that transmits the electricity produced by the battery to the engine came from FCI. The EF01 can go from zero to sixty within three seconds. Floor the gas and you’ll find yourself whizzing down the race track at 162 miles per hour. Once, cars that were powered by electricity couldn’t go very fast, but clearly car manufacturers have overcome that design flaw at this point; the EF01 is the one of the fastest electric cars on the planet. High performance fuel cars like the Bugatti Veyron can hit 267 miles per hour, but that doesn’t diminish the accomplishments of the engineers that designed the EF01.

With the completion of the EF01, Formulec is ready to take step two in achieving its goal of promoting motor racing, which is why it joined up with FCI to get the word out about the EF01. FCI and Formulec will be taking the EF01 on an international promotional tour in 2011, with the EF01 slated to be the opener for several events and showcases around the world. In addition to showcasing the car, Formulec and FCI plan to launch the first ever Formulec World Series for electric single-seater race cars in 2012. Eventually, Formulec and FCI hope to organize a world championship for electric race cars.

Remember that scene in Die Hard 4.0 when Matt Farrell uses the 5 series BMW to get in touch with the emergency services? OnStar offers you the chance to do just that without going out and buying a BMW with fancy optional extras – a few hundred dollars is all you need to get it installed in any car.

The new accessory, OnStar FMV is a rearview mirror wired up with all of the usual OnStar goodies. It costs $300 plus $100 to get it installed and it helps you with accidents, emergencies, security, navigation and breakdowns.

The top reason to get an OnStar FMV mirror installed is that if you are in an accident, OnStar can be notified immediately and get a set of emergency services directly to your exact location as soon as possible. Similarly if your car breaks down, you push the assistance button and OnStar will send a breakdown recovery service to your location ASAP; or if your car gets stolen the same tracking device can provide information to the police to help track your vehicle.

The OnStar mirror also features the regular features of a SatNav system and Bluetooth hands free system, meaning you don’t have to buy those devices and thus save money.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $299.99 (plus installation and subscription costs) Coming soon.
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Converting your car’s cigarette lighter into a full household power supply is nothing new, but this one has all the wizardry contained in a box the shape and size of a takeaway coffee cup. This makes it the perfect size to fit in your car’s cup holder!

Also no more fiddling around to find the end of the cigarette lighter adpater to plug your gadget into, as well as it having 2 standard power outlets.

All you do is plug the end of it into your cigarette lighter and it will convert the 12V supply to a fully-functioning 120V AC supply like you’d find in a house. There are two plugs in the top of the cup and you can charge up almost anything you like in your car.

The gizmo has overload protection and a low-battery shut off function.

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Price: $25.00
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Technology for blind people is advancing rapidly – recent new discoveries have been made that offer some degree of sight through a person’s tongue, but now imagine a car that can be driven, completely independently, by someone who has little or no sight.

The National Federation for the Blind (NFB) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, College of Engineering have teamed up to create this. The car uses ‘non-visual’ signals to tell the driver the location of obstacles, such as cars in other lanes, or cars to the rear or front. This means the car can actually be fully driven by a blind person, and doesn’t have to rely on a computer to do any of the thinking or decision making.

The vehicle is based on the chassis of a Ford Escape and was successfully navigated by a legally blind person, Mark Riccobono, around the Daytona Speedway earlier this year. He made all the corners, and avoided all the obstacles in his path – these included stationary ones that were set up before the lap, and ones that were thrown out of a van in front of him creating moving obstacles to avoid.

More details from the NFB here.

via Gizmodo

The new Ford Focus Electric was announced by Ford CEO Alan Mulally in a keynote speech at CES.

With claims that the car will provide better mile-per-gallon equivalent (mpg-e) than the Chevy Volt and a full recharge in three to four hours which is half the time required to recharge the electric Nissan Leaf, the all electric car turned a few heads. According to the EPA, the Volt gets an estimated 93 mpg-e on electricity, 37 mpg on gasoline, and 60 mpg average. The all-electric Leaf gets a 99 mpg-e rating from the EPA.

Microsoft will provide software the the Ford Focus Electric by charging vehicles when electricity rates are at their lowest and has invested in a new version of MyFord Touch driver connect technology to provide electric vehicle pertinent information such as distance to nearest charge point and car’s expected range and has been working with Best Buy’s Geek Squrd to provide service for in-home charging stations.

With a top speed of 84 mpg and “enough range to cover the majority of daily driving habits of Americans”, the car may not be the right choice for all Americans. Additionally, the price has not been released, but the car is expected to hit the market in late 2011.

It’s cold at the moment and I mean really cold. Times like this you can’t afford to have your car fail on your (even if it does slip and slide all over the ice). If you’re worried about this happening to your car then you should invest in a jump starter.

These can often be recharged at home, kept in your boot, and taken out to jump your battery in an emergency. Problem is, they are often rather heavy instruments.

A product that offers a solution to this is the Porta-Jump; it’s a similar sort of thing to every other rechargeable jump starter out there except it’s tiny.

The deal is that this thing is smaller than a 3-inch cube but can still pack enough punch to bring a battery back to life (we hope – its small size does make it incredible!). This size means it fits perfectly well into your glove box or any other confined space.

To recharge it, all you need to do is plug it into your cigarette lighter – once the car gets going, the battery is charged off the gas and so will have enough spare to recharge your jumper; don’t worry that recharging it via your car will drain your battery.

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Price: $29.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

2 years ago we reported on the CarMD that could tell you what was wrong with your car if a fault light came up on your dashboard. This was already looking a little dated in 2010 so we’ve got a new one for you: the ActronCP9180 Scanner. This little beauty will tell you in a matter of seconds what’s wrong with your car (assuming it’s newer than 1996) and comes in a ugly fetching orange and blue (at least it’ll be hard to lose).

The scanner has a USB connection available for you to hook up to the internet and download new codes (future-proofing your device) as well as being able to dump the data on to your laptop.

Perhaps the best feature on this scanner is that it records problems as they occur and you can “rewind” to see what’s happened. This is unlike other scanners as the problem had to be present, leaving with you the frustrating task of trying to recreate the problem by trial and error until an error code pops up on the screen.

“And what price should I pay to protect myself from expensive mechanics?”, I hear you cry. Just over $100 is the answer. See it as an investment and you should be able to make your money back by saving you in mechanics fees time and time again.

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Price: $107.25
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Why debate the existence of God with a fish emblem attached to the back of your car when you can show your support for the religion known around the world as Star Trek and pray on the Alter of Roddenberry with this Star Trek Fish Car Emblem.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (pages 63, 65 and 66) states that the experiments with single and more than two nacelle designs, conducted in 2269, proved that having two nacelles is the optimal configuration for vessel control and power generation as represented by this chrome fish with dual warp nacelles.

So boldly go and proclaim your love for all things Trek. Lament that your car doesn’t have an anti-matter warp core, or is armed with photon torpedoes!

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More info from the manufacturer
Price: $7.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Whether you spend most of your workday confined to your desk or driving around for hours on end, often times grabbing a cold drink or keeping a food dish warm just isn’t convenient. Now there is an answer, the Deluxe Digital Mini Fridge Cooler & Warmer will remain at your side, keeping your drinks and food at the temperature you desire while operating at a whisper quiet level. Simply plug it into an available outlet near your desk or use the car adapter to take it with you on the road. While compact, the clever design still has a 25 Liter capacity, enough to store up to 30 standard cans. The incredible refrigerator will allow you to set the temperature from 36° F to 140° F for optimal food and beverage storage.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $149.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)