Test-Driving Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet: 480 Horsepower

Sept. 10

By Bruce Gain

STUTTGART, Germany -- Dawn is breaking as I turn onto the autobahn south of Stuttgart behind the wheel of Porsche's new 911 Turbo Cabriolet, which has just gone on sale in the United States.

I hit the gas, and in less than four seconds, I've blasted from standstill to more than 62 mph -- something you'd normally need a sports motorcycle to do.

In about 13 seconds, I'm racing at over 125 mph -- and then I realize I'm only in fourth gear. A few seconds later, I'm briefly cruising at about 170 mph in fifth gear, with plenty of room to go before reaching the max speed of 192 mph. However, one emotion prevents me from taking the car up to the sixth and highest gear: fear. 

Here is the link to the rest of the story: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3584458

Raph Really Did It

Raph Marchant, a young man from St. Malo, France, has just crossed the Atlantic from France on an insanely small 21-foot (6.50-meter) boat during the Mini Transat race. He is a very good guy and I am extremely happy for him and his family. He has set an example for others of what is possible in life.

It is impossible to describe here what he had to face, but he managed to surmount severe sleep deprivation, spending weeks alone in the middle of the Atlantic, not speaking with a single human soul for two weeks, getting knocked down in seas as big as a house, and navigating into gale force winds and cresting waves.

Image living for weeks in the Spartan confines of a prison cell while often being shaken and beaten as if you were on a non-stop wet-and-wild roller coaster ride. Get the picture?

Here is a video link that show what it can be like:

Matin Bonheur

Il y avait 80 cm et un peu plus des fois en séries dans le 22 ce matin à l’aube. Ca déroulait parfaitement en face du roché. Et j’étais totalement tout seule! J’ai vu le soleil se lèver derrière les rochés. J’ai pris au moins 20 droites.  

Il y avait des pèquenots qui faisaient la chasse en haut sur la colline et qui tiraient leur carabines, mais à part ça, c’était parfait.

 

Frankfurt: Voitures et Fete

Grand Prix F1 de Monza en Italie

Trip to a Pirate Cove in the Ile of Sark (Baie des Pirates sur l'ile de Sark)

Isle de Sark, presque mi-chemin entre St. Malo et l'Angleterre
Ile of Sark: Rougly halfway between St. Malo and France

C'est un endroit parfait pour des pirates qui veulent se cacher de British Royal Navy.
This is the perfect place for pirates who want to evade the British Royal Navy. 

L'aube, après une belle navigation de nuit/Dawn after a beautiful night sail.

L'aube, après une belle navigation de nuit/Dawn after a beautiful night sail.

Why VW's court win helps 'black hat' hackers

http://europe.autonews.com/article/20130808/BLOG15/308089989/0/SEARCH#axzz2bkeegp9L

Why VW's court win helps hackers

	Bruce Gain is an Automotive News Europe correspondent in France.

Volkswagen recently won a court case that stopped computer scientists from publishing an academic paper revealing the secret codes used to start luxury cars including Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis.
The victory, however, will make carmakers more vulnerable to hackers because company engineers will have less information available to help them design more secure in-car systems.
The academics wanted to add to a collective pool of knowledge that engineers could use to make systems more secure from attack. By having as much information as possible about security flaws, engineers are less prone to make design errors.
The researchers are "white hats," meaning that they create hacks to discover how things work, and ultimately, how to remove security flaws in computer code.
The "black hats," those who sell hacks on the black market, and their customers who use the information to steal and defraud their victims, are probably happy that Volkswagen won its lawsuit. Now the black hats can sell their hacking tools for even more money.
When a hack that can be used to exploit a system is not publicly available black hats usually must pay for it. If it is in the public domain, it is not worth as much.
Ross Anderson, a security researcher at the University of Cambridge's computer laboratory department, thinks that VW's court victory to stop one security flaw from being published won't stop the bad guys from doing what they are already doing.
In the end, the court case is bad public relations for VW, Anderson wrote in an e-mail reply to questions.
"Now the world and his dog know not just that their engineering skills are less than perfect, but that the company is unpleasant and unreasonable to boot," Anderson wrote. "If they had kept quiet, then [the research paper VW stopped from being published] would have been one out of several dozen ... and would probably have got only a few column inches in obscure specialist publications."
Instead, the case was reported by the Guardian newspaper, the BBC, and other media outlets including Automotive News Europe (for the original story, click here).
You can reach Bruce Gain at bgain@crain.com.