Audi reveal R8 2012

Audi first unveiled the R8 -- its first ever mid-engine sports cars -- for the 2008 model year, and the model has continued largely unchanged in base trim since.
The base 4.2 R8 has a 420 horsepower high-revving V8 engine and all-wheel-drive. It uses the mid-engine Lamborghini Gallardo platform and starts at $114,200, positioning it squarely against the BMW M6, Porsche 911, and Aston Martin Vantage.
The car features a choice of LED or Xenon headlamps surrounded by LED running lights and indicators. LEDs are also used in the engine bay to make the impressive V8 visible even at night.
Both a standard manual and an automated manual transmission are offered. Claimed zero to 62 mph time is 4.6 seconds, though this number is likely conservative.
Interior
The interior has a driver-oriented cockpit architecture, integrating the driver between the dashboard and the high center console. The instrument panel above the console is angled slightly towards the driver. The flat-bottomed steering wheel is a typical feature of the sportiest Audi models, and also enables comfortable sports car entry and exit.
The sports seats are trimmed as standard in a Leather/Alcantara combination, or optionally in full leather. Alternatively, the R8 can also be fitted with bucket seats, specially developed by quattro GmbH. There is plenty of room for the two occupants, with comfort levels well beyond the norm of high-performance sports cars. There is space behind the seats to stow large bags, or even two golf bags. The luggage compartment at the front has a capacity of 100 litres.
With numerous trim variants and applications in Piano finish or Carbon sigma, there are few limits to the range of customization options for the interior.
The drivetrain
At 7,800 rpm the 4.2-liter engine delivers 309 kW (420 bhp) of power output. Peak torque is 430 Newton-meters from 4.500 to 6,000 rpm. And no less than 90 per cent of this maximum torque is maintained consistently throughout a wide engine speed range from 3,500 all the way to 7,600 rpm. As a result of these qualities, the eight-cylinder power unit provides ample thrust in most driving situation.
The engine is a high-revving unit. The maximum engine speed is 8,250 rpm. Two transmissions are available: a manual 6-speed gearbox or optionally the Audi R tronic sequential-shift gearbox, with a joystick gear-shift on the center console and, most especially, the paddles mounted on the steering wheel. 'Shift by wire' technology provides for very fast gear-shifting and an outstanding power-to-weight ratio, allied to compact gearbox dimensions. The Sport mode, with its fast shifting, guarantees the absolute maximum in terms of driving fun. An automatic mode can also be selected.
The car is fitted with permanent four-wheel drive, which distributes the power variably to the front and rear axles by way of a viscous clutch. On the Audi R8 the legendary quattro system is adapted to the axle load distribution typical of mid-engined cars.
The chassis
The chassis features forged aluminum double wishbones at the front and rear. At the front they are triangulated, while at the rear the top one is triangulated and the bottom one is a triangulated wishbone with a track rod. This provides for optimum wheel control, and is a geometry which has proved itself to be the ideal solution in delivering agility, maximum steering precision and precisely defined self-steering characteristics.
Direct, hydraulic rack-and-pinion steering provides optimum feedback to assist the driver.
The spring and damper set-up is stiff in order to deliver maximum driving dynamics, while still providing a quite astonishing level of ride comfort. This is particularly true when the 'Audi magnetic ride' adaptive damper system is chosen as an alternative to the standard gas-filled shock absorbers.
Instead of the conventional damper fluid, a magnetorheological fluid is used -- in other words, a fluid whose viscosity can be influenced by an electromagnetic field. This effect enables the damping characteristic to be influenced electronically at will and instantaneously, by applying a voltage to the electromagnets.
Audi magnetic ride uses this property to deliver the correct damping forces in every driving situation. A computer determines the prevailing driving situation in a matter of milliseconds. Drivers can choose from two driving programs depending on whether they want to drive in a highly sporty style -- with the magnetorheological fluid adjusted to a low viscosity -- or with the emphasis more on ride comfort.
The Audi R8 is fitted with 6-arm 18-inch wheels as standard, and can optionally be ordered with 19-inch wheels. The 235/40 size tires at the front and up to 285/35 at the rear provide the necessary road-holding. The mid-engined sports car's long wheelbase and extremely low center of gravity ensure that it always retains maximum stability.
Equipment and trim
Xenon plus lights, LED rear lights and daytime running lights, 18-inch aluminium wheels, an audio system with 7-inch monitor, an anti-theft alarm and Leather/Alcantara interior trim are just some of the items on the extensive list of standard features.
The range of optional extras includes a Bang & Olufsen sound system, featuring an output of 465 watts and 12 specially designed speakers. A microphone-based vehicle noise compensation system adjusts audio levels to changing road conditions and speeds.
The acoustic parking system and a rear-view camera help the driver to maneuver into even the tightest of spaces. The radio/navigation system plus, featuring a large-format color monitor and MMI keypad, combines extensive functionality with extreme user-friendliness.
A total of eight exterior colors are available, from Ibis White to Phantom Black, pearl effect.

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Windows 8 Will Be Less Bossy About Automatic Restarts

Windows 8 will change the way Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) flagship operating system will deal with updates, the company recently announced. Windows Update will consolidate all restarts released over each month to synchronize with Patch Tuesday.

This means users' PCs will only restart when security updates are installed and require a restart.
However, when a critical security update is released, Windows Update will download and install the patch and restart automatically, Microsoft said.
That consolidation will help keep the system secure in a timely manner, reduce the multiple restarts for different application patches that cause users difficulties, and make restarts more predictable, Microsoft argues.
Security experts are divided over this move.
Consolidating the reboots to once monthly gives advanced persistent threats -- the kind of continuous low-profile attacks that keep on until their target is penetrated -- more time to do their nefarious work, Stina Ehrensvard, CEO of Yubico, told TechNewsWorld.
Update consolidation "is to solve the user's desire to have one update for the entire system," stated Mike Geide, senior security expert at Zscaler ThreatLabZ.

There Can Be Only One

Windows PC owners have sometimes complained about disruptive restarts during automatic updates because those restarts could interrupt important work, Microsoft said.
Allowing computers to restart without user interaction led in several cases to loss of user data, often because these actions are set for 3 a.m. when users aren't around to save data, Redmond noted.
Microsoft designed the Windows 8 update to minimize intrusiveness to users, keep them aware of critical actions, minimize restarts and make restarts more predictable, all while continuing to keep the PC and its ecosystem up to date and secure in a timely manner.
Hence, all restarts required within the span of a month will be synchronized with Patch Tuesday.
"I'm glad someone at Microsoft is actually dealing with this problem," Andrew Brandt, director of threat research at Solera Networks, told TechNewsWorld.
"I've lost files a bunch of times when I left my computer running over the weekend and came back to find that it had rebooted," Brandt added.

The Pros and Cons of Consolidation

One concern about the new Windows 8 update process is that it might reduce the effectiveness of third-party application updates.
What would happen, for example, if a third-party software vendor such as Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) issued an update for its app shortly after Patch Tuesday had passed? Would the PC user suffer from having to wait until the next Patch Tuesday for the Adobe update to take effect? "Many application updates do not require an operating system restart," ThreatLabZ's Geide told TechNewsWorld. "For example, antivirus updates are often just updates to the antivirus signatures and detection algorithms."
The Windows 8 updater will "presumably provide the same level of notification to the user if a restart is required for application updates to occur," Geide opined.

Always Room for One More

Consumers with third-party antivirus apps on their Windows PCs will probably remain safe between Patch Tuesdays because "the third party AV vendors' updates should be independent of Windows updates," Nicholas Skrepetos, chief technology officer of consumer software at Support.com, told TechNewsWorld.
Further, fears that Microsoft might be pulling support for third-party vendor updates might be unfounded.
"There's a clause in the [Microsoft announcement] that makes me wonder if Microsoft is preparing for such an eventuality, that they'd have to push an update to third-party software," Solera's Brandt pointed out.

Defining Critical Updates

Microsoft did say that when a critical security update is issued at any time to fix a dire threat, Windows 8 Update would download and install the update and restart users' computers without waiting for the next Patch Tuesday.
What is a dire threat? "Microsoft has a severity rating of its updates as they relate to security," ThreatLabZ's Geide said.
Not everyone's convinced that Windows 8 Update will improve things, however.
"This is a typical 'marketing versus reality' approach to get customers to sign up for the next version [of Windows]," Phil Lieberman, president of Lieberman Software, told TechNewsWorld.


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Neutrinos Travelling Faster Than Light

The international research team that found neutrinos traveling faster than light has done it again.

It conducted another set of experiments and again found neutrinos that exceeded the speed of light.
As in the first experiment, the researchers fired high-intensity, high-energy beams of muon neutrinos from the CERN SPS accelerator in Geneva toward the LNGS underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, Italy, 454 miles (730 km) away. They then measured the speed at which the neutrinos traveled.
This time, however, they used very short beam pulses rather than long beam pulses.
While the latest experiment appears to confirm the accuracy of the timing measurement, more scrutiny and independent measurement are needed before a definitive conclusion can be reached.

Gran Sasso Redux

The experiments are being conducted by the Opera Collaboration. This time, the scientists fired off pulses 3 nanoseconds long, separated by intervals of up to 524 nanoseconds.
This let them more precisely measure the extraction times of the protons that ultimately lead to the neutrino beam.
The 524-nanosecond interval is much longer than the uncertainty in the arrival time, physicist Ethan Siegel wrote. This let observers know definitively which pulse of protons neutrinos spotted in the detector came from.
A neutrino is an electrically neutral elementary subatomic particle with a small mass that usually travels at speeds close to that of light.
About 20 clean neutrino events were measured at the Gran Sasso lab this time around, and they were precisely associated with the pulses leaving CERN. This confirms that Opera's timing measurements were accurate the first time around, the researchers stated.
CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

What the Experiment Indicates

The latest batch of experiments resolves two questions Siegel had previously raised: whether the results of the first batch could be a statistical fluke, and whether the neutrinos detected were biased in some way.
The new results narrow the possibilities down to two, Siegel told TechNewsWorld.
These are that either "neutrinos can indeed travel faster than light," or there's a "systematic bias" in the way the Opera researchers are measuring the transit time for the neutrinos, Siegel said.

No Mas!

However, this Gran Sasso experiment may have run its course, contended Michael Witherell, vice chancellor of research at the University of California, Santa Barbara's physics department.
"I think the Opera team did remove some of the concerns about the time structure of the neutrino beam that concerned scientists studying the earlier paper," Witherell told TechNewsWorld.
"I am not sure what more they can do using this experiment," Witherell added. "At this point, the only thing that will really change our understanding is to have one or more experiments agree or disagree with Opera's measurement."

Checking the Results Again

Teams working on two other experiments at Gran Sasso -- Borexino and Icarus -- will next year begin cross-checking Opera's results independently.
Borexino is an experiment focusing around solar neutrino physics being conducted by an international team of researchers. Icarus looks at the usage of liquid argon detectors to study neutrinos.
"It will be very difficult for Borexino and Icarus to conduct these tests directly" because their equipment doesn't let them conduct timing measurements accurately enough, Siegel said.

The Cold Eyes of Outsiders

Two other groups of researchers will seek to duplicate the Gran Sasso results.
They are Japan's T2K experiment and the United States' Minos experiment.
Minos "is the best candidate for this going forward" because it's claiming its measurements will be "a factor of five or so" better than what Opera's doing now, Siegel remarked.
Minos and T2K may be able to eliminate some biases that might exist in the Gran Sasso experiment.
"If there is a problem in, for example, determining the distance or time delay from CERN to the Gran Sasso Laboratory, these experiments [at Minos and T2K] should not have the same problem," UC Santa Barbara's Witherell pointed out.

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