Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

CASH for SECURITY TIPS! On an otherwise unremarkable autumn evening, we became another statistic. Under cover of darkness and a sudden downpour, the crowbar gang went to work. Swiftly. They had to move fast, because I was just a few minutes up the road. So was my wife. Meanwhile, from next door, the neighbours were raising a ruckus. Our alarm was wailing and armed response and the police were heading our way as fast as evening traffic would allow. No problem. By the time we arrived, the action was all over. It wasn’t exactly clinically efficient, or terribly effective. They left behind a bunch of stuff, but got the TV and those few items of jewellery that had been placed in plain sight. What really brings home the impact of…

The device you see on this page is a landmark smartphone. You’ll remember it fondly in the future, but that all depends on whether LG’s modular wager pays off and consumers start demanding more options. The G5 carries many of LG’s flagship G-line hallmarks, but introduces an entirely new design language. First there’s the full metal jacket, albeit of the confusing plastic-coated variety. Think of it as similar to the trick the Korean company pulled last year with the leather veneer over plastic, but just with a thin aluminium core smothered in primer. I like it. But I also liked the feel of Samsung’s faux leather on my personal Galaxy S5. Next is the volume button migration back to the more conventional side. The power button is still on the…

BB-8 was a major hit for Sphero-makers Orbotix and helped propel the company on to Christmas lists the world over. Ollie Darkside is the follow up to that device and sees the company capitalise on the Star Wars magic by breathing it into an established favourite. The Ollie is a much more manageable toy than the original Sphero ball because it’s easier to control, rolls over more obstacles and is faster. So far I’ve failed to illustrate how much the Darkside differs from its white and blue cousin; so let’s get to it. It’s black, for one. It glows red. And it's disobedient. Actually that’s a bit harsh; I found it to always obey my every command. The only exception was when I was attending to one of my children…

As the Internet of Things grows apace, we’re understandably excited about how advances in connectivity and networking will transform car travel. Yet our increasing reliance on transport by road makes it almost certain that the biggest beneficiaries will be not our Sunday afternoon drive or the weekday commute, but instead the trucks that ply our roads 24/7. The communication buzzwords V2V and V2I – Vehicle to Vehicle and Vehicle to Infrastructure – are being touted as the answer to gridlock, heavy fuel consumption and emissions and traffic accidents. One of the companies at the forefront of efforts in this field is Daimler Trucks, which casts the fully connected truck as a success formula for companies, drivers and society. Since the company decided in 2013 to pursue connectivity as an integral…

There’s an interesting trend happening in electric cars: dual motors. One motor to drive the front axle and then an entirely separate power plant on the rear. The combination of the two is a concept known as a road lock and it will change your life when you pilot this set-up off-road. The argument for the electric 4x4 is based on the unique power delivery properties of the electric motor. From the lowliest Leaf to the ludicrous Tesla P90D, when you put your foot down you have 100 per cent of the available torque from standstill. What manufacturers are proposing in the SUV space is using that 100 per cent torque to negate the need for low range. Just one massive problem that anyone who has ever tried to fly…

The Palo Alto, California-based company only has 13 years of carbuilding experience to its name and already has seen tremendous success. Currently, it’s built a roadster, luxury sedan and crossover-type vehicle. But it’s going to scale down somewhat to offer a global competitor in the form of the Model 3, which is reportedly going to be launched here by the end of this decade. Before we look at this, let’s find out who paved the way for Tesla’s upcoming current. There was much hype five years ago about the progress of the Joule, the electric car built right here in South Africa by Optimal Energy, a Cape Town-based firm that had actually built driving prototypes of what seemed to be our very own EV, and even showcased their product at…

ONE BRIGHT, COOL day in the spring of 2010, Richard Skidmore walked up a small dirt path that runs along the bluffs in front of the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard. The lighthouse had stood on the promontory since 1856. Skidmore, the lighthouse keeper, with his wife, Joanie, could walk this path blindfolded, its soft rise from the street towards the cliffs, a north-northwest approach. Each step added to the view of Vineyard Sound, the Elizabeth Islands beyond and Buzzards Bay in the distance. Richard didn’t live at the lighthouse, the way keepers did in the old days, but he tended it and maintained it and visited every few days. In fact, he had been up at the light just two days before and everything was as it should…

HYBRID AIR VEHICLES’ AIRLANDER 10, the largest aircraft currently flying, should have undertaken its first flight by the time you read this. By late April, permission had been granted for flight trials after an extended period of ground testing. An even bigger version capable of lifting 50 tons (pictured here in an artist’s impression) is in the pipeline. Originally developed for the US military in a since scrapped joint programme with Northrop Grumman, the Airlander has already “flown”, though. A prototype flew back in 2012 and the current civilian version (significantly changed from the original) was floated in its hanger unpowered. In its most recent test late last year it was towed while aloft by four fork-lifts, each fitted with two-ton weights. In addition to EU research funding of more…

I’m an early adopter and firmly believe that we live in a post-laptop era. Yes, tablets can’t entirely replace a computer, but with increasingly regular firmware updates and the now excellent application libraries on the major platforms, the tablet computer is more than enough power for most people. Most people rightfully don’t appreciate touchscreen keyboards and crave the tactile chiclet awesomeness of a standard qwerty board. If you’re on an iPad Air or later, then the Brydge Air is the best on the market. Not only does the Brydge Air mimic the metal chassis of the iPad, but the two grips line up perfectly and don’t do any harm to the screen. When closed, the clamshell could pass as a 10-inch Macbook. The sturdy hinges have a 180-degree range of…

I’VE BEEN QUICK TO OUTSOURCE my driving ever since I first engaged cruise control on the N1 between Pretoria and Cape Town. That pilgrimage has come to define the early part of my life, but if I could just be a passenger as the car drove itself, I’d rather have it that way. The Volvo XC90 is a car I genuinely love for many reasons, but mostly for the thoughtfulness. There’s a little plastic clip that lets you display an access disc on the windscreen and a special function called Pilot Assist that allows the car to drive itself at speeds under 50 km/h. The feature needs a car ahead of it and clear road markings to work, but it’s very effective when in full swing. Pilot Assist transformed my…

Spy photography, the art of capturing prototype vehicles testing on public roads or racetracks, has long been the bane of automakers trying to keep their upcoming products “secret” until the right time to unveil them to the world. Before, you needed specialised equipment to capture images worthy of publication. Now, the modern smartphone has empowered ordinary members of the public to be able to snap up what interests them and make it publicly known via social media, personal blogs, or even to sell the particularly soughtafter stuff to various media outlets. The technology accessible to the ordinary man has even allowed amateurs to take professional-level images. To keep as much of its upcoming vehicles under wraps as possible, Ford has had to continually update the camouflage it uses. The technology…

SIX YEARS AGO, engineer Naadiya Moosajee and her NGO colleagues sat down to try to work out what makes a girl take up engineering as a career. The answer is as obvious as it was simple: mostly luck. The aspirant engineer first needs to choose her family wisely. So one where the dad, uncle or acquaintance is an engineer. (Note the prevalence of males in all of that.) Failing that, a guidance counsellor at school or other place of learning points her in that direction. And finally… well, she needs a big helping of dumb luck. It was all a little discouraging. Still, even Moosajee herself today jokes that her own entry in the field was something of a fluke. An engineer and sometime restaurateur, ten years ago she co-founded…

1 RENAULT KADJAR Once this company sets out to conquer a segment, it goes all-out. We’ve seen it pioneer the MPV market and dominate it, and then go on to create some of the finest hot hatches the world has known. So it comes as no surprise that its crossover model onslaught has grown from Sandero Stepway to Duster, Koleos, Captur and now what is arguably the most polished example yet – the Kadjar. And this is definitely the most attractive. The Kadjar’s overemphasised fenders give way to ample wheelarches that can house attractive two-tone alloys if you spec it correctly. As appealing as the profile is, the Kadjar’s front end boasts Renault’s familiar design language and the rear is straight off a Clio – not bad traits at all.…

1 STRUCTURAL PREPARATION To make the lighthouse stout enough to move, weak mortar joints are cut out and replaced with new mortar. A compression cuff of plywood bracing and tensioned cables is installed, and doors and windows are removed and the openings filled with brick so they can’t weaken the structure. 2 SUPPORT Excavation of the base of the lighthouse allows workers to pass steel beams underneath, in layers. One layer supports the foundation. Below that, 12-metrelong beams perpendicular to the move path rest on oak cribbing while jacks are being prepared, and on moving equipment while the light is in motion. 3 MOVING EQUIPMENT Two pairs of 15-metre-long beams are bolted together to create 30 metres of track. (Because the move is 39 metres, halfway through the move the…

YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS Huawei P9 This is the most interesting camera on a smartphone at the moment. The best 12 MP unit on the back of the Samsung S7, the most useful is still the wide angle lens on the LG G5. Huawei combining powers of a regular 12 MP sensor a proper monochrome 12 MP sensor (no RGB colour filter) has, however, yielded an intriguing package. a est is still the msung Galaxy e the with sor r, As a smartphone, the P9 is on par with the current crop of flagship products, although the homebaked Kirin 955 processor will again put it at a disadvantage against its Snapdragon 820 competitors. USB type-C is on connector duty, there’s 3 GB of RAM and the now standard of NFC,…

I don’t have a very reliable network connection. I’m with Telkom and don’t necessarily have a gripe with its overall service because the only time the Internet is legitimately down is when someone stole cables, but then the entire neighbourhood is down, even the Afrihost clients. I do have to reboot my router virtually every day and that has been my biggest concern with this product test. IP6 cameras are great. This one is equipped with a Sony sensor, too. But how can I see what’s transpiring on the home front when the router isn’t feeding the Internet to the device? Okay, that’s enough about my connection problems; you probably want to know how good it is. The best bit about the Smanos W020 is the plug-and-play functionality. Plug the…

In my early teens, Gran Turismo and its numerous successors in the series stood tall as the driving simulator of choice for the young enthusiast. Apart from the soundtrack, groundbreaking 3D visuals and the realest physics you could possibly find in a video game at the time, what really changed my experience was the ghost. Not a spook, but similar. Essentially, the lap you’ve done before is recorded on the system. When you cross the start/finish line, the ghost or outline of the vehicle on the previous (or fastest lap) is right there with you, falling behind as you brake later, nail apexes and get on the throttle earlier or edging ahead as you run wide, miss markers or follow the incorrect line. To my dismay, reality was vastly different. And…

Remember when you first fired up GPS navigation? That mysterious voice guiding you along your path, making you miss the turn off because it lost signal. Then Google Maps gained the powers of turn-by-turn navigation and Google acquired Waze to endow Maps with live traffic and alternate route suggestions. You thought you were done with these archaic relics of a time before ubiquitous smartphone ownership. You were wrong. TomTom and Garmin are slowly turning the corner and adding useful services to breathe life into dying product lines. These solutions might not be for everybody, but it’s good to see innovation that will inspire companies like Google to keep improving its offering. Garmin nuviCam LMT R7 500 Though the company is quite successful in the fitness wearable market, Garmin has gone…

ABOUT THE MAKER Yuki Kawae was born in Kyoto, Japan, and lived there until high school. But his taste is much more Western. “The Japanese aesthetic is strict and lacking in excitement,” he says. “I like chainsaws and axes and gasoline. And Jay Z.” COMPANY: Yuki Kawae LOCATION: Cambridge, Massachusetts FOUNDED: 2015 COFFEE TABLES AREN’T FOR COFFEE. Not anymore. They’re not even really for coffee-table books. In living rooms around the world, the coffee table has become the centre of the familial universe. It’s the kitchen island of the 2000-teens. The place where homework is done, where the bowl of popcorn sits on movie night, where feet are put up, where drinks are spilt. “I really like the danger,” says Yuki Kawae. He refers not to the danger that a…

I don’t think my father-in-law believes that I did woodwork at high school. I don’t blame him either, because I’ve shown little aptitude for carpentry in our 11-year association. He also owns a construction company and holds a qualification in carpentry. We don’t see eye to eye on many things and didn’t agree on which breed of dog to get when we needed a new puppy to help guard our smallholding, so I acquired an Australian cattle dog in December. And now winter is setting in. Although I do possess the skills to build a doghouse and my father-in-law has a mighty collection of reclaimed wood, I’m more comfortable supporting the local economy and purchasing a ready-made solution. The old man is old school and took matters into his own…

Open a bottle of wine with a shoe If you find yourself with a bottle of wine and no corkscrew, and you are the type of person who wears shoes, you are wearing a solution to your problem. Remove one shoe and place the bottle of wine inside, so its bottom rests where your heel would go. Find a sturdy wall that will not scuff (brick is best). Holding the shoe and bottle so the bottle is parallel to the ground, repeatedly bang the flat of the heel against the wall. The cork will begin to work its way out of the bottle. When enough has protruded to grab it with your hand, remove it manually. Return your shoe to your foot. This may not work if the cork is…