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Honda's Asimo robot is ready to work in your home

TECHNOLOGY giant Honda has shown that a robotic personal assistant that can help you in and out of the home is no longer solely the subject of science fiction, with the debut of its latest ASIMO robot. The humanoid machine has been upgraded so that it can now run, hop and even pick up and interact with objects in the world around it. Honda has been working on robotics since the 1980s, and this latest incarnation of ASIMO is the most advanced the company has ever produced, with improvements made to movement and reactions.

Bugatti rolls out another ‘Legends’ Special – the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Black Bess

It’s the Bugatti Veyron Black Bess No, Bugatti hasn’t named their latest Legends limited edition car – the Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse Black Bess – after Dick Turpin’s horse (well, not directly anyway), but after the Bugatti Type 18 – dubbed Black Bess – which was the Bugatti Veyron of its day. Only seven Type 18s were built – between 1912 and 1914 – and just three remain, with the one dubbed Black Bess (which did get its name from Dick Turpin’s horse) on display in the Louman Museum in The Hague and complete with its 5.0 litre four-cylinder engine good for 100bhp and a top speed of 100mph. The new Black Bess Bugatti is a Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse with 1184 ‘black’ horses, a 0-62mph of 2.6 seconds and a top speed of 233mph and comes with a carbon fibre body painted in black with gold highlights (and looking like a 1970s JPS F1 livery).

2012 BMW M5 revealed in production trim

The wraps have been torn off the fire-breathing 2012 BMW M5. And, as expected, the Bavarian luxury maker is going in a different direction under the hood. BMW is eschewing a naturally aspirated powerplant in the new M5, whose high-revving roots date to the 1980s, in favor of a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 pushing out about 552 hp.