CDN-GM competition: Phase 1 now closed

Back to school. Not most students' favorite time of year, signaling both the end of summer and a return to the long days of lectures and long nights of sketching. This year, however, it also means a chance to win one of five internships, including housing, at GM's Warren, MI design studio courtesy of the GM Interactive Design Competition 2012 – if you got your entry in on time!

Toyota and Mercedes-Benz are top global car brands

Toyota & Mercedes-Benz are the Top Global Automotive Brands 2011 (adsbygoogle=window.adsbygoogle||[]).push({}); Interbrand, a branding consultancy, delivers a report on the world’s brands every year, and in 2011, despite recall woes and the devastation of the Japanese Tsunami, Toyota leads the automotive brands, with luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz just behind. Interbrand uses three measures to gauge how effective a brand is – performance of branded product, the brands ability to secure earnings and the role of the brand in purchasing decisions – to come up with a chart of the top 100 world brands. At the top of the tree are companies like Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft and Google, but car brands do well with Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, VW, and Ford all making it in to the top 50.

New tech suggests windowless cars are on the horizon

For years students have presented windowless car projects, explaining how the view from outside would be projected within the interior. Now an aerospace company has created the technology that could hold the key to turning the dream into a reality. Spike Aerospace's upcoming S-512 supersonic business class jet replaces its windows with high-definition screens displaying footage of the panoramic views streamed live from micro cameras on its fuselage as tests have unsurprisingly shown that passengers are a little uneasy about not being able to see outside.