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2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra: A huge deal

Yesterday General Motors unveiled its new full-sized pickup trucks, the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra. It was a big day for me -- like Christmas for an 8-year-old: People who know me know what a Silverado slappy I am. Given that the trucks are the first new GM full-size pickups in years, and since CEO Dan Akerson called it the “biggest launch in probably decades,” clearly it's a big deal for them too.

MIT develops self-transforming materials that behave 'like robots without robots'

A cross-disciplinary research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a suite of programmable materials, including carbon fiber, printed wood grain, textile composites, rubbers and plastics, that self-transform when exposed to an external stimulus. Director of the Self-Assembly Lab, Skylar Tibbits, presented a TED talk on 4D printing in 2013, where he demonstrated how a flat sheet of material could effectively build itself when exposed to water, like a robot without a robot. Following positive feedback from industries including aviation, automotive and manufacturing, his lab has been working on developing materials that change according to different activation sources, including heat, light, and air pressure, in addition to water – all of which have automotive relevance.

Russo-Baltique Impression

One hundred years since its conception, the Russo-Baltique brand has been resurrected for a show car at Villa d'Este Concours d'Elegance. Once the maker of cars for Russia's Royal Court, the country's Revolution suspended Russo-Baltique's activities after the First World War, only restored in 2003 when work on the new Impression began. The car aims to demonstrate a high level of quality, using materials such as Zebrano, an African wood, to trim the interior.