Plimmerton

Porirua City Council has some of the highest rates in New Zealand but for real estate professional Lizzy Quinn it also has some of the best seaside land.

When she bought across the road from the beach at Plimmerton her renovation plan included provision for income to pay the rates.

The house was an original two-storey family home with land behind – a rarity along the Plimmerton village beachfront.

Quinn’s vision was to create a rental at ground level for income to cover the rates and a home that would suit her in retirement on the first floor.

“I lived in one room with the microwave on a bench while the builders rebuilt from the outside in,” she said.

“They had to remove all the exterior cladding. It was asbestos tiles. The house was an original 1950s build and it hadn’t been touched. I replaced every one of the 17 windows, redid the walls, fully insulated and soundproofed the ceilings, walls and floors.

“It took six months from start to completion.”

The original three-bedroom family home is now two apartments.

The second-storey apartment where Quinn lives has huge views out over the rocky foreshore, across Hongoeka Bay to Mana Island, the South Island and the horizon. The views are framed in the northwest by the cliffs above Hongoeka Bay and to the south by the cliffs of Porirua’s Whitirea Park.

Each apartment has a similar layout: two bedrooms, a substantial and very modern bathroom, open plan living-dining and a kitchen with masses of windows.

“The windows all have special strengthened 10 millimetre thick glass because of the exposed situation. It’s not double glazed but it’s specially made for these conditions.”

Quinn had hoped to have the matai flooring polished, but the council would not allow it, so the floors are carpeted with wood in the kitchen and tiles in service areas.

The top apartment is 78 square metres and the lower 70 sq m, with room at ground level for a garage.

When Quinn purchased the property there was a glasshouse at the back, which she has retained. She entertains her grandchildren and guests, for tea parties amidst gardenias, white roses and a mass of geraniums in her perfumed glasshouse garden.

Her kitchen has a pair of stainless steel benches with a feature stone-clad wall below one bench.

“The stones on the beach across the road go black depending on the weather, they are beautiful, I wanted to bring that design and colour inside. ”

The living space is painted alabaster white. Quinn tried to save money by painting over the original wallpaper, but in the end ripped the walls out and regibbed with insulation and soundproofing.

“In retrospect it would have been much cheaper and easier to bowl the place but I wanted to retain the 1950s family home. A lot of people in the area knew the house and the old chap who lived in it, so I knew it had significance to the local people.”

The apartment is well known for Quinn’s “flatmate”, mannequin Manny Quinn, who resides in the front room gazing out to sea, dressed according to the occasion. This is a “flatmate” with history.

“I had a friend with a bridal salon. She was taking one of her models to the tip because it had two left arms and a bruised nose.

“I took it home, named her Genevieve, put her in the bathroom and she became my towel rack. I put a towel around her head and one on each left arm and called her my French maid.”

Genevieve moved with Quinn to Plimmerton and clad in a grass skirt, coconut shell bra and pink and red leis stood next to the spa pool looking out to sea.

“I actually had to tie her down round the legs with a rope because of the wind,” Quinn recalls.

But Genevieve disappeared and despite reporting her missing (Quinn said there was much discussion about whether to report her as a missing person or stolen property), she was never recovered.

“Parc Reston will offer spacious one- two- and three-bedroom well appointed apartment homes with incomparable amenities,” Douglas Erdman, a partner with Renaissance Centro, told Commercial Property Executive. “Parc Reston is located in a wonderful walkable community with direct access to the popular W&OD Bike Trail. It’s a short walk from Reston Town Center, one of the nation’s most successful shopping, dining and entertainment destinations.”

Renaissance Centro has already developed the nearby Stratford House and Carlton House in the area.

“We developed the first high-rise residential buildings adjacent to Reston Town Center; the Stratford House and Carlton House, both amenity-rich and highly successful,” Erdman said. “The company’s principals also have extensive experience in development of single-family homes and age-restricted multi-family housing. They are combining many of the best features of all these housing types in Parc Reston.”

Amenities will include an outdoor rooftop pool, an indoor lap pool, ultramodern fitness center, an indoor spa, a yoga/Pilates room, a rooftop clubroom, onsite concierge service and an executive business and conference center.

“The homes will feature generous open floor plans,” Erdman said. “Expansive windows, full and French balconies in all units above the third floor, full-size washers and dryers, walk-in closets, oversized bathroom vanities and linen cabinets, gourmet kitchens with granite countertops and ceramic tile accent walls, and more.”

Also close by to Parc Reston are employment centers, a hospital, library, grocery store, child care centers, and the new Silver Line Metro station opening in 2013.

“Reston was founded in the early 1960s by Robert E. Simon, Jr., one of the nation’s first and largest award-winning master-planned communities embodying the founding principles of being a place where residents can live, work and play,” Erdman said. “The community offers miles of trails, as well as multiple lakes, swimming pools, tennis courts, an active community center and more.”

Emergency Management and the Cloud

The topics of cloud computing and emergency management rarely come up together in conversation. But in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy in the northeast a few weeks ago, one vendor, Lauren Innovations, is pushing organizations to consider the advantages of cloud based emergency response solutions — and, especially, its NaviGate information management platform. Could this be the next major trend in the world of the cloud?

When I first read about NaviGate marketing efforts following the recent hurricane, I was a little skeptical that they might simply reflect shameful attempts to profit in the aftermath of a catastrophe that — like the host of similar natural and man made disasters outside the United States that receive less coverage — caused tremendous difficulties, or worse, for millions of people.

But while the timing of the marketing push may be delicate, the central idea does make a lot of sense. As the company observes, disasters like Sandy can present unforeseen disruptions to the execution of even the best-laid emergency response plans by destroying or preventing access to the documents vital to putting those plans into action. All of the investment of time and resources of businesses, educational institutions and other organizations in preparing for events like Sandy are for naught if the plans are unavailable at the crucial moment.

The company also stresses the convenience of a cloud based solution in allowing organizations to keep vital information, like maps and floor plans, up to date from within a centralized location on the Internet.

Although not designed for disaster management exclusively, the NaviGate information management platform provides a comprehensive solution for storing emergency response information in the cloud and making it accessible to users when they need it.

Of course, moving your information to the cloud, while smart, isn’t a complete guarantee against all types of problems. For one, a solution like NaviGate will only work if emergency responders can access the Internet — which wasn’t always the case during Sandy, when electricity and cell networks went down in many affected areas.

Meanwhile, a cloud based emergency plan could also become inaccessible if the servers hosting it stop working, another phenomenon witnessed during the recent hurricance.

Still, leveraging the cloud to help handle the most unexpected scenarios would certainly not hurt, and will undoubtedly be high on the list of many American organizations in the wake of Sandy. They may wish, however, to keep ink and paper versions of their plans on hand as well, just in case the cloud itself ceases to function.

“Water districts have this tremendously valuable data in their GIS systems,” said Ken Deck, general manager of Rowland Water District. “The problem is that it often exists in a vacuum. Nobel’s solution gives us rapid, real time way to access and use our GIS information, whether making strategic decisions at the district office or making repairs out in the field. We signed on because it will save our agency time and money year after year.”

When designing the GeoViewer Mobile tool, Nobel focused on human interaction and context, creating a user-friendly product that allows crews with minimal training to interface quickly and easily with complex data.

GeoViewer Mobile is customized to each organization. Maps, schematics, renderings, reports, service history and more can be tied to any location, whether you need to find the right replacement part for a damaged city streetlight, or determine which valves need to be closed for a leak repair on a water main, GeoViewer enables field workers and supervisors to make the right decision right away.

Existing workflow systems can easily be integrated, allowing field crews to receive and modify open work orders. The iPad camera feature allows users to capture still and video images and link them to a note on a repair or property parcel. Voice-to-text capacity makes jotting down background information quick and easy. GeoViewer Mobile integrates seamlessly with Nobel Systems’ GeoViewer Online, the tool that makes GIS information accessible to those without specialized training.

Curbing kerb anger

New Plymouth’s new parking system is exposing woeful short-term memories among some city shoppers.

Going live yesterday, the new electronically monitored parking system does away with individual meters.

Payments are instead made to a nearby machine, which services up to eight car parks all marked with unique four digit numbers.

At most, parkers have to walk about 20 steps to the nearest meter. The problem is, some can’t remember their four-digit parking space number across such a distance.

“One young girl, she was in her 30s, and she came down to the meter three times before she could remember her number,” New Plymouth District Council parking officer Lyn Adlam said.

“She said: ‘Well my mum’s in her 70s and she’ll never remember,’ but she couldn’t remember either.”

In town all day to help people get used to the new parking process, Mrs Adlam said everyone had been quite happy to give the new system a go. One of those was Janet Finer, of Tikorangi, who had parked her car in Centre City but was curious about the new system anyway.

“Well, they won’t be helping forever and you don’t come to town every day. That’s why I thought I would ask how to do it,” she said.

Aside from forgetting their space number, the most common mistake was people putting the receipt on their dashboard or under their window wiper, as though it was a pay and display ticket. It is not.

The receipt is issued as proof of payment in case parkers enter the wrong space number and are inadvertently ticketed.

The new system replaces more than 600 coin-operated parking meters and is monitored electronically, letting wardens know when a car has stayed past its allotted time.

At this stage payment can only be made with coins, but credit card and phone payment options will be added within weeks.

Anthony Shipp, Parking Marketing Manager for the Houston Airport System said, “We’ve opened up 400 new parking spaces.  Last year as you know we had a lot of construction here, all the construction has now gone away, so we have additional 3300 parking spaces  approximately available here at Hobby Airport.”

And that’s before you get in the building. Once you go through the doors new technology is ready to help guide you through the mass of travelers.

Jeff Bream, Asst. Director for Technology with the Houston Airport System said, “Say you’re coming to the airport in an hour and you want to know…well, what are the TSA checkpoint wait times.  You can actually go on the sight and see what the times are.”

But some of the responsibility still up to passengers.

Susan Clark, Federal Security Director for Hobby Airport said, “Assure yourself of an easier screening, remembering to pack appropriately, don’t clutter your luggage, make your travel easy and give yourself ample time.”

One of two new systems in development at Toyota goes by the name of Intelligent Clearance Sonar. The technology is meant to reduce parking lot collisions by detecting objects out of the driver’s sight. If an imminent collision is detected, the ICS system will automatically hit the brakes, reduce engine power and sound an alarm.

Toyota’s other new safety system is Drive-Start Control. According to the automaker, if the system senses that the wrong gear has been selected from Park while the driver is pressing on the accelerator, a warning is flashed on the dashboard and engine output is reduced “to limit a sudden start or acceleration.” There are a number of scenarios where the system might kick in – for example, if a driver bumps into something while reversing, panics and shifts into a forward gear without letting up on the accelerator, DSC would take over.

While such research is commendable, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has called for making such systems mandatory in coming years. And more and more automakers are investigating and/or committing to developing electronic failsafes to deal with unintended acceleration. Last month, Nissan announced a camera-based system designed to curb pedal misapplication.

Sandy’s damage to wildlife refuges adds to questions

An eerie sight greeted Scott Kahan recently when he toured the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Atlantic City by helicopter: a giant bird sanctuary with almost no birds.

“Typically I would have seen tens of thousands of waterfowl,” but there were only a few dozen, said Kahan, the Northeast regional chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The wreckage at Forsythe and other Northeast coastal refuges was yet another testament to the destructive power of Sandy, the superstorm that ripped up the New Jersey shore and flooded Manhattan. And it drew attention to the costly plans being considered by the federal agency to protect wildlife refuges from the impact of climate change and sea-level rise.

Sandy’s winds rammed a dirt and gravel dike at Forsythe with seawater, causing it to burst. Bay salt water rushed into a shallow freshwater pond created for birds such as the American black duck and Atlantic brant. The usual foot of water in which the birds dip their heads got saltier, rose to five feet and washed out vegetation, so the birds could no longer reach underwater seeds or pick bugs from leaves.

Dozens of refuges between Maine and Virginia were pummeled. Four were damaged severely, including Forsythe, where about 130 boats in the Atlantic City area were blown into marshes, Kahan said.

At Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia, part of the public beach and two parking lots were washed away on Assateague Island. At Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware, a 1,500-foot breach in a dune sent salt water from the Delaware Bay into a freshwater pond where waterfowl eat, nest and give birth, and flooded homes on an island near the refuge. And at the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex in New York, fallen trees blocked the entrance.

Sandy created sea surge powerful enough to reshape portions of the coasts of North Carolina, Delaware and Maryland, and Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula, which includes Chincoteague, said the U.S. Geological Survey.

Thirty-five of the region’s 72 refuges were closed after the storm. Six million people per year — many from the District, Virginia and Maryland — visit the refuges, which cover 535,000 acres, and managers acted to protect visitors from “widow-makers,” damaged trees that crash down after storms, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman said.

Forsythe still has not reopened. In addition to the busted dike and ruined pond, the wrecked boats appear to be leaking fuel, Kahan said.

“What is there in addition to debris that wash up? Has there been contamination of the refuge with fuel in the boats?” Kahan said. “We see propane tanks and barrels with unknown substances. Everything that washed out of those communities [on the Jersey shore] found their way onto the refuge.”

Forsythe manager Virginia Rettig said dozens of workers fanned out after the storm and found salt water pouring into freshwater ponds; sheds and other structures needing repairs; and boats piled on the marsh — but few dead animals. The birds are starting to return, but assessing the damage will take weeks, she said.

In a confession in 2008, Lorello said the thefts were easy because “no one at work suspected anything or challenged me at any time.”

Thomas Dunn, an Education Department spokesman, said the institution has enhanced security by adopting policies and procedures as well as day-to-day practice to safeguard collections, and adding a “sophisticated” surveillance system.

Since the changes were instituted, staff are never in a collections area alone; rigid procedures for granting access require multiple levels of approval; and there are new standards for removing items in the collection from storage — for example, a State Police escort is necessary for transfer of the most valuable holdings such as the original first draft of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which has toured the state in recent weeks and was recently on display at the State Museum.

The department also installed a security system, which has been in operation for about two years. “We cannot give any specifics because that would potentially compromise the system,” Dunn said. “But it has very strong access control.” The system has a network of closed-circuit cameras, door locks and a collections doors that can’t be opened without a special card and PIN code.

Parking in Ellicott City? There’s an App for That

If you want to find parking in Ellicott City, County Executive Ken Ulman told a small crowd standing outside the Howard County Welcome Center Thursday morning, “We now have an app for that.”

The app – mobile phone application — is Streetline’s Parker. It allows people to look up real-time information about available parking spaces in the Historic District.

Ulman said it addresses a problem that was brought to light as the result of a parking study carried out when he came into office.

“One of the biggest challenges that we face … is parking,” Ulman said. “More importantly, it’s frankly the perception of parking.”

For visitors to the Historic District, particularly those from out of town, “How would you know that right behind the Ellicott Mills Brewing Company, there are X number of spaces … you wouldn’t know that,” Ulman said.

The announcement that the parking system had gone online was a marked departure from previous discussions. Since the program was announced in August, some merchants have fought loudly against it – and the implementation of parking meters in the area.

Thursday’s announcement, however, was attended mostly by county officials and business owners, several of whom stepped up to the microphone to speak on behalf of the system.

Noting the difficulties that had befallen the Historic District in the past year – floods, power outages, an earthquake and the CSX train derailment – Ellicott City Business Association President and Wine Bin owner Dave Carne stressed the resilience of Main Street.

“In spite of all that this town is terrific,” he said. “As a business owner I am thrilled with the creative ingenuity that the county has but forward to make it a better and more attractive place to do business.”

Rumor Mill owner Matt Milani called Parker an “unbelievable tool,” that would “help guests come into town, spend more money, and enjoy their stay here.”

Ulman said the project wasn’t a “locked-in fixed plan written in stone,” and that its use as a data collecting tool would help the county determine when, if any, there really wasn’t available parking in the Historic District.

“So when people come to me and say ‘we need a free shuttle,’ or ‘we need a new garage,’ we’ll be able to look and say ‘you know what … absolutely’ or ‘no, there are spaces available.’”

Throughout the run-up to Parker going online, Director of Special Projects Steve Lafferty has been working closely with merchants and residents as a liaison to the administration.

“We have some terrific businesses here in Ellicott City that we hope will just grow and continue to thrive.”

Lafferty noted that there was still another phase in the parking program – paid parking on Main Street and Maryland Avenue.

Once the meters go online, after Jan. 1, people will be able to pay remotely for parking at the new, multi-space meters, which have already been installed.

Drivers will be able to pay for parking using a mobile device.

Anticipating a shift in parking rules, Lafferty said some merchants are finding ways to get “creative.”

“We’re going to pay for our customers’ parking,” Work.Play.Bark. owner Marc Lund said. Though he’s still working out the details, the ability to be able to pay remotely is one that he plans to take full advantage of on behalf of his customers.

Could this be the future of North Lake Tahoe’s public transportation?

In the early evening hours on a brisk Wednesday, Homewood resident Jarek Sznytzer stood outside waiting with a bag in tow at the newly completed Placer County Transit Center in Tahoe City for his ride: a TART bus.

“It only runs about every hour,” he said. “Every half hour would be nice … Otherwise (the service), it’s good. It’s on time, most of the time.”

Soon after, his bus arrived, and he and two other passengers boarded. The bus idled for a few minutes with its doors open, waiting for possible additional passengers, before departing.

Later, while waiting for her bus inside the $4.8 million transit center, Rosie Ibarra, a student living in Kings Beach, was asked to grade the current state of public transit and comment on what might be improved. Her response to the latter: shorter headways, service hours extended to midnight for those who work into the evenings and service around the lake.

Despite the suggestions, a variety of local and Western transit officials agree: Several challenges unique to this region stand in the way.

“It goes back to that idea of being all things to all people,” said Lynn Rumbaugh, transit manager for the city of Aspen, Colo. “We have a hard time figuring out sometimes how to operate services more efficiently when we have a group of people that are demanding really fast frequency. They want service at 2 a.m., (and others) they want service 6 a.m. We have services that we really should probably run year-round, but we can only afford to run them in the offseason.”

Rumbaugh and roughly 60 other people, ranging from Western ski resort representatives to regional transit officials to residents, gathered late last month for the 2012 Transit Summit at Truckee Tahoe Airport to discuss how to improve area transit while acknowledging the funding challenges and economic benefits of such an endeavor.

Kent Cashel, director of public works for Park City, Utah, said the city used to have multiple transit systems like North Tahoe currently has, but decided to “integrate” them, rather than keeping them independent or interfacing them.

“We could have one schedule and one look and feel to the buses, so when any user looked at the system, they recognized it, they knew where to get the information and it was simple to use,” he said.

Other characteristics of Park City’s transit system, which is shared by the other resort communities present at the summit — Aspen and Summit County, Colo. — include short headways and extended daily service.

“It’s very common in resort transportation systems that we’re looking at a range of funding sources,” said Walter Kieser, managing principal of Economic and Planning Systems, who was the keynote speaker at the summit. “That’s important because we really want to mix it up, so we have a broad base of financing.”

Rumbaugh said Aspen follows such a system, characterizing it as a “complicated stew.” Public transit costs Aspen approximately $4 million annually, increasing at about 5 percent a year, for a nine-bus fleet and is funded through sales tax, lodging tax, use tax, development fees, grants and parking fees.

“While you benefit from the proximity to the Bay Area and those weekend visitors, in terms of economic development and strengthening, it’s looking at those destination visitors, those people who come and stay longer that … growth can occur,” Kieser said. “Those destination visitors have certain expectations, and increasingly, one of those expectations is to be able to move around easily between the assets in the resort community.”

Richard Anderson, exiting Truckee Town Council member and soon-to-be Nevada County supervisor, stressed the importance of getting destination visitors to travel outside the ski resorts and into the communities in order to spread the wealth.

Transportation can encourage that, Kieser said, either through the placement of bus pick-up/drop-off facilities in the community or bus routes that allow visitors to see the community’s dining and shopping options.

“One thing we know from our work is that the destination visitor is different,” he said. “What people are looking for in terms of a destination often times now mixes it up with not only the recreation skiing, but also dining (and) retail shopping. So downtowns like Truckee are really well placed to build on their existing assists to attract those kinds of visitors.”

Still, the North Shore’s size, its many existing transit options and lack of available state funding, among others, pose unique challenges to a transit system, Kieser said.

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations In National Parks Appearing

Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley is nicknamed the American Serengeti because travelers are greeted with a wide open plain dotted with a variety of wild animals. From bison to wolves and elk to grizzly bears, Lamar Valley visitors are treated to some of the best wildlife viewing opportunities in the western United States. What visitors may not expect to see is an electric-vehicle charging station.

The historic Lamar Valley Buffalo Ranch, a year-round field campus, is an off-the-grid facility that is also the home of a low-speed battery electric utility vehicle used by National Park Service staffers. The remote campus derives its power from an onsite solar photovoltaic system, and the EV charging station draws its electricity from the solar array. This means that the EV is running entirely on a clean and renewable energy source: the sun.

About 650 miles south of Yellowstone lies Zion National Park, another relatively remote area where an electric-vehicle charging station can be found. Zion is located in southeastern Utah, about 165 miles northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The Zion Park Headquarters features a solar panel array that provides shade to the employee parking area. The parking lot is equipped with EV charging stations that are used to power current and future Zion electric vehicles.

On the other side of the country lies Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the most visited national park in the United States with 8 to 10 million visitors annually. Millions of visitors come in millions of cars and that means more pollution. The popularity of the park makes it a prime location for an electric-vehicle charging station project.

Thanks to the Black Bear Solar Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to wildlife rehabilitation and solar energy, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park region is now home to one of the largest concentrations of electric-vehicle charging stations in the nation.

Dubbed the Green Gateway, the region features 24 EV charging stations at strategic locations between major cities in Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park gateway community of Townsend, Tenn. A future expansion will add solar canopies, which will provide clean renewable power to the charging stations.

From a single neighborhood electric vehicle at a historic ranch in Yellowstone National Park to an entire string of charging stations that lead up to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, electric vehicles and a growing green fleet will help preserve the natural beauty of our national park system for generations to come.

13 Ford Escape SUV

The all-new 2013 Ford Escape SUV brings clever technologies and features designed to make life easier, and fuel economy projected to top any vehicle of its kind on the market. Versatile vehicle features new hands-free technology – including liftgate with motion-sensing technology similar to video games’ and upgraded MyFord Touch system that makes connecting with digital devices on the go even easier.

Parallel parking the Escape is virtually stress-free with active park assist. With the press of a button, the system detects an available parallel parking space and automatically steers the vehicle into the space. Drivers control only the gas and brake pedals. Maneuvering parking lots and traveling open roadways becomes even safer and less stressful with Escape’s sensor-based BLIS (Blind Spot Information System) with cross-traffic alert. BLIS displays an alert in the side mirror when a vehicle is detected entering a blind spot. Cross-traffic alert warns if traffic is detected approaching from the sides, such as when Escape is leaving a parking space in reverse.

The all-new Ford Escape is the first Ford SUV to combine class-exclusive technology to automatically slow the vehicle when it’s cornering too fast (Curve Control) or help accelerate through a turn (Torque Vectoring Control); a new Intelligent 4WD System helps deliver outstanding handling on pristine pavement and in adverse conditions as well, along with excellent traction off-road

Available in S, SE, SEL and Titanium trim levels, standard power for the all-new Escape is generated by an updated 2.5L four-cylinder engine and delivered to the pavement through a SelectShift Automatic six-speed transmission. A pair of EcoBoost four-cylinder engines in all-new 1.6L or 2.0L displacements are optional. Both new engines combine EcoBoost’s core technologies of direct fuel injection and turbocharging and add twin independent variable camshaft timing (Ti-VCT) to deliver even better miles per gallon and save customers money on fuel. All-wheel drive is an available option when equipped with an EcoBoost engine.

In Escape, the EcoBoost engines are mated to specially calibrated, six-speed SelectShift Automatic transmissions, which are standard and allow drivers who want more hands-on experiences to manually control gear selection from a switch on the left-hand side of the shifter. The gearbox features a new torque converter for improved driving feel, silky smooth shifts and even better fuel economy. Engineers also installed revised gear ratios for a balanced driving feel in all situations.

Stowing and towing are even easier in the new five-passenger Escape, thanks to a low liftover height of 27 inches, more innovations and cargo volume that surpasses the outgoing Escape. The new Escape’s rear seats have been designed to fold flat easily. With the touch of a button, the head restraint folds down and with the lift of a handle on the seat, the seatback folds and dives as the seat folds flat and clicks into position.

The pilot project is the city’s first attempt to get parking revenue without human intervention and is a tentative step toward discouraging drivers from bringing their cars into the overcrowded city center.

There have been periods in the past when attendants roamed sidewalks collecting fees for parking, but the approach was open to abuse, and City Hall frequently did not receive the returns it expected.

The project has already generated more than 700,000 rubles: about 434,000 rubles via SMS payments and about 300,000 rubles from prepaid cards, Sergei Marinichev, the administrative director of Moscow Parking Places, the company City Hall set up to run the endeavor, said at a news conference Friday.

The idea is simple: If drivers know they have to pay to park, they will be less likely to bring their cars into the city center, and if they do drive in, they are likely to spend less time on the crowded streets.

In the two years since then-President Dmitry Medvedev tasked incoming Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobayanin with reducing the capital’s legendary traffic jams, the situation on the streets has gotten worse.

Figures published last week by Geolife, a think tank, revealed that average speeds on the capital’s roads are decreasing at a rate of 5 percent per year and on some streets by as much as 15 percent.

The solution is, at least theoretically, tech-friendly. The supposedly easiest ways to pay are to send a text message with the license-plate number and the code of the parking zone or to use one of the handful of prepay terminals, which take credit cards and cash.

What Is Google Up To?

On a clear day John Hanke has a killer view from Google’s downtown San Francisco office: a wall-to-wall vista of the Embarcadero, the west span of the Bay Bridge out to Yerba Buena Island, the gantry cranes in the port of Oakland off to the right and beyond them the mountains rising behind the East Bay sprawl. When complimented on the view, Hanke sighs and grins. Clearly he’s got status at Google. Hanke was one of the founders of Keyhole, Inc., the software firm that in 2001 developed a 3-D flyby visualization of the globe called Earth Viewer. Google snapped up Keyhole in 2004 and turned it into Google Earth, one of the great Web engineering achievements of our time. Hanke and some of the Keyhole team have stayed ever since, going a little bit…silent.

Then a year ago Hanke went to Google CEO Larry Page to tell him he had an idea and was leaving to start a new company. Page convinced him to stay and do it at Google. Thus was born Niantic Labs, housed in Google’s downtown SF office. Niantic is trying to solve some of the problems created by smartphones, namely, that they divide us, divert us from reality, and make us inattentive. A powerful mobile computer, Hanke says, should connect us to the real world and all the context that’s there. Google’s own Project Glass is already attempting to do so-called augmented reality, in which camera, location and processing power combine to annotate the world around us with extra data and images.

It’s all about “seeing with new eyes,” says Hanke. Niantic Labs, after all, takes its name from a 120-foot sailing ship that arrived in San Francisco 160 years ago for the Gold Rush. But the Niantic never returned home. It was one of hundreds of ships abandoned–rigging, furnishings and all–by its crew for the gold fields and sunk into the earth as foundation for a waterfront hotel. A giant sailing ship buried beneath the inattentive thrum of high-tech SF–it’s an all-too-perfect metaphor for a team of people using tech to unearth hidden context.

In September Niantic came out with its first product, a free Android app called Field Trip. It immediately won pretty good reviews. Field Trip pulls up interesting facts and context about the sights and places around you from a myriad of editorial sources including Zagat, Architizer, Eater/Curbd, Atlas Obscura, Arcadia Publishing’s thousands of hyperlocal guides, Vayable and Daily Secret. It runs continuously in the background, pushing info cards even in front of a phone’s lock screen, but it’s supposedly smart about how it uses a phone’s battery so it doesn’t drain the device.

Was that it? From the mind of the guy who brought us Google Earth, we get a walking tour app (albeit a good one)? Didn’t seem like that much of an encore. But then, on November 1st, things started to get weird. Suddenly there was this Web site called the Niantic Project. All it had at first was a deep-voiced conspiracy-movie-style ‘Welcome’ trailer (“There’s more to the world than you can truly see…”). Every day since, the Niantic Project has released more mystery objects: a snippet of chat, a redacted document with reference to a Shaper Study, the entrance of a random white dude named Ben Jackland who posted a video to his Google+ page about a bizarre phone he got via Web auction that was doing all kinds of unbidden augmented reality tricks even with its SIM card removed.

The beast that is Raptor

Air planes have a device called an inertial reference unit, or IRU, which determines angular orientation, latitude, longitude, altitude, and other data crucial for their avionics.

My recent tester didn’t have an IRU, as such, but it did have a red leather stripe about an inch wide cloaked around the top, centre portion of its steering wheel.

That stripe, to these chaste jacked-up-off-road-racing-pickup-truck eyes, was at first just another cool, albeit subtle, little piece of cabin decor to match exterior Race Red sheet metal tattooed with sinister hood and body-side graphics.

But upon further investigation, it was revealed that Mr. Stripe was stitched there to let the pilot know where the centre of the steering wheel was when all four of its 35-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain tires were not in contact with Mother Earth while a mammoth black grille pointed Heavenward.

Yup, that stripe’s purpose in life said a lot about the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor which I used to patrol parts of southern Ontario through the last week of October, but unfortunately I wasn’t permitted (nor capable) of letting it show off its true off-road potential.

Instead, I used up all the width of any lane I put the beast in on the four-oh-one highway and felt good about doing so as warm air buffeted through an open sunroof and Prime Country (what else?) on Sirius satellite radio blasted through its Sony sound system.

Lesser motorists, whom I allowed to pass, gave me odd looks (mostly Prius drivers) while fellow pickupers looked ‘up,’ studied, and no doubt envied my lane-filling prowess.

The Raptor’s only real antagonists on the asphalt were the many 18 wheelers, some of which honked, while one big-rig captain harvested a thumbs-up.

Yup, there was something special about the SVT Raptor. And that ‘special’ came from the Special Vehicle Team at Ford which made it the most powerful half-ton pickup on the market.

Powered by its standard 6.2-litre V8 engine, the Raptor produced 411 horsepower and 434 pound-feet of torque.

On the highway, where I put most of my kilometres on it through a week-long love-in, the prehistoric predator proved more civilized than I would’ve expected.

Its NASCAR-sounding engine growled like it was about to feed on live meat when I stabbed its throttle, and it also emitted some gratifying throaty exhaust notes at highway cruising speeds.

Handling and steering (power rack and pinion) while making lane changes or just rambling along didn’t have me clutching the wheel like an old lady clasping her favourite tea cup, but there were the slight wanderings expected of something atop 35-inch tires and enough potential suspension bounce to not make it feel out of place in a Monster Truck arena.

That suspension featured internal triple-bypass shocks by FOX Racing Shox which helped yield the Raptor its extreme off-roading ability and permitted my smooth-for-what-it-was on-road drives. Custom springs, prop shafts, and struts also added to the awesome factor.

Raptor’s unique cast-aluminum front control arms and those SVT-tuned rubbers gave it 11.2 inches of front suspension travel and 12.1 inches of rear suspension travel on my ‘SuperCrew’ tester (it had a 145-inch wheelbase and was seven inches wider than a base-model F-150).

The Raptor had superb braking and brake feel.

Aside from the previously-mentioned red, leather steering-wheel ‘guidance system,’ the Raptor also had a class-exclusive camera mounted up front to aid at speeds less than 15 mph in challenging off-road environments where you would have to avoid large objects or maybe place a tire on a rock.

Unfortunately, there were no opportunities for such delights on the 401, but I did day dream about what I could have done when one particular compact sedan would not move to the slow lane. The dream didn’t end well for the smaller vehicle.

Views from the front camera, which even had its own dedicated washer function, would appear on the eight-inch navigation display on the centre stack area. The system was activated through a smaller 4.2-inch LCD message centre between the tachometer and speedometer gauges.

While using that camera to guide you, more assistance would come from its new (for 2012) Torsen front differential which would help the Raptor claw in at the front end to pull itself over obstacles or up steep grades (even while traction was parcelled between the front tires).

Parking the 5,888-mm-long Raptor was not as complicated as I would’ve expected. In fact, it was pretty easy with the aid of its rear-view camera image and slick guide lines, along with its large side-view mirrors.

Tight parking spaces, like at the Wendy’s I visited in Oakville, required advance planning. I stopped a bit away from the parking lot, assessed the situation, picked a spot, then made sure I had an escape route if other vehicles parked too close beside or in front, and made sure to back in (it had a turn circle of 47 feet).

While the Raptor has good climbing capability, it also required a climb to get into my driver’s seat (note: its cool running boards were NOT a just-for-looks option!).

Inside, the cabin had more leather than a Harley-Davidson clothing store; its comfortable and supportive powered seats could be heated; the stereo system sounded great; and the armrest bin was big enough to store a spare tire.

The minimal amount of dials and controls for audio, HVAC, phone and navigation were ergonomically placed and simple to use.

Buttons on the console area worked off-road mode and down-hill assist while an auxiliary switch board powered Aux 1, Aux 2, Aux 3, and Aux 4, each of which would enable easier aftermarket customization as they were each pre-wired and attached to the power distribution box for electrical accessories.

Outback, the rear seat would be a great place to park your Smart car.

Its bed (LWH: 67-65.2-22.4 inches with 50 inches between the wheelhousings) could be expanded with its bed extender, and the climb into that area was made easy with Ford’s convenient step-up ladder with an accompanying assist handle on the gate.

Standard features on the Raptor included: AdvanceTrac with Roll Stability Control, trailer sway control, power door locks, windows and mirrors, front and rear air conditioning with micron air filter, AM/FM/six-disc CD player, Sirius satellite radio, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, wireless phone connectivity, cloth/leather seats, power front seats, heated front seats, auto headlights, dual front air bags, dual side air bags, safety canopy system, cruise control, information display, tilt steering wheel, SecuriLock passive anti-theft system, tire pressure monitoring system, SOS post-crash alert system, and a MyKey programmable vehicle key.

On the whole, if you need a vehicle that can haul, tow, get you noticed, seat you in the lap of luxury, climb up cliffs, ford rivers, do burnouts, compete at drag strips, beat the beaten track, or bound over hill, dale, or desert mound, then this full-size pickup could be a nice vice if it’d fit in your driveway.