These noise-cancelling headphones from Hitachi Maxell are unlike many previous similar types since they don't require separate power. Instead they connect to iPods via the dock connector, and can suck on the batteries through there. They do manage about 20dB of noise canceling with an "Active Noise Rejection" system, but the design is curiously crippling: they can only connect to iPods (4th gen or later) and the iPod touches and not the iPhone. And draw power from there means you'll get reduced battery life, which may be as much as 50%. And the iPod's volume control doesn't work, so you have to use the slider on the headphones. Weird, but these HP-NC20.IPs are only about $80 in Japan, so you may still be tempted. [AVWatch]

Following up Zune 3.1 and this new TV spot, Microsoft's going to announce price cuts across the board for its flash Zunes tomorrow. Not drastic or desperate, but nice, solid drops: The 4GB model will fall to $100, 8GB will go for $140 ($10 off) and 16GB for $180, down from $200, making them all cheaper than the equivalent iPod nano capacities ('cept on Amazon). Perfect if you don't like sharp corners. [Cnet]

Two recent patent battle lawsuits made news this week, and both highlighted one troubling aspect of patent lawsuits: patent holders trying to damage others beyond the company that infringed. Now, before the patent system defenders rush to post angry comments, this is not a new thing. It's been quite common for a while. Nor is it surprising. If you were a patent attorney representing one of these patent holders, you'd probably do the same thing: going after third parties is probably a good strategy to force the other company to settle. However, it does highlight how patent law is used in ways that clearly are outside of its intended purpose. That is, it's being used to punish plenty of innocent third parties by removing innovation from their grasps, rather than encouraging innovation.

The first case involves a patent lawsuit concerning Microsoft's Visual Studio. WebXchange claims it has patents that Visual Studio violates -- but rather than suing Microsoft, WebXchange sued three Microsoft customers, claiming that by using the software, they were violating the patent. This is clearly an attempt to scare Microsoft into settling, out of a fear that other customers won't use Visual Studio to avoid getting sued by WebXchange. Microsoft is fighting back, asking a judge to declare the patents invalid, but in the meantime, WebXchange has been able to drag Microsoft's customers into a patent battle, putting extra pressure on Microsoft to settle.

The second case involves Spansion suing Samsung for patent infringement concerning Samsung's memory chips. In this case, Spansion isn't just going after Samsung, but demanding an injunction that would block US sales of a variety of popular gadgets that use Samsung's memory chips -- including iPods and Blackberries. Once again, while it's unlikely that a court would order such a block, by dragging other companies such as Apple and RIM into the mess, Spansion is abusing the patent system's threat of an injunction to put extra pressure on Samsung to settle.

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The Spongebob SquarePants iPod Dock is surely the result of Nickelodeon executives sitting around a table brainstorming ways to make Spongbob SquarePants even more disgusting.

"He could eat human waste," an exec offered.
"We'll give him a flesh eating disease," someone else said. "You know, like, another one."

But after weeks of tireless deliberation, the group decided that ripping out Spongebob's eyeballs and placing them on the table to jiggle around while playing music would go far enough. The excrement toys would be better suited for next year's line of bathroom products anyway.
If you still insist on buying your little one the Spongebob Squarepants iPod Dock, it's $40 at the Nickelodeon shop. [Nickelodeon via GearLog]

The Tesla dealership is quiet as a cage of sleeping panthers. A pack of the electric roadsters, in varying degrees of grey, are strewn across the show floor looking 120mph standing still. I imagine most of them are awaiting for a venture capitalist to pick them up and take them from meeting to meeting for the rest of their uneventful lives. But outside is a bright blue roadster ready for the 10 minutes Telsa and God have handed me. This is my long awaited drive in the Tesla roadster. [Photos by Monica Laipple and Giz, drive via Tim Ferriss]

Studying her lines it is clear to me this car has Lotus DNA, even though the car is much cleaner and classically beautiful looking than any bug eyed Elise or Exige, and more technologically advanced than the submarine Elan version James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me (Thanks Ray). The British car maker helped to design the aluminum chassis, which weighs less than 200 pounds, and they handle early stage manufacturing. Tesla stresses that the Roadster is not just an electric Lotus, and it shares no more than 10% of the parts. Much more thought went into this car to simply dismiss it as such. But Tesla's engineers did choose to work with Lotus for a reason, the same reason why most auto journalists consider the Elise one of the last pure sports cars around and a great deal. The low power, light weight cars are simply one of the best handling and thrilling drives out there, described as some as a street legal go kart, and I'd agree that its one of the best driving experiences I've ever had. With shared genetics, this is perhaps the best way to judge the limits of electric performance as compared to their gas counterparts.

It's rare that Tesla lets people drive the car without a company copilot, so we'd be tailed by a Lexus chase car since I'm sitting copilot to Tim Ferriss, the guy who set up this ride, for the first shift. Starting the car is silent, and we kept trying to turn it over because we're idiots. If you don't step on the gas, there is no idle, so the car does not move forward even when your feet are not on the brakes. When Tim takes off from the lot, before I hear road noise and wind, I hear the odd purring of gears, which can almost be described as turbine like. With one gear and no engine noise, its surprisingly hard to gauge speed except by the pressure applied to the headrest by the back of your skull, the churning in your stomach or the unintended roller coaster face of your passenger. (Me.) Looking at the speedometer would be idiotic at these rates, in local traffic, but somehow we make it to about 60 for brief bursts on our way to the highway.

The rates to 60 are rated at 3.9 seconds by virtue of the electric motor's 248 HP and 280 Torque. By comparison, it bests the fastest road legal Lotus by a 10th of a second, but the power to weigh ratio is on par with the standard Elise because the battery pack brings it to 2700 pounds (over 700 pounds heavier than the Elise). The key here is that the car doesn't have to take the time to switch gears and electric motors deliver 100% of their torque at start. That power curve caused some problems earlier in two previous transmissions, which were being destroyed after a few thousand miles. To overcome that problem with the latest, more durable single gear tranny, Telsa wisely used a motor with a 14000 RPM redline that could keep rotating faster in a low gear to achieve a top speed of 125MPH, while improving on the 2008's single gear transmission time to sixty miles per hour down from 5.7 seconds to 3.9 seconds.

Behind the wheel, I found that the entire system works together to deliver power like thick gobs of thick yogurt, with no drive lash on throttle or lift, but not too buzzy either. I have to admit it's the perfect amount of torque for a car this weight, somewhere in between detroit muscle and a peaky four banger in a rice rocket. With traction control off, something I was prohibited from doing, I hear you can do doughnuts in the car, something not too easily in many roadsters. That's what I heard, anyhow. In some ways, it feels automatic, without the third pedal, but when you lift off the throttle, the car's regenerative systems seize power through engine braking. It feels like you're lifting off after revving high in second or third gear in a manual transmission sports car. Tim often didn't have to use the brakes, preferring to wind down to almost nothing by engine braking alone. I'd test the brakes later. We'd entered the highway, and the car's acceleration to 80 was great, but power tapered off closer to 110 as aerodynamics of a open top car caught up to it and torque fell. Hypothetically.

I knew the acceleration was appropriate for a car of the future, besting many gas vehicles out there. But one thing I'd never heard about was what all the battery weight (again, 2700 pounds vs sub 2000 pounds) was doing to the car's handling; the Tesla would not likely turn and brake like a space age wonder considering similar chassis, brakes, wheels and suspension There's no escaping the laws of physics. Even magical electric cars want to stay in motion, when in motion.

I snaked the car through a set of S turns, but behind other cars, so I was not able to find much data other than the car's does not oversteer easily. Through a banked onramp to highway 280, the ghetto skidpad, I wasn't light on the gas, and on the smooth, 270 degree banked circle, I could feel the car's rack and pinion wanting to push a bit. I wasn't sure of my speed, so its impossible to say when confidence was starting to fade. The chase car driver later implied they had to slow down 60 on the ramp, but I doubt I was going much faster than that. I'll conclusively say that the car handles less confidently than an Elise, but will destroy many road going sedans and coupes.

Back off the highway, with the chase car still catching up, I got a chance to try the brakes quickly rounding a corner and heading towards traffic. With a second lane opening up, I slammed them. Warm tires and chattered across the rough, slightly downhill road and I was forced to take the other lane or eat SUV. I felt the weight, and expected the car to stop shorter.

But here's something to chew on. I have no conclusive data of how fast we were going, given the singlegear, quiet propulsion of the vehicle. I could have been going 35, I could have been going 60, so it's not fair to judge the car's handling or braking. And Tesla and the internet have no skidpad, slalom or braking distance test results for the car. Conspiracy? I can't say. None of this really matters, because the Tesla Roadster is unique as a performance oriented electric car and deserves heaps of praise for what it is and how it feels to drive despite its efficiency from battery to wheels of 80-90%. Most gas engines sit at about 20%. Provided your public utility has some measure of efficiency to their electric production, you can do a lot of good in this car.

I wouldn't be describing this car properly without describing the interior. The Roadster's insides look similar but have been improved over its sister cars from the UK. Door sills have been lowered to make entrance easy (although still requiring some level of acrobatics) the leather seats are more comfortable and heated, the premium stereo is a single DIN JVC KD-NX5000, which features DivX and DVD playback, as well as navigation and a 40GB HDD and iPod dock. The position of the stereo is sort of low on the dashboard. The stereo's imaging is superb and there's a sub somewhere in the tiny cockpit thumping away. There's an electric touch LCD on the left managing battery charge, tire pressure monitors, etc. Your ass is dragging probably 8 inches from the ground.

I can't afford this car. If I wanted something similar to this in shape, feel and performance, I'd probably buy a used Elise for $30k if I could get over the bug eyes. But I can assure you that a Tesla is still a hell of a a car, by electric or gas terms, even if its just a bit more portly and more expensive than a comparable Lotus. I mean, its fast. It's electric. It's efficient. It's sexy. And you can actually buy it if you're rich. And while Tesla as a company may have had some problems in manufacturing at first, they didn't wait for old industry to get off its ass and build something revolutionary. Like Android, I hope it catalyzes the fossil fuel makers traditional makers into a game of catch up with cars that are just as fast and efficient, and hopefully a lot cheaper. And if that doesn't leave you somewhat impressed, then you belong with the dinosaurs.

Note: Impressions from a 10 minute drive are going to be impressions from a 10 minute drive, nothing more.

[Special Thanks to Tim Ferriss for facilitating this drive and donating half of his drive time to me, and for photographer Monica Laipple for the better shots above. Some more videos over at Tim's site. ]