Renault has turned over a few photos of its all-new Alpine A110-50 ahead of the machine’s debut at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix. The new shots show off the sports car’s rear end for the first time. The total package looks more than a little like the Renault DeZir concept, though we’re told the chassis is borrowed almost entirely from the company’s Megane Trophy.

If the two machines share more than bones, that means we can expect to see a 3.5-liter V6 engine mounted mid-ship. The powerplant churns out 360 horsepower in standard guise, though the A110-50 is said to clear over 400 horsepower.

In addition to the few photos, Renault also served up a brief teaser video showing the covered machine as it is being unloaded from a transport. Check it out for yourself, and stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Remember the wall that was also a television in Total Recall? That’s the inspiration behind Surfaces — a concept device produced by British cable mavens NDS. Abandoning the idea of a single screen, the company mounted six displays into a wall that offers up TV and internet content when on, and blends into your wallpaper when off. The setup will even control your room’s lighting for those particularly emotive X Factor performances and you control the whole thing with your iPad (while tweeting, bitchily about the show). However, before you storm the company’s Staines headquarters looking to buy one, there are a few obstacles you should know about. Firstly, this amazing setup cost over $30,000 and secondly, it only really works if you’ve got plenty of content filmed in 4K — but don’t worry, Peter Jackson’s working on it.

SOURCE via Wired

The term “smart home” seems to turn up in tech circles every so often, only to fade into the background again without much sign of ultra-connected dwellings becoming a reality. Honda’s at least putting one foot forward, with a just-unveiled test house in Saitama, Japan featuring a system for controlling and monitoring energy usage. The Honda Smart Home System (HSHS) consists of thin-film solar cell panels, a rechargeable home battery unit, gas and hot water supply systems and the Smart e Mix Manager. The latter is the central part of the energy-control system, and it keeps track of all the other components in addition to monitoring the home’s use of power supplied by the grid. In emergency situations, it can also provide electricity via the home battery unit. On the day-to-day level, however, the system is there to let home owners know what sources of power they can kill. Honda also integrates its Japan-only Internavi system for controlling home appliances remotely. The car maker hopes to use the house for extensive demo testing, with an ultimate goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 50 percent. No word on how many decades till we actually call this sort of place home, though.

SOURCE via Honda

Remember Nokia Morph? It’s the Finnish manufacturer’s long-standing project to build a transparent, flexible phone that you can contort to your heart’s content. Now the company’s submitting a second missive to the Patent and Trademark office in the hope of claiming dibs on the IP contained therein. While it’s very broadly written (and doesn’t commit to anything), it’s interesting to note that the phone would switch between the leaf-shaped candybar and a wristband you can wear on the go. The patent also talks about a “remote processing unit,” in a nearby device or in the cloud, so, if the company can ever turn the dream into reality, the real action will be handled elsewhere. Then again, it’s equally as likely to never appear in our lifetimes, you just never can tell with patents.

SOURCE via USPTO

It’s been almost a year since we last wrote about the BMW i8 being winter-tested and here it is again — this time in production prototype form — doing donuts (!) in the snow. This plug-in gasoline electric hybrid vehicle started life as the Vision EfficientDynamics, promising sub five-second 0 – 60mph times while still achieving an impressive 87mpg (2.7 liters per 100km). We last saw the i8 concept at the Frankfurt Motor Show but the sporty coupé with the funky gullwing-like doors isn’t expected in BMW showrooms until sometime in 2014. So for now just sit back, relax and check out the video above.

Themaltake and BMW’s DesignworksUSA are apparently a design-team match made in PC gaming heaven. After previously partnering up for the elegant (and functional) Level 10 modular PC case, the two are back it again — this time with a focus on peripherals.

While details are sparse, the Level 10 M mouse concept you’re looking at is the first of the bunch to be revealed, and it’s said to arrive sometime during the spring. It’s not exactly a shoe-in for MadCatz’s Rats, but considering the wire and an aggressively breathable design, it’s clearly aimed pro-gamers.

Sadly, key specs like its DPI rating and details about any macro functionality are currently non-existent, however, it does appear to be of the optical variety. Here’s to hoping it’ll perform just as good at as looks to the eyes.

We’ve seen plenty of round mice, including Apple’s infamous puck, and many devices that derive power from a yo-yo-like pull string mechanism. So we’re not quite sure why we’ve never seen those two concepts married before. In retrospect, a wireless mouse charged by the kinetic energy of using it as a yo-yo seems like a painfully obvious idea. As an added bonus, this tiny pointer with an LCD battery gauge makes you get up every so often and get your limbs moving — thus saving you from chronic back pain. Huzzah! Of course, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever actually see one of these on shelves. Check out the source for a few more pics.

SOURCE via Yanko Design

Nokia appears to have dislodged some huge creative blockage, beginning with its decision to back a new smartphone horse. Today we get yet another concept handset, revealed at Nokia Conversations. The GEM offers up an utterly customizable appearance that doubles as the interface. Following its naming convention, the user “polishes” the appearance of the phone, constantly tweaking it to suit their needs. The full-body touchscreen could offer up advertising on the back of the phone during calls, subsidizing costs, or media sharing done with some physical gesturing. See these glittering features shine in the ethereal design video right after the break.

SOURCE via Nokia

If the above image is to be trusted, what you spy with your little eye may be the very first BlackBerry smartphone to sport RIM’s QNX-based operating system, known more recently as BBX. With bold angular lines that smack heavily of the P’9981, this touchscreen slab (code-named “London”) is said to be thinner than the iPhone 4 and will dutifully stand tall when placed on its side. Before you get too excited, however, keep in mind that the above image could very well be a concept, prototype — or, even a masterful forgery. For what it’s worth, The Verge was informed that this model is merely a dummy unit, although the actual device is alleged to contain a 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage. An 8-megapixel rear camera is also said to be in the mix, along with a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter and a June 2012 release date. Sure, it’s easy to be excited about Waterloo’s forthcoming wares, but sadly we’re forced to take this one with a heapin’ spoonful of skepticism. So, who’s excited to meet Mr. London?

SOURCE via The Verge

A new video has unearthed the deceptively named Humanform. Fortunately not shaped like a dolly, this teardrop device cooked up Nokia’s in-house labs supposedly uses some as-yet unexplained nanotechnology, with a bendable transparent display and a fully touch sensitive casing. The segmented design also channels some Wiimote-esque gesture features and twist controls seen on the phone behemoth’s Kinetic Device. An inert Humanform shell was also on show alongside it last month, although it didn’t do much aside from bending. See if you agree with Nokia’s vision of the mobile future after the break.

SOURCE via Nokia