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I’ve never seen a ninja on a bicycle.

Then again, if a ninja did ride a bicycle, would I see him? Stealth is kind of important for those guys.

So, if you asked me to find the best bike for a ninja to ride, I’d pick this one: BMC’s UC01 city bike.

This thing has stealth in spades. Its matte black paint job is dressed with black decals, and there are just enough red highlights to make it mysterious. But the real stealth feature is the silent Gates carbon belt drive that replaces the typical chain.

For non-ninjas, a quiet ride isn’t really a feature worth salivating over, even though the startling silence of the bike is enjoyable on the occasions when you find yourself away from the noisy traffic of the city. But where the carbon belt really shines is in its practicality. Developed for industrial use (think saws, drills, and other machines with fast-moving drivetrains) and increasingly found on motorcycles, carbon belt drives require almost no maintenance, repel water, dirt and mud, and supposedly last about twice as long as metal bike chains.

Gates’ CenterTrack system, which puts a small ridge down the centerline of the drivetrain, keeps the belt from wiggling from side to side as you pedal. And because the belt doesn’t require oil or lube, you don’t have to roll up your pant leg — a perk I appreciated more than I thought I would. BMC has kept the bike even more low-maintenance by wrapping the belt around an 11-speed Shimano Alfine internally geared hub. Those 11-speeds gave me a wide enough range for all but the steepest climbs here in San Francisco.

One drawback of an internally geared hub is weight, and the UC01 wasn’t immune. The triple-butted aluminum frame and carbon fork are lightweight, and the added heft of the hub is enough to make it noticeably tail-heavy. Between that and the straight bars, the bike is great for cruising along at speed, but doesn’t give a ton of power when accelerating away from a stoplight.

BMC has years of experience building traditional racing bikes — the Swiss company sponsored 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans — but is making its first foray into belt-driven bikes with the UC01. The company has been bringing UC01s on tour for its racing team to use when they want to tool around in town before and after races. (They even produced a special model for Evans’ home use: the super-light MC01.)

To spec out the UC01, BMC mostly uses Shimano’s Alfine components — the company’s high-end “comfort” line — and they don’t disappoint. The hydraulic disc brakes gave great stopping power, but retained sensitivity even in the rain. The slick Shwalbe tires, also standard, are fast yet cushy, and the Fizik grips and saddle are both stylish and comfortable.

These are premium parts, and the bike’s price tag reflects that. The model I rode was the European version of the UC01, which sells for 1,900 euros, or about $2,420. (Later this year, American customers will see a model using the same frame but with slightly different specs priced at $2,000.) You really feel like you’re riding a luxury machine. It’s obvious BMC didn’t skimp anywhere except the pedals, though a lot of bikes don’t even come with pedals to begin with.

One oddity with my test bike was the 26-inch wheelset — the European version of the UC01 I rode comes with the smaller, mountain-bike-sized wheels. The bike is consequently a bit squirrelly until you get used to it. An optimist would call it “nimble,” and that it is, especially in traffic.

The aforementioned, less-expensive American version will sport a more road-friendly 700c wheelset as an option, and will come with an 8-speed hub. Also, the American version of the UC01 only comes with a silver paint job for now, though we’ll have the option of buying the same black-on-black version with the 11-speed hub next year.

So no stealth bikes for us just yet. But then, we can’t all be ninjas.

WIRED Smooth ride, smooth style. High-end parts. Belt drive is as slick and silent as can be. Braze-ons for rear rack mounting. Internal hub offers plenty of options, and you can shift gears even when you’re stopped.

TIRED Frame design is not conducive to acceleration. Aggressive posture may alienate some cyclists. Pricey. Wheelset, gearing and color choices are limited by geographical location.

Photos by Jon Snyder/Wired

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/bmc-uc01/

A GT500CR surveys its less-lucky friends at Plakos Scrap Processing in Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Anthony Barbato

I sat staring at Carroll Shelby’s signature on the passenger-side dashboard of my GT500CR tester.

It was just days before the legendary Texan left us for that big racetrack in the sky. Shelby rocked automotive culture more times than most folks move apartments in his 89 years on earth — from winning Sports Illustrated‘s “Driver of the Year” award in 1956 and 1957 to building the Ford-powered AC roadster that defeated the then six-time champion Ferrari team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans two years straight.

And there I was, getting ready to drive a replica of his souped-up 1967 Mustang many have come to affectionately know as “Eleanor.” Reflecting on my experience now, a week after his passing, I can’t help but feel as if I were fated to drive the car.

Shelby raced, designed and collaborated on countless track and street machines during his illustrious campaign, but among his more widely known works are the snarling GT350 and GT500 Mustang mash-ups manufactured between 1965 and 1970.

Eleanor was one of these beasts. But of course, I wasn’t driving the real thing. My tester was a “restomod,” a version of the original metal that’s been restored accurately, but also upgraded with modern components.

According to Jason Engel, founder of Classic Recreations, the Oklahoma-based company officially licensed to build the Shelby GT500CR, a restomod is often better than the real thing. Technology and auto design have advanced considerably since the muscle cars’ heyday of the late ’60s and early ’70s, and such a machine shows its age today.

“The steering, suspension, skinny tires, heavy motor and dated cooling system mean it’s great for car shows or a quick cruise around the neighborhood, but not much fun to drive on a regular basis,” Engel says.

Restomod shops keep the vintage look, but update the suspension, the steering and the brakes, and also add things like fuel injection and A/C. The finished product has all the charm and appeal of a vintage ride, but with the reliability and driving experience of a modern vehicle. There’s certainly no denying that the restomod GT500CR possesses the soul of original, but I still wouldn’t recommend one of these babies for daily grinds to work in rush-hour traffic.

“Restomod buyers want something representative of history that actually works,” says Tom DuPont, founder of DuPont Registry, a marketplace for fancy, expensive cars, ‘bots and other luxury lifestyle accoutrements. “You want to satisfy that nostalgic urge with a current version of the real thing. Think of it as a practical car you don’t mind leaving out in the rain at the country club.”

Classic Recreations is licensed by Shelby American to build ’66 and ’67 Shelby continuation vehicles. Each one is fitted with an official Shelby serial number that’s included in in the Shelby Registry. CR has been building these cars for only a few years — it picked up the business after the previous licensee, Texas-based Unique Performance, had its door busted in by the police during a fraud investigation for VIN irregularities in 2007.

CR starts with a real ’67 steel Mustang body (not a GT500 body), stripping it down to its skivvies and stuffing it with all manner of modern upgrades: coil-over-shock suspension in the front and rear, cross-drilled and zinc-washed brakes, a Mass Flo fuel-injected 7-liter engine with 545 hp and 5-speed Tremec transmission. Any sheet metal that’s been damaged or allowed to rust over the last 45 years is replaced, and the overall structure is reinforced to handle the extra power. (The engines in ’67 Mustangs varied dramatically, running either 6 or 8 cylinders and starting as low as 115hp.) Shelby-licensed body panels — listed in the brochure as “authentic Carroll Shelby Exterior Fiberglass enhancements” — and signature accessories and gauges complete the look. And, boy, does it look real.

In all, a dozen skilled craftsmen spend some 2,500 hours — about four months — building each one.

Safety cables keep the hood closed so it doesn’t blow off at 110 mph. Photo by Anthony Barbato

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Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/shelby-gt500cr/

The basic eBeam Edge kit includes a marker-like stylus and small wall-mounted device to track its movements. Photo courtesy of eBeam/Luidia

Except for the spiciest bits of The Social Network and the Steve Jobs biography, pretty much everything that happens in a conference room is boring.

Meetings are boring, presentations are boring, and whiteboards are boring. But here’s a piece of technology that makes all three more exciting — which admittedly isn’t that difficult, but stay with me.

It’s called the eBeam Edge, made by Luidia. It’s a handwriting capture system that adds an interactive element to whatever you’re viewing on your wall, allowing you and your colleagues to annotate a projected image or document, or to sketch something on a whiteboard, and e-mail the results around like a memo.

The eBeam is just one entry in the “interactive whiteboard” category — devices that let you virtually draw on any vertical surface using a special pen and have it captured electronically by a combination of hardware and software. Some of these systems use touchscreens or pressure-sensitive displays, some use interactive projectors, and others use special whiteboards. Luidia’s device is simpler and less expensive than those, since it uses things you already have around the office: a regular projector hooked up to a Windows PC.

In the basic eBeam kit (priced between $900 and $1,050 around the web), you get a fat, marker-like stylus and a hardware sensor that connects to your PC via USB or Bluetooth. This sensor, which is about the size of a candy bar, attaches to the wall using a non-permanent adhesive (a couple of 3M Command strips). You just stick it next to whatever flat surface you want to use to make your presentation, then point the projector at that surface. To calibrate it, you tap the stylus on the nine points projected on the wall. The whole setup process takes less than five minutes.

Once everything’s running, you can draw images or write text with a surprising level of accuracy. The eBeam’s stylus, which has a AAA battery inside, is tracked by the flat capture strip you’ve fastened to the wall. The tracking is pretty good — there is some lag, but it’s not too annoying. It’s about the same amount of latency I’ve experienced using a stylus on a smartphone like the Galaxy Note, or a Wacom Bamboo stylus on an iPad. You just have to remember to write a little more slowly and deliberately than normal.

Since it works on any flat surface, you can project the eBeam environment onto a map, a large-scale design mockup, or a large printed image. Where it really shines is when you use it in conjunction with a whiteboard. As part of my test, Luidia also sent me its whiteboard Capture Pack ($250 extra), a set of sheaths for regular whiteboard markers that have the eBeam tracking mechanism (the same one found in the stylus) built in. This way, you can draw on the whiteboard and have your every stroke recorded and captured. The sheaths are colored to match the common colors of whiteboard markers, and the software records the appropriate color — two people can use two different markers and keep their notes separate.

Photo courtesy of eBeam/Luidia

The low point here is the software. Pressing one of the two buttons on the stylus brings up a radial menu (called the eBeam Tool Palette) that lets you choose between functions like freehand writing, highlighting, drawing arrows, erasing marks and flipping through the stack of open documents. Unfortunately, these menus are not that intuitive and take some getting used to, especially if you’re one of those people who lives and breathes PowerPoint. Also, and this is odd, the menus are not as responsive as the writing functions. I experienced too many misplaced taps of the stylus, and sometimes I had to tap twice or three times to get the software to react.

eBeam’s software suite does have plenty of options for building and delivering presentations — slideshow tools, master pages, navigation elements to move forward and backward through a deck — and it has some collaborative features like the ability to stack transparent layers on top of your presentation, or to share your whiteboard with other users over the internet. But coming into the eBeam environment cold, it wasn’t exactly clear to me how these features work (and yes, I’ve been at this a very long time). A few web searches and YouTube videos had me sorted out eventually, but it was more time than I expected to spend learning how to use a piece of presentation software.

Obfuscated user interfaces aside, Luidia’s system works well enough for me to recommend it. But it’s a very niche product with a steep price and negligible payoff. If you work in an environment where collaborative communion is the lifeblood of your organization — not just presentations, but constant prototyping, brainstorming, group critique and swapping of ideas — then the eBeam could wipe away your whiteboard woes. But for the average office, it’s a flashy, expensive solution to a problem that probably doesn’t exist.

WIRED Mark up any document or image electronically and save it for perpetuity. Works on any wall or any flat, wall-mounted object. Uses the projector and PC you already have. Stylus is easy to use, and drawing surface is easy to calibrate. Optional capture pack enhances the boring whiteboard with the addition of computer magic.

TIRED Software needs work. Any projector will do, but a projector is required. MSRP is $1,050, but it’s available for around $900 — still very expensive. Latency could be an issue for the over-caffeinated drones from sales and marketing.

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/ebeam-edge/

Our new fave in the Android realm. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The HTC One X is one of the best smartphones on the market, and the best Android phone you can buy right now, period.

It’s fast, it’s gorgeous, it’s lightweight and it has a stellar battery that lasts all day. The camera is also outstanding. It’s the best I’ve seen on an Android phone, though it falls just short of the camera on the iPhone 4S.

It’s not just the hardware — the One X runs version 4.0 of Android, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, which is overlaid by HTC’s own Sense skin. It’s fast and easy to use. Combine that with the excellent hardware and you’ve got a handset worthy of being a flagship device for both HTC and ATT (even though you might have to wait a bit to get one).

In fact, the one thing I really don’t like about the One X is its exclusivity to ATT, the only carrier that sells the phone in the U.S. It’s a shame this phone isn’t available on T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon.

Android handset makers don’t have the same leverage as Apple when it comes to dealing with telecommunications companies, so they continue to pump out a few slightly different versions of every phone, each one exclusive to a different carrier. It’s unnecessary and insane — HTC produced more than 50 different handsets last year alone.

The One X, being a stellar phone, serves as a testament that Android handset makers should go the iPhone route and make fewer phones of higher quality available through multiple carriers. The hardware companies would of course gain from this, but the payoff for the consumer would be huge as well.

To wit: Nearly every quibble I had with the T-Mobile-exclusive One S — a fine mid-range handset being sold at a flagship price — was fixed in the One X.

My biggest complaint with the One S was its display, and the feature I enjoyed most on the One X was — you guessed it — the display.

The One X has a 4.7-inch, 1280×720 IPS LCD touchscreen, covered in Corning’s durable, crystal-clear Gorilla Glass. The viewing angles on the screen are some of the best I’ve seen on a smartphone. Colors are bright and accurate, producing consistently true-to-life images across websites and apps. Pixel edges are indistinguishable with the display’s density of 316 pixels per inch.

Let me put it this way: The One X’s screen is on the same level as the iPhone’s Retina display. I love looking at it, and it blows away the PenTile displays found on the One S and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (my former favorite Android handset).

Beneath the fantastic touchscreen, the One X is a beast, with a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage (the same set-up found in the One S). Performance is blazing-fast, and though the ATT handset doesn’t pack the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor found in Europe and Asia’s One X, it doesn’t feel any less capable. The U.S. model is just as good and just as impressive as what HTC is offering overseas.

The U.S. version of the One X, unlike its overseas counterpart, runs on ATT’s 4G LTE network, which is only available in a small number of cities right now. In San Francisco, the One X downloaded and uploaded data quickly, whether connected to ATT’s 4G LTE, 4G HSPA+ or 3G service.

But despite performing like a beast, the One X is also a beauty.

The 0.36-inch chassis is made of a single piece of polycarbonate, giving the handset a sophisticated look free of seams or gaps, as seen on past HTC hardware. Given its size, the phone is also surprisingly light, weighing in at 4.6 ounces.

The One X is a handsome, well-designed phone. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

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Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/htc-one-x/

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 micro four-thirds camera is available as a body only, or with a kit (shown) that includes a 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 lens and a flash. Photo by Jackson Lynch/Wired

The latest micro four-thirds camera from Olympus is clearly designed to appeal to all those hoary, wizened photographers who long for the good ol’ days.

Olympus’ new digital OM series is modeled after the company’s original, beloved OM film cameras from the 1970s. But the new OM-D line is not just some tossed-off homage — the first camera in the line, the E-M5, is a fantastic picture-making tool.

It makes excellent RAW and JPEG images, and it is certainly the most customizable compact today. And the thoroughly modern design — a magnesium-clad, weather-sealed body — is so masterfully executed that I bet a lot of the “if it’s not curvy, it’s crap” cognoscenti will be wooed by it.

At the heart of the E-M5 is a collection of core features that makes it quite possibly the best-performing micro four-thirds camera on the market today: a new 16-megapixel TruPic VI image sensor, a speedy processor, the five-axis mechanical image stabilization system, an articulated OLED touchscreen and a high-speed lens drive control.

Both RAW and JPEG images can fly into the E-M5 at a 9fps burst rate with awfully impressive results up to ISO 6,400. Olympus’ default algorithms tend to over-sharpen JPEGs (this can be dialed down in-camera), but they are still on par with the tops in the mirrorless realm. RAW images are equally pleasing, with lots of highlight and shadow latitude for creative control once they’re downloaded.

Using the E-M5′s controls and dialing in custom settings is deceptively easy. The two wheels at the top of the body are the hub of the control center, and they can be set to operate different functions in a host of combinations to suit your shooting preferences. The Movie Record, Fn1 and Fn2 buttons are also configurable to 50 different settings. Once you get it set up to your taste, you won’t be missing great shots while fumbling through menus.

Photo by Jackson Lynch/Wired

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Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/olympus-om-d-e-m5/

The design of Altec Lansing’s inAir 5000 speaker is rather cutting-edge. Photo by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Freed of the 30-pin connectors, buttons and recessed charging ports required on traditional smartphone speaker docks, AirPlay device manufacturers are given the liberty to pursue more creative designs. We’ve seen some oddball shapes as the result.

This AirPlay speaker, the Altec Lansing inAir 5000, is one of the more striking specimens — it’s shaped like a giant axe head, with the “blade” pointing toward the sky.

The iOS-friendly music streamer doesn’t just look cool, it also happens to sound great as long as you keep it at moderate volumes. But it underperforms at higher volumes, and it suffers from the same network connectivity problems common in other AirPlay devices, making an otherwise solid product a bit of a disappointment.

The $500 inAir is some high-end hardware: The plain mesh-over-grill exterior hides two 3-inch Kevlar drivers, two 1-inch tweeters, and a 4-inch subwoofer. Volume controls are tucked away on one side, with AUX and headphone jacks on the opposite side. Two ports — an Ethernet port for wired networking and a USB port for setup/iOS devices — are located on the back, along with power, reset, and Wi-Fi syncing buttons. Since the streamlined inAir doesn’t have any kind of display, your only status indicator is a multicolored LED that flashes from the bottom of the unit.

There’s a handsome remote included, too. But since your iOS device controls it just fine, the ridiculously stylish brushed-aluminum clicker is one of the best-looking accessories you’ll never need.

Connecting the inAir to a Wi-Fi network is easy if you have an iOS device. I plugged an iPod Touch into the USB port, downloaded Altec’s free app, and then hopped straight into the setup. This app-driven express lane saves a great deal of time and eliminates the tedium of setting up wireless networking. Old-school browser-based setup is also an option too, but it’s really more of a backstop — more AirPlay manufacturers are turning to app-based setup, which is a good thing, as the early days of AirPlay were messy in that department.

I breezed through the essentials, (network passwords, device names) in just a few minutes, and then started streaming from iTunes immediately.

At its core, the inAir is an iOS companion device. Even though it pairs with a Windows PC running iTunes just fine, most of the wireless DJing perks are reserved for an iOS experience.

The inAir is a small step forward in terms of AirPlay connectivity. My review unit only dropped its connection a couple times a day while testing in my RF quagmire of an apartment. (Believe it or not, this is actually an improvement, given the relatively poor AirPlay experiences we’ve been dealing with over the past year.) But after a week of use, I noticed the inAir’s status LED had started flashing purple — it had dropped the network connection entirely. A hard reset and a quick re-run through the setup app got things cooking again. It’s a small hassle, but given the stability I enjoy with other wireless speakers, even one weekly instance like this is more than I’d prefer.

It’s too difficult to say whether these hiccups are due to the inAir device or the AirPlay platform, but it definitely has a negative impact on the convenience of wireless streaming.

So how does it sound? At mid-to-moderate volume level, the 8.5-pound speaker can deliver neighbor-waking bass. Thanks to some baked-in signal processing, the inAir produces that booming bass with virtually no distortion. The catch is that the DSP wizardry gets a little heavy-handed once you really pump up the volume.

Although the inAir gives you even more distortion-free volume once you crank it from “moderate” to “loud,” it does so at the cost of a lot of dynamic range. Basshounds will feel cheated with this duality, and hardcore audiophiles will undoubtedly take issue when the pleasantly sharp-edged highs, fully present at moderate volumes, grow flat and dull at higher volumes.

Warm mids across the board help sweeten an otherwise uneven package, but the issue is less about power and more about sophistication. At even moderate volume the inAir is great for blasting a room with the sounds of Hollywood explosions, bassy Skrillex warbles, or electric organ solos from The Black Keys. Concertos and Buddy Rich drum solos just sound loud and lack presence.

Good-but-not-great audio and wireless chops aren’t that uncommon these days, so it’s hard to say whether the inAir is a progression in the overall speaker space. However, as an AirPlay device it’s undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

The inAir doesn’t absolve AirPlay of its “work in progress” feel, but it does offer more in the way of stability than some of its first-gen competitors. If you don’t mind the occasional mid-playlist hiccup, aren’t too picky about EQing and are itching to burn $500, the inAir is a good investment. If you crave absolute wireless stability or a truly transparent audio experience, skip it.

WIRED Room rockin’ volume and bass. Great mid-range performance. Digital signal processing quashes distortion. Fast and nimble wireless music streaming. AUX port offers non-iOS versatility in a pinch.

TIRED Good sound at a not-so-good price. Randomly dropped connections are instant party-killers. Aggressive signal processing at high volumes. No battery = stationary tunes. No iOS cable included.

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/altec-airplay/

Can something as delicate and complicated as brewed coffee really succeed as a mass-produced canned beverage? Photo by Jon Snyder/Wired

On a hot day, a cup of ice-cold brew from the local coffee shop is a thing of eternal beauty.

But the typical artisanal iced coffee isn’t an option when you’re at the Safeway, hoarding snacks for a bargain matinee showing of Cabin in the Woods.

It’s 80 degrees out, and the heat is making you sleepy. As you gaze bleary-eyed at the “Cold Drinks” section, you spy a beautiful silver cylinder of something called illy Cappuccino. You pay your $3 for it, and, once nestled in the darkened theater, you pop the tab and tilt the can to your mouth just as the movie’s protagonists get to someone’s cousin’s cabin, which is obviously the most haunted place on Earth, when — Blegh! What is this I’m drinking?

If they’re going to call this terribly sweet substance with strong notes of Swiss Miss and metal a “cappuccino,” then they’d better call you Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because words are meaningless.

While ruining a good thing for the sake of convenience seems uniquely American, canned coffee was actually invented by the Japanese. According to Hidetaka Hayashi, president of the Hayashi Coffee Institute in Tokyo, pre-made coffee in cans may have been introduced to Japan as early as 1958, although it wasn’t until 1973, when Pokka Lemon Corp debuted the hot/cold canned coffee vending machine, that the drinks really took off.

Canned or RTD (ready-to-drink) coffee is now a $16 billion business (.pdf), and the U.S. is the second largest consumer of the stuff thanks to offerings from Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Trader Joe’s and even Wolfgang Puck.

It’s safe to say that canned coffee is having a moment. There’s just one problem: It doesn’t taste very good.

When I mentioned to a friend — an Italian who considers herself a coffee expert — that I was writing an article about the problems with canned coffee drinks, she looked at me like I’d said I was writing an article about how to make cats more like bananas. This dismissive (and dare I say, snotty) attitude was shared by all of the coffee connoisseurs to whom I so much as mentioned the words “canned coffee.” All except for one.

Peter Giuliano is the owner of North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee. He’s the guru of baristas everywhere and a cold-coffee expert. He is also a man intrigued by the possibilities of a good canned coffee. According to Giuliano — who even copped to wanting to create his own canned coffee — the main problem isn’t that pre-made coffee can’t be good. It’s that the way it’s currently made, with an emphasis on low cost, will never allow for a quality beverage.

“They’re not crafted. They’re manufactured,” he says. While this might be fine for something like Coca-Cola, it’s much harder to pull off with a highly unstable substance like coffee. There are thousands of chemical compounds in every cup, and according to Giuliano, more chemical reactions happen during the preparation of coffee than anything else we normally eat or drink.

So what makes the current crop of mass-market canned coffee so bad? In a word, heat. Because pre-made coffee must be able to sit unrefrigerated on a store shelf, it has to be sterilized, which in the case of canned coffee involves heating the ingredients to 250 degrees for about 15 minutes. Heating coffee for that long not only kills microorganisms, but also causes the naturally present acids to break down, making the coffee bitter.

Enter milk. As Giuliano tells me, the high concentration of milk and sugar in most canned coffees is likely an attempt by the manufacturers to counteract the bitterness. Unfortunately, the addition of milk brings on a whole other set of problems, namely that cooked milk acquires rancid notes like those found in condensed milk or tapioca. This cloyingly sweet smell is off-putting for many would-be canned coffee consumers.

The result of all this cooking is that canned coffee comes in two varieties: extra-sweet, with lots of milk and sugar, or stomach-achingly bitter, with minimal flavor additives. Often, the former will be marketed as “Latte,” “Mocha” or “Cappuccino,” but as far as I can tell, these titles are applied at random and can be ignored. Just know it has milk and sugar in it.

Make Your Own Cold Coffee

It’s the easiest fancy thing you’ll ever do.

1. Combine a half-pound of coarsely ground coffee with one liter of cold water.
2. Stir once.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and let steep for 12-24 hours.
4. Filter out grounds by pouring mixture through a fine mesh strainer lined with a coffee filter.
5. To serve, pour equal parts coffee concentrate and cold water into a glass filled with ice.

I chose four coffees for my taste tests. The choices were partly based on an attempt at diversity (milky, black, foreign, domestic) and partly based on availability, since, as it turns out, canned coffee is pretty difficult to find. If a store carries it at all, they typically only have one brand. I bounced all over Manhattan trying to locate an appropriate selection of beverages.

The first coffee I tried, and the only Japanese brand, was Boss Black, which I found in a Japanese convenience store near the East Village. It came in a cool black can emblazoned with the words “BOSS” and “BLACK” and a picture of a dude smoking a pipe.

But that was where its positive attributes ended. The coffee — if you want to call it that — was so stomach-achingly bitter that I, a person who always drinks black coffee and is typically not a sissy baby, couldn’t even finish the small can.

Next, I visited Trader Joe’s to get my hands on a can of the company’s “Latte.” The cutesy blue cylinder looked like something that might contain baby formula, and at just 75 cents per can, it was suspiciously cheap. So I wasn’t shocked when this “Latte” turned out to be aggressively sweet and milky, yet somehow watery at the same time and almost completely lacking in coffee flavor.

Surprisingly, the only palatable offering came not from venerable Italian coffee maker illy, whose issimo Cappuccino revolted me at the movie theater, but from Starbucks. The Doubleshot struck a good balance between coffee and milk and sugar, and had less of the metallic aftertaste that seems unavoidable in canned coffee. It was the only canned coffee I tasted that I would willingly drink again.

According to Peter Giuliano, canned coffee could be a whole lot better, and possibly even good, if companies used high quality beans and a pasteurization method like micro-filtration or flash pasteurization, neither of which require the coffee to be exposed to high heat for long periods of time.

In fact, good pre-made coffee already exists, albeit not in a mass market form. Brooklyn-based coffee roaster Kickstand makes a liquid coffee concentrate that can be shipped to consumers around the country. The coffee is made via cold extraction — the grounds sit in water for a minimum of 12 hours before being filtered. Because no heat is applied, this type of cold-brewed coffee is low in acidity and delicious without milk or sugar. Not adding milk has another benefit, which is that the coffee doesn’t have to be sterilized. Since cold-brewed coffee is essentially flavored water, the air-tight bottles stay fresh for around three months if kept in a cool environment.

Kickstand’s product is expensive, must be diluted before being consumed and can’t be bought at the store. So it isn’t exactly the answer to canned coffee’s problems. But it does demonstrate that, if made with quality in mind, pre-brewed cold coffee doesn’t have to suck.

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/canned-coffee/

The 2012 Porsche Cayman R is a proven attention-getter. Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

In this unprecedented age of obscene horsepower and affordable performance, the Porsche Cayman R is the Jenyne Butterfly of the sports car world.

Who is Jenyne Butterfly? Look her up, preferably not at work.

Ms. Butterfly’s sinewy muscles are cut on gracile bone, and articulate her long limbs with purposeful flexibility. She’s graced with the sort of physique you’d associate with an Olympic swimmer or an extreme yogi. She also possesses a preternatural ability to fling herself across a pole with fluid undulations that appear to disobey the laws of physics.

Extracting 330 horses from a mid-mounted 3.4-liter flat-six, Porsche’s compact two-seater is outpowered by $24,000 Hyundais. It’s also in no danger of winning any luxury accolades, and its superstar big brother, the 911, is undeniably more glamorous. And yet, this low-slung pipsqueak is also a punchy performer, an aggro animal that’s been pruned like a bonsai, resembling a sort of scaled-down supercar.

At 2,855 pounds (or 2,910 pounds with a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission), the Cayman R is the lightest road car built by Porsche. Luxuries like door grabs and sound insulation are swapped for nylon straps and road noise, and aluminum door panels save 33 pounds of mass. Stiffer bucket seats lighten the load by 26 pounds, while 19-inch wheels do their part by ditching 11 pounds of unsprung mass.

So serious is this car’s commitment to the art of asphalt acrobatics that air conditioning is a no-cost option, even though A/C comes standard on lesser Caymans. The same mass-o-phobes who probably don’t mind their musky stench polluting the non-air-conditioned cabin are likely to order the optional lightweight lithium battery for a $1,700 premium — it sheds 22 pounds, and, with its shorter profile, ever-so-slightly lowers the vehicle’s center of gravity.

Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

Those who are not fanatical about purebred sports cars won’t “get” the Cayman R. More than a few car geeks won’t, either. Many will likely cite that oft-recalled American metric, the Chevy Corvette, a potent but sometimes cloying jack-of-all-trades with a bigger, burlier personality. The Cayman R is, on the other hand, a heavy dose of mechanical minimalism wrapped in the deceptively familiar skin of status-symbol sheet metal — for better, or for worse.

If you climb in expecting the stark, carbon and Alcantara-slathered racecar aesthetic of, say, a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, the Cayman R’s elephant hide surfaces disappoint. Its glossy plastic trim color-matched to the car’s exterior won’t do it any favors, either (though it does enliven the otherwise stark cabin.) Even twisting the ignition key with your left hand in that age-old Le Mans tradition won’t betray this car’s brilliant but obfuscated soul. Its exhaust note lacks the gut-punching immediacy of a solid American V8 or a silky smooth German inline-6, but throw the shifter into first and let out the heavyish clutch, and instant comprehension of this car’s pugilistic personality shoots directly to the seat of your pants. In a good way.

Resting .78 inches lower than more pedestrian Caymans, the R bucks with every surface irregularity, conveying the nooks and crannies of the road like your tongue on a toasted English muffin. The steering wheel pulls right or left like it’s directly linked to the tie-rod mounts by cables, and thanks to the aforementioned weight savings and mid-mounted engine, the car’s low polar moment of inertia facilitates slalom course slithers like an anxious eel.

Transitional handling (i.e., what happens when steering input initiates weight transfer, triggering the kinetic chain of events that result in direction shifts) is so direct, the Cayman begs for swervy lane changes if only for the sheer adolescent thrill of it. Credit a taut chassis, stiffer bushings, and more aggressive suspension geometry for the dynamic gains. And if you complain about the washboard ride or vaguely unrefined engine intake sounds emanating from behind the firewall, you’re missing the point. Yep, this car is just like rock ‘n roll: if it’s too loud, you’re too old.

Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

Pages: 1 2 View All

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/porsche-cayman-r/

The 2012 Porsche Cayman R is a proven attention-getter. Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

In this unprecedented age of obscene horsepower and affordable performance, the Porsche Cayman R is the Jenyne Butterfly of the sports car world.

Who is Jenyne Butterfly? Look her up, preferably not at work.

Ms. Butterfly’s sinewy muscles are cut on gracile bone, and articulate her long limbs with purposeful flexibility. She’s graced with the sort of physique you’d associate with an Olympic swimmer or an extreme yogi. She also possesses a preternatural ability to fling herself across a pole with fluid undulations that appear to disobey the laws of physics.

Extracting 330 horses from a mid-mounted 3.4-liter flat-six, Porche’s compact two-seater is outpowered by $24,000 Hyundais. It’s also in no danger of winning any luxury accolades, and its superstar big brother, the 911, is undeniably more glamorous. And yet, this low-slung pipsqueak is also a punchy performer, an aggro animal that’s been pruned like a bonsai, resembling a sort of scaled-down supercar.

At 2,855 pounds (or 2,910 pounds with a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission), the Cayman R is the lightest road car built by Porsche. Luxuries like door grabs and sound insulation are swapped for nylon straps and road noise, and aluminum door panels save 33 pounds of mass. Stiffer bucket seats lighten the load by 26 pounds, while 19-inch wheels do their part by ditching 11 pounds of unsprung mass.

So serious is this car’s commitment to the art of asphalt acrobatics that air conditioning is a no-cost option, even though A/C comes standard on lesser Caymans. The same mass-o-phobes who probably don’t mind their musky stench polluting the non-air-conditioned cabin are likely to order the optional lightweight lithium battery for a $1,700 premium — it sheds 22 pounds, and, with its shorter profile, ever-so-slightly lowers the vehicle’s center of gravity.

Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

Those who are not fanatical about purebred sports cars won’t “get” the Cayman R. More than a few car geeks won’t, either. Many will likely cite that oft-recalled American metric, the Chevy Corvette, a potent but sometimes cloying jack-of-all-trades with a bigger, burlier personality. The Cayman R is, on the other hand, a heavy dose of mechanical minimalism wrapped in the deceptively familiar skin of status symbol sheetmetal — for better, or for worse.

If you climb in expecting the stark, carbon and Alcantara-slathered racecar aesthetic of, say, a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, the Cayman R’s elephant hide surfaces disappoint. Its glossy plastic trim color-matched to the car’s exterior won’t do it any favors, either (though it does enliven the otherwise stark cabin.) Even twisting the ignition key with your left hand in that age old, Le Mans tradition won’t betray this car’s brilliant but obfuscated soul. Its exhaust note lacks the gut-punching immediacy of a solid American V8 or a silky smooth German inline-6, but throw the shifter into first and let out the heavyish clutch, and instant comprehension of this car’s pugilistic personality shoots directly to the seat of your pants. In a good way.

Resting .78 inches lower than more pedestrian Caymans, the R bucks with every surface irregularity, conveying the nooks and crannies of the road like your tongue on a toasted English muffin. The steering wheel pulls right or left like it’s directly linked to the tie-rod mounts by cables, and thanks to the aforementioned weight savings and mid-mounted engine, the car’s low polar moment of inertia facilitates slalom course slithers like an anxious eel.

Transitional handling (ie, what happens when steering input initiates weight transfer, triggering the kinetic chain of events that result in direction shifts) is so direct, the Cayman begs for swervy lane changes if only for the sheer adolescent thrill of it. Credit a taut chassis, stiffer bushings, and more aggressive suspension geometry for the dynamic gains. And if you complain about the washboard ride or vaguely unrefined engine intake sounds emanating from behind the firewall, you’re missing the point. Yep, this car is just like rock ‘n roll: if it’s too loud, you’re too old.

Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

Pages: 1 2 View All

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/porsche-cayman-r/

With big cities around the U.S. and Canada celebrating Bike to Work Day, we want to remind you of the joys of pedal-based transport. Not only is it a path to a healthier lifestyle, but it’s fun and economical. So with gas prices and temperatures on the rise, the timing couldn’t be better to adopt a new motto: “Two wheels good, four wheels bad.”

The problem is, neither you nor your coworkers consider spandex appropriate for the office, and you don’t want to click-clack around Trader Joe’s in your carbon fiber cycling shoes.

Luckily, there’s a whole industry dedicated to making cycling apparel that doesn’t look like cycling apparel. From clipless bike shoes that look like Chuck Taylors to weatherproof work pants that sport reflective strips when you roll up the pant leg, there are countless pieces of cycling gear that let you cruise around town without looking like you’re gunning for the podium in Paris.

Mission Workshop Sanction Rucksack

Straying from the one-strap messenger-style bag, Mission Workshop’s Sanction Rucksack ($180) opts for the two-strap stability of a backpack design. The roll-top bag sports three pockets on the exterior and a padded laptop compartment in the main cavity. There’s also a big central pocket for stuffing a jacket or a pair of shoes. The Sanction has enough cavities to keep your stuff separated, but it could use some smaller compartments for pens, USB sticks and what-not.

On rides, the Sanction sat high on my back, and the sternum strap kept the pack from sliding around. Weatherproof material and urethane-coated zippers kept its contents bone-dry after riding through some aggressive spring showers. The roll-top flap let me cram extra gear into the bag when I maxed out its 16-liter capacity. And when I didn’t need to employ the roll-top, I dug the Arkiv closure system – the clipless, slip-in fasteners were quick, secure, and silent (which is more than I can say about the Velcro sewn onto the underside of the flap, possibly the noisiest ever created). —Billy Brown

WIRED Waterproof fabric and coated zippers. Comfortable to wear – chest strap and back padding ease heavier loads. Roll-top lid expands the 16-liter storage capacity. Deep external pockets.

TIRED Minimal interior organization. Velcro is loud as hell (and scary to those seated around you on an airplane). Lack of breathability leads to sweaty-back syndrome.

Photos by Jon Snyder and Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Article source: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/05/bike2work/