Five specialized racing machines met on a frozen lake in Eagle River, Wisconsin, where temperatures sat at minus 17 degrees Celsius and the ice stretched across 107 acres. Oracle Red Bull Racing brought its 2011 championship-winning RB7 Formula 1 car, the same machine Sebastian Vettel used to claim the title, and placed it against a KTM RC16 MotoGP bike, a Subaru WRX ARA rally car, a Pro 4 off-road truck, and a Ski-Doo 440 snowmobile. Red Bull built custom courses for each vehicle so that natural advantages in the cold would not decide the result before the start. Shorter inside lines favored the Formula 1 car and the motorcycle while the snowmobile, most at home on the surface, ran the longest route.
Many people looked at Apple’s new HomeView and saw another smart display destined for the kitchen counter. Early hands-on time suggests the device aims for a quieter role, one that sits still most of the day and only steps forward when someone walks up.
Guests at Aquarabia can now settle into a two-person vehicle and follow a track that drops them completely beneath the surface for several minutes. Aquaticar, the ride that opened this spring at the large water park outside Riyadh, uses ordinary air bubbles to push each car forward while a clear canopy keeps riders dry from the mid-chest up. Their legs sit in the water the whole time, so the lower half of the body feels the temperature and movement of the pool while the upper half stays in fresh air that is constantly refreshed from pipes under the track.
Year-round ice cream fans keep a container ready in the freezer, and the Ninja Creami Scoop and Swirl Ice Cream Maker, priced at $279.99 today (was $350), turns those frozen bases into cones even after the holidays arrive. Instead of relying on a built-in freezer that chills a liquid while it churns, the machine starts with a solid block of mix that has sat overnight. Pour store-bought eggnog or a blended pumpkin puree base straight into one of the included 16-ounce pints, snap on the lid, and leave it level in the freezer for a full 24 hours. Once that block is hard, the real work begins on the counter.
