2013 Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster

On the heels of the successful coupe introduced in 2011, the House of the Raging Bull is now offering the convertible version of the Aventador - the 2013 Lamborghini Aventadore LP 700-4 roadster.

The two-piece roof of the 2013 Lamborghini Aventador roadster is made entirely from carbon fiber. Each component is extremely light, weighing less than 6 kg. Being lightweight and simple to attach, the two parts can be easily removed and stored in the front luggage compartment.

The rear pillars in the new car have been redesigned to offer support for the removable roof, accommodate an automatic protection system for passengers and provide the engine compartment with ample ventilation. Engine hood also gets a bit of redesign and sports a more aggressive look than the coupe version.

The 2013 Lamborghini Aventodor roadster features a powered rear wind screen and wind deflectors to keep civilized conversations going in the cabin area. The new Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster features new Dione 20'/21' rims with a daring, aggressive look. Crafted in light forged aluminum, they lower the weight of the vehicle by 10 Kg as compared with the standard set of rims.

A centrally located, 6.5 liter aspirated V12 generating 700 hp, an ISR 7-speed gearbox and push-rod suspension make the new Aventador Roadster a unique super sports car that accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in only 3 seconds flat and has a maximum speed of some 350 km/h.

Of course the Roadster's V12 also includes a cylinder deactivation system when the engine is working at partial capacity, while the innovative, instant Stop Start system includes high-performance capacitors known as supercaps to awaken the engine. This is an absolute first in the super sports car segment.

The new Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster is a dream that can be realized and ordered at any Lamborghini dealer in the world for the price of 300,000 euro, excluding taxes.

2013 Lexus LS launched in UAE

Al-Futtaim Motors, exclusive distributor for Lexus in the UAE, has announced the arrival of the new 2013 Lexus LS in the country. The model range includes the LS 460 - in standard and long wheel base versions, the LS 600h hybrid and an all-new LS 460 F SPORT.

Prices start from AED 325,000 for the base model of 2013 Lexus LS F Sport and goes right up to AED 495,000 for the top of the range long wheel base version of the luxury sedan. For the environmentally sensitive, the LS600h V8 top of the range hybrid car comes at a ticket price of AED575,000.

The 2013 Lexus LS is a re-skinned version of the already popular previous generation LS and gets the new family face - the splindle grille, smacked loud and clear on its nose. Not as much as the outside, the interior of the new LS has undergone a complete change and those who have owned a LS in the past will instantly notice this.

The 2013 Lexus LS sedan boasts 3 world's first and 15 Lexus first features. Advance Interior illumination, improved climate control system and pre-collision safety systems are touted as world first by the Japanese car maker.

The cars are now available in the showrooms across the country. If you are in the market for premium luxury sedan, the 2013 Lexus LS is a compelling car to keep in the potential buy basket.

2013 Honda Civic first images released

The highly anticipated refreshed model of the ninth-generation Honda Civic is finally here. Honda has revealed the first look of the 2013 Honda Civic Sedan in advance of its debut at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show on November 29.

The vast majority of updates for the 2013 Honda Civic are only skin-deep and Honda says that the Civic has been 'honed to make the segment's best-selling car even better.' Up front there is a new open-mouth lower bumper with a horizontal chrome accent and a sportier, black honeycomb mesh grille anchored by new integrated fog lights on upper trims. The grille is flanked by new clear-lens corner lights to provide a better look. The more sculpted front end flows into a new, more deeply faceted hood, complemented by a collection of sharp new wheel designs.

In the back, a new rear bumper design and new rear trunk lid are capped by a clean, horizontal chrome trim piece. The all-new design of the jewel-like taillights now carries into the trunk face, providing a more upscale look. The rear bumper features integrated reflector treatments and a new lower diffuser panel finished with a honeycomb mesh vent. A host of new alloy wheels will also be offered.

Honda has not yet revealed any other details regarding the aforementioned 'safety, feature, comfort, chassis and interior styling enhancements' or even the mechanical changes that will round-out the 2013 Honda Civic. We certainly do hope there is more to offer as far as engine, chassis and suspension set-up is concerned.

2013 Audi A6 and A7 Black Edition announced

Audi has unveiled Black Edition versions of the A6 and A7 in the UK. Each model will come with a set of rotor-design wheels and feature a lower sports suspension borrowed from the company's S Line kit. The rotor-design alloy wheels have a dark titanium finish and are a 20-inch diameter in the A6 Saloon and Avant or 21 inches in the A7 Sportback.

Designers swapped the standard grille, license plate surrounds and window trim for blacked-out pieces. Inside, the cars get Piano Black inlays which complement the sports seats upholstered in black Valcona leather and the black headlining. In the A6 models the foundation S line specification also brings features such as exclusive S line exterior and interior styling enhancements, satellite navigation, Bose sound system, light and rain sensors, xenon headlights and LED rear lights, the Audi drive select adaptive dynamics system, the Audi parking system plus and keyless go. On top of these, the A7 Sportback also includes extras such as powered tailgate operation, electrically adjustable front seats and a powered retractable rear spoiler.

Buyers will have to wait until early 2013 to take delivery. Prices start at £35,010  for the A6 Sedan Black Edition and rack all the way up to £50,575 pounds for the A7 Sportback Black Edition. It’s still not sure as to whether the car will be introduced to the Middle Eastern market or not, but keep an eye on Auto MiddleEast.com for more info.

'World's Fastest Supercomputer' Crowned in US

In the clash of the world's supercomputing titans, a new U.S. supercomputer named "Titan" is king.

The $100-million Titan seized the No. 1 supercomputer ranking on the Top500 List with a performance record of 17.59 petaflops per second (quadrillions of calculations per second). The supercomputer, a Cray XK7 system based at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leaped past the former champion, the Sequoia supercomputer at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The top five supercomputers in the world are:

1. Titan Cray XK47 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (17.59 petaflops/s)
2. Sequoia BlueGene/Q at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (16.33 petaflops/s)
3. Fujitsu's K computer at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan (10.51 petaflops/s)
4. The Mira BlueGene/Q computer at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill. (8.16 petaflops/s)
5. The JUQUEEN BlueGene/Q computer at the Forschungszentrum Juelich in Germany. (4.14 petaflops/s)

U.S. supercomputers had fallen behind China's Tianhe-1A supercomputer and Japan's Fujitsu K Computer starting in 2009, but staged a comeback with Sequoia's rise in 2012.

Sequoia's 1,572,864 computing cores actually outnumber Titan's 560,640 cores, but not all computing cores are created equal. Titan draws 90 percent of its performance from having 261,632 of NVIDIA's new K20x accelerator cores.

The NVIDIA accelerator cores use the same graphics processing unit (GPU) technology that drives graphics cards for displaying video games. GPUs run tasks on many different "threads" that may run slower than traditional threads on central processing units (CPUs), but GPUs make up for that by running many more threads simultaneously.

GPU-driven supercomputers will become even more crucial in building the next generation of "exascale" supercomputers that would work 1,000 times faster than today's supercomputers. That's because GPUs use far less energy than the CPUs that have traditionally driven computing.

Titan used the new Tesla K20x accelerators to achieve an energy efficiency of 2,142.77 megaflops per watt (million calculations per second per watt), enough to also rank Titan No. 1 on the Green500 list of the world's most energy-efficient supercomputers.