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Name: Rob
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| How soul music saved Sarah Blaskohttp://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/how-soul-saved-sarah/2009/07/03/1246127687198.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 Bernard Zuel
July 4, 2009 HOW bizarre, how bizarre. Sarah Blasko is sitting in what you could call, if you were being extremely generous, the "boardroom" of the little warren that is the Surry Hills office of her management company. It was in this room, sitting at "the crappy, out-of-tune piano" she calls Everett and keeping office hours and office habits, that she spent many weeks last year writing the songs that ended up on her new album, As Day Follows Night. There is no natural light but there is, directly above the piano, a framed platinum award for classic one-hit wonder, New Zealand duo OMC, whose song How Bizarre also summed up their career trajectory. "I did get quite philosophical looking at that," Blasko says with a hint of a smirk. "It made me realise just how short life is." Blasko, who is described by a good friend and fellow songwriter, Darren Hanlon, as having a goofy sense of humour (and a mean karaoke voice quite unlike her stage voice), is caught between laughter and seriousness in the shadow of OMC. It's an understandable position, really. "Looking at awards like that, for people who aren't necessarily around, it's like writing in a grave- yard. But I think it's always good to think about one's mortality, musical or otherwise." Fair enough but what was she doing working in an office? While she may dress like a primly stylish office manager-cum-librarian from the early 1970s (today she is in a high-necked, paisley-patterned grey-and-brown dress with little brown boots) you don't expect people to be creative in the shadow of the bundy clock. "I do think it's quite reassuring to see other people while you're working," says Blasko, explaining that she had been living alone in a little Newtown bolthole until recently. Perhaps even more pertinently, not only was she living alone but for the first time in her career she was writing alone. Her long-time personal and creative relationship with Robert Cranny, with whom she had written and produced the first two albums, had ended some time back. So at 32, the woman who always thought of herself more as a singer and writer than a musician was flying solo. "I felt like I had to. I felt like if I didn't do it now I would always wonder why," she says. "I really love writing with other people, I always have, but it was coming to a point where I was finding it a little frustrating with other people. Not because of them, it was just I felt I needed to not have any compromise." On the first listens of As Day Follows Night, it may sound like without compromise meant without the musical complexity and lyrical opaqueness of her quite stunning second album What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have. This is an album, much to the pleasure of her record label, that is simpler, cleaner and more optimistic than its predecessor. But take a closer look and you see that things are much more complicated than they first seem. It begins with Blasko declaring that she is "down on love", later she tells a putative lover "how can you know me/when I don't even understand me" and doubt and loneliness underpin even the sunniest melodies. At the Sydney Writers' Festival, she told the audience she had recently come out of a relationship and needed to make sense of that. But what you read first as romantic motifs across the record turn out to be, in part, more like songwriting tropes: it's easier to couch things in terms of love but this wasn't the tail-end of a love affair, it was the tip of something very close to depression. "To be honest, I genuinely went into quite a dark period and it was broader than just [a break-up]," Blasko says, her discomfort at the subject stark as she half turns away, tightly bound with her arms wrapped around herself. "It was a really, really tough time. One of those times when you feel like you are questioning everything in your life. You are questioning the main thing you do in your life, which is writing and playing music, feeling a bit of hopelessness." It was then that she found herself listening, really listening, to the likes of Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, and a lot of soul music. "These great singers who responded to heartbreak seemed really relevant to me when I was feeling kind of rock bottom, I guess, to use a cliche," she says now, adding with a half laugh of embarrassment at what she fears is another cliche. "I was emotionally exhausted." Three years ago, Blasko talked about feeling that she had finally been able to put aside some of the complications of her past, like her conflicted attitude to faith after a childhood in various pentecostal churches and an early unsuccessful marriage. She was ready to move on with greater confidence in her own ability to change, she says. But the propensity for darkness never really leaves, though this time Blasko chose not to wallow but instead to use the writing as a way out for her and as a pointer for others. "I think it's something that I am constantly struggling with. I don't know whether it's like a family curse but I think there is a darkness," she says. "That's why the record really had to be about pulling yourself out of that because anyone who's gone through any kind of depression or felt literally like you can't go on [knows] it's about changing the environment. These songs were in part that for me. "Stuff like Sleeper Awake and We Won't Run and Down On Love, they are all about that feeling of a loss of hope but desperately trying to find that again. Trying to make it into a positive." Blasko's answer clarifies a comment made about her by another Sydney songwriter, Josh Pyke, who has watched her from side stage ("She is fairly transcendent when she is performing," he says admiringly) and says he feels she is beyond his scope as a songwriter. "Some writers will lead you back to yourself with their words and their music but Sarah's music has always taken me right outside my own life and into a kind of romantic, imagined existence," Pyke says. "The sonic palette, her voice and the arrangements aren't at all parochial and for me, that creates a feeling of real escapism when I listen to her stuff." Escapism in one sense is what Blasko wanted this album to provide. Without the oblique lyricism she had favoured previously and with simple arrangements and straightforward music, the new album colours the emotional turmoil in a different hue. It is, as she keeps implying with her answers, something meant to be understood. Generous is a phrase she uses often to sum up her intention. "The thought of making - and I know it's a cliche - these things universal, to make them relatable to other people, was really important to me," she explains. "I didn't want to be unnecessarily wordy, just cut to the chase. And I think the idea of it, relating to other people, having that generosity, is what made me feel better. I feel that this is my project, to make something that's bigger than my story." This is why her choice to write on her own this time is all the more interesting. As Hanlon says, she went into this album terrified but determined to write it all by herself. Beyond confidence about whether she could do it, it would have been tempting to rely on other people to do the work, to take some of the spotlight off her and her singular concerns. She did change gears when she decided to record the album in Stockholm, with a more collaborative approach alongside Bjorn Yttling of power pop group Peter Bjorn and John ("That was just liberating," says Blasko of having another voice in the process) but the focus remained on being straightforward and transparent. Not just about the depression and the way out but also the mixed feelings she had about those moments of heightened emotion. "Much of the album is about that awakening, seeing things for what they are. That's probably why I chose that particular style of being obvious in a way," Blasko says. "It's like when everything around you becomes painfully clear and that's really wonderful, like a heartbreakingly good time. It's odd how at the hardest time there is almost something wonderful about it that you never want to lose; you don't want to lose that feeling of being really in touch with what's real and you can so easily forget those things when everything is easy and quiet. "So I think there's a bit of a wonder in it, which I really wanted to capture, that feeling that you are seeing everything anew, which is harsh and hard and revealing and good. Everything, at the same time." How bizarre? Not so much. As Day Follows Night is out on Friday. | | |
| Big Four get even bigger and wind back the clock on deregulationhttp://business.smh.com.au/business/big-four-get-even-bigger-and-wind-back-the-clock-on-deregulation-20090622-ctyv.html June 23, 2009 There's a commonly held belief that the reason our financial system emerged relatively unscathed from the worst of the global meltdown was because Australia's regulatory regime was far superior to that of other nations. There is an element of truth to that. But the overwhelming reason our financial institutions avoided the catastrophic excesses of their American and European cousins is that they so dominated financial services in Australia, they simply didn't need to take the risk. There was too much easy money to be made. That was then. Now they are even stronger, their power more concentrated over a greater range of services. And if there was any doubt that the global financial crisis was a godsend for our big four banks, it was dispelled by the National Australia Bank's $825 million purchase yesterday of the British-based Aviva's local life insurance and investment operations. NAB may have missed out on buying a distressed bank - such as St George, Suncorp or BankWest - during the worst days of the credit squeeze last year, but it now has taken pole position in insurance and wealth management. The purchase, when combined with its MLC brand, puts NAB ahead of the Commonwealth Bank, the industry giant in life insurance, and further marginalises the company that once dominated life insurance, AMP. As for wealth management, NAB has surged ahead of the Westpac-controlled BT. Four institutions now tower above our financial landscape covering everything from banking, wealth management, superannuation and insurance - and everything in between. How they choose to wield that power will be a test of our competition laws, which many believe were loosened during the financial crisis to ensure our banking system did not succumb to the meltdown. But at what price? If the revelations of the past 18 months are anything to go by, the prognosis is not encouraging. While US and European institutions were busy accumulating collateralised debt obligations, many now worthless, our banks concentrated on funnelling billions of dollars into areas such as margin lending. Rather than load up on risky assets in the hope of earning a profit, our banks opted to offload the risk to clients and rake in the fees. As was evident in the collapse of Opes Prime, Tricom and Storm Financial, that risk was transferred to the borrower. Our banks took security either over the shares - assuming direct ownership - or by lending against real estate. That is what any smart banker would do. But their ability to achieve this was aided by the one-stop-shop status our big banks have attained. Storm, in particular, became a conduit funnelling home loans, margin loans and investment products from the big banks to unsophisticated investors, many of whom clearly could not support the debts. The major banks now are backing down, only because of impending litigation or investigations by a parliamentary committee. But even the conciliatory promises to look after clients hurt by approval "shortcomings" have taken on a hollow ring. Take the CBA's promised "repayment holiday" to the 2500 clients who have been swept up in the Storm Financial collapse. If there was any holiday, it seems to have been a working holiday because the unpaid interest during the holiday period is simply being added on to the loan. If there is one positive to be taken from NAB's Aviva purchase yesterday, it is that its MLC division has been a driving force in the reform of fees and commissions, particularly trailing commissions. MLC boss Steve Tucker has campaigned for an end to the trailing commissions to financial advisers on superannuation products. MLC has paid the price in lost business as the advisers direct their business elsewhere. Now it is the new gorilla, MLC may well win the day. | | |
| Profile: Joe Procter - Blackfella Bankerhttp://thebigchair.com.au/news/radar/profile-joe-procter Australia's only indigenous investment banker is feisty, fast-talking and knows what he wants - a merger of capitalism and land rights - and how to get it.
The wind that roared in from the Arafura Sea ripped the house apart, forcing the family to take shelter in the bath. The Procters huddled together, a blanket the only shield from swirling lethal debris. When the little boy, torn between terror and excitement, finally found the bottle to peep out from under the cover, he was amazed. The lounge room was now outside, and chairs were floating in the pool.
Five-year-old Joe Procter's first memory is cyclone Tracy. Christmas Eve, Darwin, 1974. Seventy-one people died, but the boy was spared. The family lost everything, and were blown, figuratively at least, south, away from the tropics, to Perth, where they would start all over again.
The challenge of building something from nothing appeals to Joe Procter. It shapes his personal narrative and defines his professional mission. The boy in the bath is now Australia's sole indigenous investment banker. Procter, at only 39, has been mentored by the best and the brightest of the Australian business world. This fast-talking upstart, with the chutzpah and the networks to start his own venture-capital firm well before his 40th birthday, wants a new chapter in the land rights debate. He wants to close the book on passive welfarism. He wants to commercialise Aboriginal land rights.
Traditional owners don't need go-away money, or "cultural support" programs, they need ownership: preferably a direct stake in mining developments. "Ownership is everything as far as I'm concerned," he says. "Once you have a stake, your kids have something to grow towards."
Joe Procter is a man in a tearing hurry. And he makes absolutely no apology for it. The Procter CV unfurls like a carefully calibrated life plan, but life is rarely so elegant. It took a while to settle on his mission. In his teens and early 20s he worshipped at the altar of AFL, not high finance. On Aboriginal questions there was free-floating angst - "a chip on my shoulder".
He ran around the paddock for the Perth and West Perth clubs. He chased girls. He bummed through an accounting degree. Clinton Wolf, another up-and-coming indigenous leader from the west, a lawyer who worked with Procter on a landmark resources deal involving the Martu people, played footy with the young bloke in Perth. Procter was good, but Wolf, who played for the Fremantle Dockers, was better. What sort of a footballer was Joe? "He's a competitor," Wolf says.
Procter's father, Frank, was a bookie, from English stock. Procter's mother, Isabelle Adams, an Aboriginal, grew up in the territory's Pratt Camp. She wanted Joe to fulfil his potential. "Mum's five-foot-nothing, but she packs a punch harder than (retired US basketballer) Charles Barkley," Procter offers by way of necessary background.
Melbourne University professor Marcia Langton knew Adams in Darwin, where Adams segued from preschool teaching into the education bureaucracy, becoming superintendent of the Education Department. Joe's mum achieved a master of education degree.
"Distinguished", is how Langton describes her, stressing the close familial ties. "I also know his family from one of his grandparents in Cape York - the Wuthathi," she says.
But it wasn't so much the threat of the go-getting mother, as the siren call of the American business guru that provided the necessary focus. He loved to read. The 25-year-old, flopped on his bed in suburban Perth, started reading the tomes of Jack Welch (the GE chairman who penned works with less than subtle titles such as Winning and Winning: The answers confronting 74 of the toughest questions in business today). Procter also guzzled the success stories of the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.
His generalised angst eventually crystalised into a simple observation. The Perth man, courtesy of geography, enjoys a bird's-eye view of Australia's minerals wealth. It lies under the feet of the indigenous landholders - the remote desert dwellers, the poorest of the poor, who were often bought off with "cultural support" programs from big miners. Successive mineral booms had failed to improve the economic circumstances of traditional owners. They have land rights, but no mechanism to turn the rights into sustainable wealth.
The idea in prospect then - just a tiny thought bubble - was one Procter eventually achieved, with his mate Clinton Wolf. When Rio Tinto sold a valuable uranium deposit to a Canadian and Japanese consortium last year, Procter got the Martu to the table. The Martu are from the remote western desert of Western Australia, rabbit-proof fence country - some had not seen white people until the 1960s. They were granted native title in 2002.
The deal has not been fully disclosed, but reports suggest the traditional owners walked away with equity - possibly as high as 20 per cent - royalty payments, and cash. The proceeds will go to a trust, which has taken months to negotiate, and is still not complete. Brother Frank jnr, who works in Joe's firm, is still out on "desert duty" dotting i's and crossing t's, and trying to build consensus among a group with disparate interests. But Procter is determined that the revenue will be distributed in a way that rewards incentive, even if that's contentious with the community. If the traditional owners develop a business plan, they will get a larger share of the proceeds to invest.
To be able to pull off complex commercial transactions such as this, Procter needed a better education, and a rolled-gold business apprenticeship. An MBA seemed the obvious starting point. "At 25, I realised I was on my last legs as a footballer. I started putting together ideas that were important to me. We've been through three cycles and all the traditional owners are still some of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised people in the country. There is a chasm that hasn't been breached yet between traditional owners and their rights, and creating wealth. I thought a lot about the MBA before I did it," he says.
The thinking paid off. He made the Dean's List, was dux of strategic management and bagged the University of Western Australia executive leadership award. To make good his ambitions, Procter needed a stint in the energy industry, and he needed to master what he calls "business chess". He needed to learn the alchemy of investment banking.
Procter went to Woodside Petroleum. For six years he worked inside the business exposing himself to native title, finance, business strategy and external communication. And then, by chance, he came across a two-page proposal that seemed to represent his thinking on commercialising indigenous rights.
The young bloke picked up the phone and called Danny Gilbert, founder and managing partner of Gilbert + Tobin. As well as establishing one of the country's best known law firms, and working on boards, including his latest directorship of the National Australia Bank, Gilbert has a long track record in indigenous issues, starting with early volunteer work at the Redfern Legal Centre in the late 1970s.
Gilbert says he was thinking about a business model centred around equity and venture capital, where communities could leverage off their lands. "I'd been exploring those sorts of ideas with people like Peter Yu," Danny Gilbert recalls. "Joe heard I was interested in the idea, he contacted me, and said, 'I'd like to set this up with you."'
A nobody blackfella from Perth cold-calling one of Sydney's most prominent business people took gumption, but it didn't stop with the call. Procter promptly put himself on a plane from Perth to Sydney. "Brashness has never been missing from my personality. After I rang Danny, I went over there and I marched into his office and I said I am the man for this job. I told Danny Gilbert I was the man to see this through."
The urbane Sydney lawyer was intrigued by the loud mouth from Perth. Gilbert called an old friend, Mark Carnegie, principal and founder of boutique investment bank Carnegie Wylie, and said he had a proposition for him. Would he take on Joe and teach him about entrepreneurship? "Mark generously agreed to take Joe under his wing," Gilbert says smoothly, as if it were simple.
The Procter version of the story sounds more fraught. "Carnegie thought I was from outer space. Mark is a pure commercial beast. For me to be talking about Aborigines and equity - he thought I was absolutely insane."
But he persisted. He had Carnegie's number. He called it once a week. Realising that talking wasn't getting him any closer to a gig at Carnegie Wylie, Procter started pulling a deal together to tempt the reluctant convert. He won't go into the details, but the tactic apparently worked: "He took me on, with arm-twisting from Gilbert."
But it wasn't sweetness and light. "Mark told me I wouldn't last two weeks." Ignoring a prophesy that didn't fit his ego and ambitions, Procter promptly resigned from Woodside, packed his bags, went to Sydney and turned up for work at Carnegie Wylie, only to find no one was expecting him.
No one at reception had even heard of him, and no one was inclined to take him upstairs. Procter had to negotiate an undignified entry through a side entrance. A bit rough? One of Carnegie's quirks, Procter says without rancour. Four years later, he was still there, like a pig in mud. Venture capital - the high-risk, high-reward, or high-risk, big-bust area of investment banking - was where he wanted to be. "That was my love. There is nowhere to hide, and you can build things. If you've got entrepreneurial flair inside you, you need somewhere to express it."
So what did he learn from Mark Carnegie? "Mark told me the world doesn't need another angry blackfella, they need a black capitalist." That advice from his mentor has become a credo.
Other advice was more difficult to digest, given he's a bulldozer, and the Aboriginal problem is not academic for a kid whose mother grew up in a camp. "Mark told me I had to learn a few more gears, not just go at 150 per cent. And he also told me that you
can't let emotion get in the way of good business. You have got to be impartial."
It is precisely the speed and emotion that troubles Danny Gilbert, as he ponders his protege. Gilbert couldn't be more proud of the younger man, but he frets. "Joe is impatient with prevarication," Gilbert says. "He is very can-do and brash and impatient, and in a hurry, and he's got guts. He breaks a mould. He totally rejects the victim model. Joe wants to make money. But he can be too abrasive and too brash. He needs to temper it. He needs to settle down," the lawyer says.
Procter doesn't reject Gilbert's assessment. He's thought about the advice. He says, given the next birthday has a four in front of it, that he's trying to mellow. He's in a happy relationship with Sydney woman Janie Stabler. He tries to keep blowing off steam quarantined to larking with mates at the races, having cigars, watching the horses go round - not yelling at mining executives, who are unforgiving.
"I think a lot of abrasiveness comes from feeling out of your depth. There's a level of insecurity. It's a defence mechanism," he says. As he's moved on with the business he's gained confidence, he's closed deals, lowered debts. Danny Gilbert, despite all his success, is incredibly "humble", Procter says. Humility is a strength "that's never been a strength of mine".
But out in the desert things are different. He doesn't yell or thump tables. He cops ribbing. Some of the Martu elders dubbed him Ghengis Khan in reference to some Chinese heritage in his mixed-race background. One little kid asked him whether he was black. "What do you reckon?" Procter asked. "Well I've never seen a Chinese man kick a football like that so I guess you're black," the kid said.
Clinton Wolf says he's a marshmallow. "I don't know if you'd actually print this, but he's a mummy's boy," he says. "Danny hasn't seen Joe out with the mob. With the mob, he's a diplomat. There are two sides to Joe. He's a doer. In life there are talkers and there are doers. Joe is a doer. He can be impatient, but he's still young. He's had fantastic mentors. He's a bloke in a hurry."
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| Emerald city has lost its soul, not just its sparklehttp://www.smh.com.au/opinion/emerald-city-has-lost-its-soul-not-just-its-sparkle-20090611-c4tm.html?page=-1 Sydney is not a lovely place in winter. The CBD is a biting wind tunnel, Frank Sartor's granite footpaths are stained with the grease from spilled milkshakes, the sun is thin, the faces chapped and there's a pervading pong of rotten cooking oil and urine. You've more chance of being crippled for life by a wild-eyed skateboarder than you have of finding a delicious and inexpensive meal after 2.30 in the afternoon. In fact, you can walk the entire length of the city from Central to Circular Quay on some thoroughfares and find nothing other than 1950-style cafes doing ham and cheese on toast. Forget all the "Emerald City" nonsense, to borrow a line from someone I can't remember; Sydney makes Dallas look like Paris. Here's another line, from the late great French cultural figure and politician, Andre Malraux. In Paris, he said, the city controls the developers. The developers do not control the city. Naturally he said it in French, so it sounded so much better. Sydney's what you get when the developers run the place. Badly designed, cheaply finished buildings. You can count on the fingers of one, maybe one-and-a-half, hands buildings constructed in the CBD in the last 50 years where aesthetics were given at least an even break with the money. The big institutions, particularly the banks and Telstra, have given us some shockers. Still, we're used to shockers: the Cahill Expressway and the monorail have helped deaden our response to whatever fresh hell is around the corner. My personal favourites are the overhead footways criss-crossing the city, like vast vacuum tubes sucking consumers from one shopping extravaganza to another. If ever there was a determined piece of civic uglification it is the overhead pedestrian tunnel - the brute force of commerce crushing charm. The old Carlton brewery site on Broadway, if work ever recommences, will be massively overdeveloped - as will the Barangaroo project. Opportunity after opportunity is missed - Darling Harbour has the unmistakable aura of a tourist clip joint and that other great promise, Pyrmont, is filled with apartments designed for dwarfs. Every time an area requiring sensitive management comes on the horizon a special planning committee filled with party hacks, mates, real estaters and "planners" gets to work to eviscerate the promise of something uplifting. Of course, there's the dazzle of the harbour and one or two incredible structures. You can get the odd good Thai dinner in the suburbs and there's the odd terrific new development (witness the new community centre in Crown Street, Surry Hills). But what's happened to the soul of Sydney? The fact that the place is crawling with merchant bankers doesn't do much for a soul, but the real drag on the spirit has to be sheeted home to the politicians, who at best are ordinary and at worse dubious. And that's what the city has become - ordinary and dubious. There's no leader whoever spruiks the spirited talk of the greatness of city life and urban design. You have to go back 30 or more years to the days of the Department of Urban and Regional Development and Tom Uren to recall any government that had a passing thought about urbanity. It was never on Howard's radar; however, the Ruddites have just established something called the Major Cities Unit, which exists in the Office of the Infrastructure Co-ordinator, the outfit charged with "prioritising billions of dollars in infrastructure investment". But, when you look at the visionless political oiks of NSW, night after night on the box, you just know we haven't got a hope. It makes you want to see again that little jumping jack Leo Port, the former lord mayor of Sydney, who at least had some energy and always seemed to be rolling out plans and poring over models for improvements and beautification. Today there's political paralysis. A few years ago the Government had an opportunity to tear down the Cahill Expressway, but was frozen by the thought that there'd be a backlash from the whingers in the bush if a red cent was spent doing something half-decent for Sydney. Still, the great beer-barn developments in places such as Kings Cross get waved through the development machine, including the Land and Environment Court, while the small bars are stymied in red tape. Try and get a civilised drink out of sight of a poker machine, just keep trying. John O'Neill, the chairman of Events NSW, had a piece on these pages on Monday. My pulse quickened as he wrote that the Business Council and a whole pile of other worthies think it's about time something was done about the city and the state. "Something radical, a bit out of left field," he teased. This exciting bit of boldness turned out to be "Brand Sydney", yet another marketing exercise, or putting lipstick on the pig. Apparently "Vivid Sydney", a winter wonderland cultural event, is part of the brand. All I noticed was that the Opera House was lit up. Yet, Sydney always manages to trick its way into getting listed as an incredibly desirable place to live. It's equal eighth on The Economist's latest "liveability ranking". Last year in something called the annual Anholt City Brands Index it came first. Don't believe it. On second thoughts that's a measure of branding. O'Neill's people are doing well. Shame about our heart and soul. | | |
| Gadgets galore in latest luxury carshttp://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/motors/gadgets-galore-in-latest-luxury-cars-20090604-bwbw.html
Prestige marques are luring drivers with high-tech features. ANDREW HEASLEY reports. Not so long ago, luxury cars were defined by the opulence of their leather seats, woodgrain dashboards and their bonnet ornaments. Nowadays, even budget brands offer leather, climate-controlled air-conditioning and electronic safety systems. Bluetooth, MP3 integration and satellite navigation feature in affordable cars, some as standard. It means luxury brands are fitting their cars with even smarter technologies to set themselves apart. Here's what to expect. HAZARD AVOIDANCE This year Volvo released on its XC60 the world's first active crash avoidance technology, called City Safety. Designed to save nose-to-tail crashes, it uses a laser to measure the closing speed to the car ahead and automatically applies the brakes, to a full ABS-assisted stop if necessary. In the same vein, its new S60 will soon debut an electronic pedestrian-avoidance braking system, which is designed to diminish the risk of striking a person who steps into a car's path (see concept, above). Volvo, BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Jaguar are among marques that offer a blind-spot warning system to make changing lanes less fraught. Sensors in the side mirrors detect vehicles the driver may not have noticed. A warning light inside the side mirror signals when something is coming up from behind. Lane warning systems alert inattentive drivers who are straying from the lane. These systems use optical or infrared sensors to "read" the lane paint and transmit "rumble-strip" vibrations to the steering wheel, or to the seat. Adaptive cruise control is a speed regulation and measuring device (usually radar-operated) that aims to maintain a safe distance to a car ahead. Sensors on the car detect the closing speed and will decelerate or apply the brakes automatically. SEEING IS BELIEVING While leading headlight technology has moved from halogen to xenon and to LED, true night vision is here now. First seen on the current Mercedes-Benz S-Class and now included in the new BMW 7-Series, night vision uses infrared cameras to detect objects hundreds of metres ahead, beyond the reach of headlights, and displays the image on an LCD screen. And in case you miss speed signs, BMW is the first with a sensor that automatically detects road signs (soon to be tested here), including temporary roadside speed restrictions, and it displays speed limits at the bottom of the speedo. This makes the driver less likely to exceed the posted limit. A BUTTON ON THE ROAD On the road, luxury brands have systems to adjust handling dynamics at the press of a button. Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Volvo and Lexus are among those who have push-button settings that affect factors including how sharply a car responds over bumps and its steering, throttle and gear-shift points. Features once only seen on aircraft - such as active aerodynamics - are making their way to cars, with spoilers that not only deploy at speed but adjust their angle to the passing windflow for downforce. BMW's "Efficient Dynamics" models use hidden flaps to smooth air turbulence, cutting fuel use. TRAVEL FIRST CLASS Just like on an aircraft, cabin noise is fatiguing. The same sound-wave technology employed in noise cancelling headphones is being introduced to the cabins of luxury cars. A car's speakers can be used to pump out "silent" noise-cancelling audio waves to decrease ambient noise by up to 10 decibels. You'll find this feature in Honda's Legend, while the Audi A8's Bang & Olufsen and Lexus LS600h's Mark Levinson sound systems compensate for road noise and speed as you drive. The next convenience for luxury motoring's in-car entertainment will be the internet. Increasingly, cars will become available with wireless links to the internet, for emails, messaging and smarter navigation, bringing the world to your bubble. Audi is working on its "Travolution" and "Car2Car" project, in which cars and traffic lights communicate to one another via wireless networks to ease congestion and warn of incidents. Now we're talking. | | |
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