BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor arrives. It carries bicycles.

BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor (pictured) carries bicycles We’ve already had a preview of BMW’s ‘Green’ take on the new FWD 1-Series with the Concept Active Tourer ahead of the Paris Motor Show last year, and now we get the ‘butch’ take on the same theme – the BMW Concept Active Tourer Outdoor. But unlike most car makers, who make their pseudo off-road saloons ready for the great outdoors with raised ride height and bolt-on plastic cladding, all BMW seem to have done is fit the Tourer Outdoor with a bicycle carrying system. But unlike most bicycle carrying systems that bolt the bikes to the back of the car, BMW’s system puts the bikes under cover in the back on built in, retractable carriers.

Multi-touch UI reduces touchscreen interaction to simple swipes [w/video]

Touchscreens have become widespread standard features in many cars over the last few years, consolidating the modern car's many functions into one interface. But despite their advantages there's the big downside of driver distraction, something user interface designer Matthaeus Krenn believes he has solved with his UI. Unlike most other touchscreens, Krenn's interface isn't organized into menus and small, hard-to-hit buttons, but instead makes use of multi-touch gestures, reducing the accuracy and attention needed to operate key functions.

Mazda wins 2008 LA Design Challenge

The Mazda Kaan concept has won the fifth annual LA Design Challenge competition, part of the Design Los Angeles automobile designer's conference. The award was presented during the second press day of the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show, following a designers' luncheon and keynote speech by Daniel Simon, visionary futurist and author of Cosmic Motors. As we reported last month, nine local Southern California design studios entered the competition to envisage how motor sport vehicles might be in the year 2025, answering the theme ‘Motorsports 2025'.