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Film Friday: 'Styling and the Experimental Car' takes us from Da Vinci to the Ford Mustang

Last time we popped into the Ford Design Studios, it was the late 1960s and everyone was strung out on black turtlenecks and jazz flute. We're traveling a few years further back in time today, but Ford Design Studios remains our destination. "Styling and the Experimental Car," released in 1964, doesn't start off like a modern promo piece might.

GM expands brake-override safety feature

General Motors is significantly expanding the use of a brake-override safety feature in its cars through the end of 2012. GM announced on Monday that it will add the software, which it also calls “enhanced smart-pedal technology,” in all of its passenger cars with automatic transmissions and electronic throttle control. The change will reduce power to the engine when both the throttle and brakes are pressed at the same time.

Mark Vaughn: We’ll always have Vegas

There were a few bare spots on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show this year, spots that in previous years had been jammed sardine-like with myriad Taiwanese makers of Hello Kitty knockoff cell phone cozies and electronic barking dogs, but the show this year was nonetheless pretty well attended. Besides, for those working their way upstream through the aisles like so many digitally trained trout, the empty spots left by exhibitors that pulled out were like refreshing mountain meadows or little piazzas in crowded Italian cities. Show management stocked the open spots with cushy couches, too, on which many a jet-lagged showgoer snoozed.