V3 was given an access all areas tour of the M-Sport workshop at Dovenby Hall in Cumbria, home to the Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team, to see the technology used to help design and build a £400,000 rally car.

There are 214 employees working at the 5,575 square metre site where they design, build, test and assemble Ford's WRC competition cars.

With the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) introducing strict regulations for the removal of technology this season to reduce costs, many high-tech components such as paddle gearboxes, electronic differentials and active suspension have been lost.

Interestingly, almost all the parts of the rally car are taken from a standard road car and modified, and here we take a look at how the process comes together.

Design
The entire Ford Fiesta is modelled in CAD – every component is drawn, stress tested and then manufactured. Engineers also draw parts by hand when something urgently needs to be created.

Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala and Christian Loriaux, technical director, ponder over the design

The shell
Engineers pluck a shell from the Ford Focus roadcar production line, and it takes 750 man hours to optimise it before it can be used as the basis for a rally car.

Jari-Matti Latvala takes a glance at one of the racing car shells

The shell is reinforced with 40 metres of roll-cage tubing to make it as stable and as safe as possible. The roll cage is capable of surviving huge impacts and crashes that can generate forces of 100G.

Components
Reliability is just as important as performance and the team tests every part that goes into the car at least three times to minimise the chance of component failure.

A collective test is then carried out at Kirkbride Airfield – to make sure that everything operates together as it should under correct temperatures and stresses.

The driver does the final test under rally conditions before the event in what is known as the 'shakedown' to make sure that everything is ready.

Each component has a part number laser etched onto it, allowing engineers to track the part through its life, and change it at the right time. If any part is found to be faulty, the team can also remove all other parts that were from the same batch to minimise the risk of failure.

Electronics
This circuit board is designed to represent the entire electrical system for the car. All electrical items are manufactured to aircraft specifications to keep them as lightweight as possible, and to enable them to handle high temperatures (over 900 degrees) and aggressive vibrations.

Engine
One of the most crucial parts of any rally car is the engine. The current Abu Dhabi Ford WRC car uses a Ford 1.6 direct injection turbo engine, which is heavily modified. Each engine is designed to have a life of 1,600km or three rallies after which it is used for testing and then rebuilt.

The team creates two engine maps for the car – one for the road and the other for the rally stage. The road mapping allows the car to be as efficient as possible, whereas the stage mapping makes the throttle more responsive and generates more power.

The above engine test cell is worth €2m

The testing system puts a variable load on the engine to test performance and can simulate different climates ranging from Sweden (-30°c) to Mexico (35°c), for example. Engineers can then change the manual configuration or electronic mapping to see which configuration is the fastest depending on the climate.

The assembly area is capable of holding 22 cars. After each rally, cars are stripped down and it takes the engineers typically around eight to 10 days to carry out a rebuild.

However, time constraints often mean that a car needs to be put together in as little as three days. The team will be participating in the Spanish Rally on 20-23 October and will come to the UK for the final rally of the season on 10 November.

V3 was one of the first to get its hands on the new Motorola Razr smartphone unveiled on Wednesday and we had a quick play on the device to see whether it lives up to the hype.

Naming it the 'Razr', after its hugely popular Razr range first launched in 2005, suggests Motorola has high hopes for the device.

One of the main aspects of the smartphone touted by Motorola is the size and weight of the device, with the firm claiming the super slim design makes it the thinnest smartphone on the market.

Whether it is or not, it does feel very light and comfortable to hold, yet it's far from petite, boasting a high-quality 4.3inch super AMOLED screen.

It still feels sturdy and strong too, no doubt helped by the use of threaded Kevlar on the back of the phone and Gorilla Glass for the screen, making it ideally suited for busy people who don't want a device they have to be precious with as they go about their day.

The firm has also added what it calls SplashGuard technology, which makes the phone water-repellent to low level liquid impacts such as rain.

It features a top quality, razor sharp display (excuse the pun) with images and web pages rendered clearly and crisply, making it an equal to many high-end Samsung devices and the iPhone 4S.

This will help ensure photos taken with the eight megapixel camera aren't let down , while video is also of a high-quality, with 1080 HD playback. This is complemented by a sizeable 16GB storage and an SD card to ramp storage to a whopping 48GB.

Accessing and interacting with all this data will require a speedy processor and the dual-core 1.2GHz processor is certainly powerful enough, with the phone easily and seamlessly switching between camera, applications and pages.

It's odd in some ways, though, that the device has Gingerbread as its operating system, and not Ice Cream Sandwich. Perhaps Google purposefully allowed Samsung be first to market with the latest version of Android to keep it sweet.

Motorola confirmed it would be rolling out the update to the phone in the first quarter of 2012, though, so those keen for the update won't have to wait too long if they plump for the Razr.

One notable hardware inclusion on the device is an HDMI port, a feature lacking from many high-end devices such as the iPhone 4S. This will allow users to stream photos and videos to larger screens through a single cable with no quality loss, ideal for sharing photos or business presentations.

Overall then Motorola has produced a strong piece of kit with the Razr, and one that's worthy of the Razr name. It could be just the phone the firm needs to turn heads in the UK market, where its Milestone devices have failed to excite consumers, unlike in the US.

Whether its enough to compete with Apple or Samsung will remain to be seen and its launch at the same time as a major Samsung product and as the iPhone 4S flies off the shelves could hurt the firm.

It is, however, a very strong offering and could well be the springboard to even bigger and brighter things as Google starts to provide its not inconsiderable support and assistance to the firm.

Apple may not have made the major hardware upgrades to the iPhone 4S that some fans were waiting for, but Cupertino has introduced some very interesting and useful software that shows just how far artificial intelligence has come.

We're talking about the Siri 'personal assistant', which is able to understand natural speech and come up with a response to pretty much any question you can think of.

From demos circulating the web we expected Siri to be a softly spoken American chick and were disappointed to find that as UK users we were lumped with a rather snooty sounding English gentlemen.

We managed to ditch him for the softer tones of the American lady, though, by changing the language settings to US English. We did have to start speaking with a slight American twang for our speech to be recognised, but the female version of Siri is far less irritating and worth switching to.

We also experimented with Australian English and were greeted by an equally likable Sheila answering our queries.

In terms of actual speech recognition, Siri is very impressive. The software is able to compute questions in microseconds and deliver answers almost instantaneously.

Really useful business features also include the ability to dictate emails and text messages as well as set appointments and reminders.

When configuring the latter two, it really is like having a conversation with a personal assistant as Siri asks "when is your appointment?" and "what time?" before confirming the details and activating a reminder.

Unfortunately, in the UK it is not possible for Siri to provide maps, directions or suggestions for locations such as restaurants as Apple has not yet signed a deal with any local information firm, like Yell in the US. It can surely only a matter of time before this feature is made available in the UK, though.

In terms of factual answers, Siri sources information from Wolfram Alpha, Google, Bing Answers and Cambridge-based firm True Knowledge. No Wikipedia in sight - perhaps Apple don't consider it accurate enough.

We also asked Siri some fun questions just to see the responses. Of course answers may vary, but we received the following smart aleck replies:

V3 : "Which is the best smartphone?"
Siri: "There are other smartphones?"

V3: "What is your favourite colour?"
Siri: "My favourite colour is well, I don't know how to say it in your language. It's sort of greenish, but with more dimensions."

V3: "Do you like Samsung?"
Siri: "I really have no opinion."

Finally, we got a rather creepy response when we asked Siri if it was self aware. "No comment", is not the answer we were looking for.

Siri's database will continue to grow and its usefulness will no doubt increase as Apple continues to amass more partners. It's also likely to spawn many copycat pieces of software, just the same as the iPad led to a slew of imitation devices being launched.

The race to get hold of an iPhone 4S is on, but for the millions of existing iPhone users, the last couple of days has seen a different challenge to overcome – successfully updating your device to iOS 5.

As someone who has just attempted the challenge on an iPhone 4 this week, and ended up with a completely wiped device with no files or contacts saved, I thought it would be useful to share my tips on how not to carry out the update.

BACK UP EVERYTHING before attempting the update
This is the most important lesson I’ve learned, and the best tip I can pass on. When I updated my phone on Thursday, I did so without manually copying all my content onto the PC, rather than just relying on iTunes. During the process, iTunes posted no alerts or warnings that its backup had failed and went ahead with the update – a real failure on Apple’s part. I had hundreds of photos and videos, along with all my contacts and messages, stored on the device itself, and nowhere else.

When the update had finished, I tried to restore the content, only to find that the original backup of all my photos, contacts and other files had failed before the iOS 5 upgrade, and so my iPhone was completely wiped. When I tried to restore them, I received a message telling me: "iTunes could not restore the iPhone because the backup session failed."

When I checked the backup file, it had saved nothing apart from one voicemail.

I’d never got round to copying my content or contacts off the iPhone onto external or online storage, partly because Apple doesn’t make this easy, and partly because it had never occurred to me that those files were only stored in one place. I prefer to blame Google, for getting me so used to its world of online storage and instant access to any emails or documents I’ve ever created through Gmail or Google Docs, rather than my own lack of foresight. But that doesn’t help bring back all my lost files.

Don’t rely on only iCloud for backups
Apple’s new online storage system launched officially with the iOS 5 update, but there have already been issues with iCloud. A few of us on the V3 team tried to access iCloud on Thursday from iPhones and iPads but had no success, so we’d still advise saving all your media, content and other files on an external hard drive or other storage, as well as via iCloud.

Only have one iTunes account
Over the years, I’ve set up three different iTunes accounts and have managed to store purchases from each of these on my iPhone. Before the iOS 5 update began, I received an alert that some of the apps I had purchased from the App Store hadn’t backed up in iTunes, and when I checked these apps were from a mix of my iTunes accounts. Seeing as the iOS update seems to be so fraught with potential problems, I’d definitely advise downsizing to one iTunes account, in case Apple is unable to cope with backups from multiple accounts.

Only use one machine to connect your iPhone
Similarly, I’d advise using just one machine to hook up an iPhone to iTunes. My iPhone was originally used by somebody else, and when they passed it on to me, I didn’t do a full system wipe. So my current device has been hooked up to their PC and iTunes account, along with my work and home systems. If I was buying a new iPhone 4S today, I’d advise you stick to one machine to connect to iTunes – and I’d make that a Mac if possible, as you’ll see from my next point.

Use a Mac rather than a Windows PC
I use iTunes on a Windows PC and every time I connect my iPhone this causes problems. Sometimes it’s as minor as wiping all my music from my iPhone, meaning another hour dragging individual albums back on to the device. Other times it’s crashed the PC and meant a whole restore is required.

I’ve heard from one user that he managed to upgrade to iOS 5 successfully from a Mac, but when he tried another iPhone from a Windows PC, that process wiped everything. Anecdotally it seems there are more complaints from Windows users than Mac fans, but this could be down to the higher numbers of the former group overall.

Switch to Android
I had to add this one in, as every time I mention problems with my iPhone, I just get raised eyebrows – a knowing ‘I told you so’ look – and comments about how Android is the miracle pill around all these issues. All great points, except many iPhone users are stuck in a long-term contract or too tied to their devices to want to make the leap, with music, photos and so on stored on the device. I don’t have that excuse not to switch anymore, so hopefully I’ll be brave enough to make the change from Apple to the little green alien soon.

Final thoughts
I hope these tips will prevent anyone else from losing all their content and contacts when they attempt the iOS 5 update. I now have a fun weekend ahead trying to find some recovery software that will let me get access to my media and contacts again, the other option being the jailbreak path, which could end up with a bricked iPhone.

If anyone has any tips for me on how to do this, please get in touch at madeline.bennett@incisivemedia.com, or leave a comment below.

AUSTIN: There were a number of interesting products on display at Dell World, including Digital Signage concept from Intel and a digital forensics police car from Dell.

Intel's concept features an interactive primary screen, so the device carries out a quick facial scan and displays products based on gender when a customer approaches it.

When a male approaches the screen, the device automatically displays products such as razor blades, for example. Users can interact with products via hand gestures, allowing them to bring up additional information, product reviews and related items.

The secondary screens are built in behind a shelf and are more likely to be incorporated into supermarket aisles. When a product is picked up, the display changes to provide additional information and reacts via an RFID tag on the bottom of a product.

The whole system is powered by Intel's forthcoming Ivy Bridge chipset. The processor used was a quad-core, eight-thread chip with a clock speed of 3GHz.

Primary uses would be in supermarkets aisles and in place of advertising billboards and kiosks. The device is able to gather viewership metrics such as gender and dwell time of the viewer anonymously, and retailers can view these metric in real time and change display products.

Meanwhile, Dell displayed a police car with a removable Dell XFR rugged laptop. Forensic software is pre-loaded on the laptop, allowing officers to extract data from devices and smartphones at crime scenes.

The system helps officers to shift through the vast amounts of data that suspects may have, explained Joe Trickey, rugged mobility and digital forensics marketing manager at Dell.

"Most people have 2.2TB of information. If you look at a typical police investigation, there may be a number of suspects and they have to process all that data," he told V3.

"The digital forensics software allows officers to check devices at the scene of a crime and determine what needs to be investigated further and what can be excluded. It is easier for forensic analysts to process 400GB of data, for example, and data can be processed faster, allowing quicker investigations."

Trickey noted that it is likely that digital forensic kits will be available on smartphones in the future with the advancement in mobile space. He also joked that officers may get a car like the one displayed on the show floor.

V3 got its hands on the HXWA10, a high-end camcorder capable of recording in 1080p and taking 16-megapixel images. It can also be submerged in up to three metres of water.

The camcorder has a pistol grip design, which makes it suitable to use with one hand. There is a 2.7in LED screen to see what's being captured, and this has a fair amount of rotation although it is not a full 360 degrees.

The HXWA10 is beautifully crafted, but the placement of buttons and storage could be better. The majority of controls, such as the menu and navigation buttons, have been placed on the inside cover, which means that the unit has to be turned sideways to use them. This is not ideal when a quick adjustment needs to be made during filming.

Additionally, the SD card is housed underneath the battery, which means that the device has to be switched off to transfer videos or photos.

There are a multitude of video recording options ranging from full HD 1,920x1,080 to 960x540. Content is stored as MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and recording quality is decent. It's also possible to play content through HD TVs using the HDMI port.

Still images can be taken at a maximum of 16-megapixels, and the back-illuminated sensor  improves capture in low-level lighting conditions.

Panasonic has incorporated a 12x zoom, but only 5x is optical, meaning that images are magnified electronically. It works well, although photos will get a tad grainy when used to the maximum.

One of the best features is the ability to use the device underwater. Panasonic claims that the HX-WA10 is capable of functioning in up to three metres of water for up to 60 minutes.

We tested this claim in a makeshift pool and the camcorder survived. The rubber-sealed covers protected the memory card, battery compartment and HDMI/USB sockets, making it perfect for beach holidays or use in heavy rain.

Another nifty feature is the iA button, which automatically assesses the best setting depending on the environment. The device also has face recognition software helping to provide the best exposure and focus.

Battery life could do with a bit of a boost, however, and the flashing red LED is the only way to tell when power is running out. Onboard memory is minimal, so an SD card will be needed to take high-quality photos and video.

The Panasonic HX-WA10 costs just under £250, and is worth the investment if you regularly need a waterproof camcorder.

Micro SD cards have become the de facto way to boost the memory in mobile devices such as e-readers, smartphones and tablets. But, while highly portable, the cards are susceptible to damage as the connectors are exposed.

Step forward Samsung, which has developed what it claims is a near-indestructible memory card. The MB-MS8GA is resistant to shock, water and magnets - more than traditional devices, and comes with a five-year warranty.

V3 tested the 8GB Class 6 card, which comes with an SD adapter allowing it to fit into most all-in-one card readers. We found the card reasonably quick, a 1GB transfer taking just over 45 seconds. After loading it to the brim, we set out to test the card to destruction.

Water test
Samsung claims that the card is waterproof, and will work even after 24 hours immersed in sea water. Protection is provided by Epoxy Moulding Compound technology, and we concocted our own brand of saline to see whether the claims are true. We left the card in the solution overnight and, after a quick rub down, popped it into our PC. The device appeared in My Computer as if nothing had happened and was good to go.

Spillages are all too common in the home and office, so we decided to drop the card into a cup of hot tea. Impressively, the card showed no ill effects even when the tea was mixed with milk. Those who do a lot of water sports, or who are accident prone, can be assured that their data will remain protected.

Verdict- Passed

Magnet test
Magnets are well known as being able to wipe data on digital devices, and Samsung has built in protection to stop this happening. The MB-MS8GA card can withstand a magnetic field of 10,000 gauss, according to the firm, and had no problems when coming into close contact with small magnets around the office.

This high level of protection means that the card is safe to use around large home theatre systems and even an MRI scanner.
Verdict - Passed

Shock testing
The MB-MS8GA is designed to withstand the weight of a 1.6-tonne truck, according to Samsung. Of course, dropping the device in front of such a vehicle and living to tell the tale is unlikely, so we tested the card in less dangerous ways.

The card survived a drop from shoulder height onto the concrete floor, a trip down a flight of stairs and being stepped on multiple times with a size 10 boot.

The only way we were able to inflict any damage was with a good old-fashioned hammer. Even then, the card managed to fend off a couple of blows before bits started to fly off. It finally succumbed after the third and fourth blows.

Considering that we used excessive force, and that the card is unlikely ever to be accidentally subjected to hammer blows, we think Samsung's claims are valid.
Verdict - Passed

Overall
The Samsung MB-MS8GA is not quite indestructible, but it's a good choice for the adventurous and accident prone. The card is rugged enough to survive rough treatment and spillages, and the water proofing and magnet proofing live up to the billing. The card would be the perfect little companion to the ruggedised Motorola Defy smartphone or a waterproof camera.

The only thing that Samsung has left out is a tracking device, so if you lose the card it's going to be as hard to find as any other micro SD card.

MemoryCardZoo offers an 8GB peripheral for £11.40, which is no more expensive than competing cards and is well worth the investment.

Acer is gearing up for an October launch of the very first ultrabook, and V3 got some hands-on time with a system that may tempt many early adopters and business users.

The S3 is 13mm thick and comes with a 13.3in HD screen and a chiclet keyboard, so comparisons are inevitably going to the drawn with the MacBook Air. The aluminium/magnesium alloy chassis feels strong but looks rather plain when compared to the Air. We also think that the trackpad is rather on the small side.

The S3 weighs 1.4kg, so it's reasonably lightweight and just a few grams heavier than the 13in MacBook Air (1.35kg).

Under the hood, the Acer is expected to ship with Windows 7, a choice of Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, 4GB of RAM as standard and an SSD or HDD depending on preference.

USB and HDMI ports are located on the back, which also houses the air vent so that the base does not get hot.

Asus, Lenovo and Toshiba ultrabooks are also set to offer similar form factors and specifications, and Acer is looking to differentiate by including Instant On and Instant Connect technology.

Instant Connect can boot the device from sleep mode in 1.5 seconds and from hibernation in six seconds. We tested this in sleep mode and the claim was bang on. Interestingly, even ultrabooks with HDDs will come with a small SSD to enable this quick booting time, although Acer is unclear about the capacity of these SSDs.

We asked Kristof Houben, a product manager at Acer, about cold-boot times, and he told us that the S3 will have boot times consistent with standard Windows 7 laptops. But he pointed out that the platform has been designed so that it does not need to be turned off.

Meanwhile, Instant Connect automatically connects to previously used Wi-Fi networks in 2.5 seconds, much like the Mac OS X Lion operating system.

S3 buyers can expect up to seven hours of battery life if they opt for the full SSD storage option. This is under the eight hours that Lenovo claims for the U300s ultrabook and the nine hours that Samsung touts for the forthcoming Series 7 Chronos laptop.

Acer has no plans to ship different screen sizes this year, but Houben said that different models are likely to appear in 2012.

Of course, Acer is also aiming to be the first to market. The manufacturer will start shipping the S3 from October starting at £699 and going up to £1,099.

Overall, the S3 looks a promising piece of kit, but we have yet to be convinced that it's better than the MacBook Air. With Microsoft hyping Windows 8, it remains to be seen whether consumers will buy an ultrabook now or wait a little bit longer for a next-generation model with a touch-screen operating system.