Word: saturn
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...matter how esoteric the technologies or lofty the management theory, the auto industry reduces ineluctably to a piece of hardware: a car with four wheels, an engine and thousands of little things that make you love it or hate it. For a sneak preview of Saturn, I went to GM's Milford Proving Grounds in suburban Detroit, where officials rolled out all three models: the standard sedan, the high-performance sedan and the sporty coupe. Since this was a secret mission, weeks in advance of the product launch, all traces of the company logo and the brand name were covered...
...engine is both peppy and smooth. The 16-valve, 123-h.p. version of the same engine is downright exciting, particularly with a standard shift, and reportedly has a top speed of 120 m.p.h. The five-speed stick shift runs smoothly through the gears, as does the four-speed automatic. Saturn's suspension is supple enough so that at high speed on a bumpy road, the car was perfectly stable. Some critics have complained about excessive engine noise in the Saturn, but I found it as quiet as any other small car I have driven. The variable-assist power steering, which...
...Saturn officials have said their benchmark is the popular Honda Civic. Does Saturn make the grade? We will have to wait to see if Saturn is as durable, but I have driven the Civic and my impression is that the Saturn's performance, handling and amenities all measure up to its Japanese rival. The Saturns have been designed for easy servicing too, right down to the transparent, easy-to-read fluid reservoirs under the hood and the clearly labeled fuse boxes and dipsticks. Someone at Saturn has been doing a lot of thinking about what the buyer wants, and that...
...exploring outer space. There is a danger, though, that such machines could multiply uncontrollably, like the viruses that have disrupted computer networks. Doyne Farmer, a physicist at the Los Alamos lab, points to a cautionary science- fiction tale by Stanislaw Lem. In Lem's Fiasco, space explorers discover a Saturn-like planet with a ring around it. On closer inspection, the ring turns out to be a swarm of attack satellites and killer robots, part of a "star wars" defense shield that had reproduced itself over and over again. Artificial life, says Farmer, could turn...
...Toronto-Tokyo game, then perfect their tennis stroke with the help of a teacher on hologram. Johnnycab, the robot taxi driver, chirps irrelevant pleasantries until passengers want to throttle him. A married couple debate whether to move to Mars -- as if it were the suburbs -- or to Saturn ("Everybody says it's gorgeous"). Perhaps they should visit Rekall Inc., a mind-travel company that offers "the memory of a lifetime": a microchip implant of images from a wonderful vacation. They could even buy someone else's memory. "Take a vacation from yourself," the salesman croons. "We call...