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Recharge Wrap-up: Uber app for Apple Watch, Hyundai brings ix35 Fuel Cell to Australia

Uber has updated its app to support the upcoming Apple Watch. Users will be able to hail a car with a single tap directly from the wearable device. The Uber app for the Apple Watch will also let the user check on the driver's progress. The Apple Watch launches on April 24. Read more at iPhone Hacks. The Place at Terracina in Austin, Texas will offer Car2go services onsite. Through a partnership with real estate group MC Companies, the carsharing service will have six dedicated parking spots at the community's entrance for residents and other nearby users. "We know our residents will benefit from the Car2Go service and hope it helps them share the good life with others," says MC Companies Vice President of Marketing Eric Brown. Read more in the press release from MC Companies below. Hyundai has debuted the ix35 (Tucson) Fuel Cell in Australia. Along with giving Australia its first hydrogen vehicle, Hyundai is also unveiling a solar hydrogen refueler. The refueling station, located at Hyundai's Sydney headquarters, uses solar power to run the electrolyzer to make hydrogen from water onsite. Hyundai's Bill Thomas told 3AW that a future where most vehicles on the road are powered by hydrogen is "a way off. We're working on our next-generation fuel cell vehicle which we're hoping to bring out in 2018, but even at that stage, we're only talking in small numbers." Listen at 3AW, and read more at RenewEconomy. MC Companies Partners with Car2Go Brings Innovative Service to The Place at Terracina with Car2Go SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., March 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Cars are a costly investment. We can't all buy our own and we understand that life can get in the way of being financially stable enough to purchase one. Living expenses, bills and unexpected costs pop up all the time. Car 2 Go is making it easy to have access to a car no matter what life throws at you. MC Companies is teaming up with Car2Go to bring this convenient service to The Place at Terracina. Car2Go now has six spaces for cars to be dropped off and picked up at the entrance of the community and this is the furthest North location that Car2Go has in the city. This provides residents, and people in the area, with shared vehicles to help them navigate through their days with ease. "We are excited to have Car2Go on our property and can't wait to share it with our residents," says community manager Rachel Sypho.

Hyundai brings 1,000-hp Genesis Coupe to SEMA, and plenty more [w/video]

Hyundai has a thirst for horsepower. How else could we explain the scene you see above, in which there exists a 708-horsepower front-wheel-drive Sonata tuned by Bisimoto (black and white, above left) powered by Hyundai's 2.4-liter Theta II engine? Or the little red number you see hiding in the background, which, at an even 1,000 horsepower, is "the most-powerful 2.0-liter Genesis Coupe ever built," says Hyundai?
In addition to those two powerhouses, the white Sonata (above right) was styled by John Pangilinan to "[connect] Los Angeles street art culture with automotive enthusiasts," whatever that means, and it joins an ARK Performance-tuned Genesis Sedan meant to go head-to-head with Mercedes AMG and BMW M and another Genesis Sedan tuned by Toca Marketing Group with a twin-turbo'd 5.0-liter Tau V8.
All in, that's five heavily modified vehicles being shown at the 2014 SEMA Show by Hyundai (not to mention any more customs not actually sponsored by the automaker itself), and each of them is pretty successful as far as we're concerned. Check them all out for yourself in the image gallery above, and read all the details in the press release below, where you'll also find a video of the builders discussing each of their creations.

Ford fights back against patent trolls

Some people are just awful. Some organizations are just as awful. And when those people join those organizations, we get stories like this one, where Ford has spent the past several years combatting so-called patent trolls. According to Automotive News, these malicious organizations have filed over a dozen lawsuits against the company since 2012. They work by purchasing patents, only to later accuse companies of misusing intellectual property, despite the fact that the so-called patent assertion companies never actually, you know, do anything with said intellectual property. AN reports that both Hyundai and Toyota have been victimized by these companies, with the former forced to pay $11.5 million to a company called Clear With Computers. Toyota, meanwhile, settled with Paice LLC, over its hybrid tech. The world's largest automaker agreed to pay $5 million, on top of $98 for every hybrid it sold (if the terms of the deal included each of the roughly 1.5 million hybrids Toyota sold since 2000, the company would have owed $147 million). Including the previous couple of examples, AN reports 107 suits were filed against automakers last year alone. But Ford is taking action to prevent further troubles... kind of. The company has signed on with a firm called RPX, in what sounds strangely like a protection racket. Automakers like Ford pay RPX around $1.5 million each year for access to its catalog of patents, which it spent nearly $1 billion building. "We take the protection and licensing of patented innovations very seriously," Ford told AN via email. "And as many smart businesses are doing, we are taking proactive steps to protect against those seeking patent infringement litigation." What are your thoughts on this? Should this patent business be better managed? Is it reasonable that companies purchase patents only to file suit against the companies that build actual products? Have your say in Comments.