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2015 Audi A3 gets augmented reality app in place of owners manual [w/video]

There have been a few, seemingly half-hearted, attempts at reinventing the owner's manual - that thick stack of bone-dry information that you only look at if you're well and truly stumped. Hyundai tried swapping in iPads with the Equus, which didn't really take, while Chrysler switched its owner's manuals to digital form in 2010. Chrysler subsidiary Dodge even released a smart phone app that included all the info contained in the paper manual.
Audi, though, may have taken things to their logical conclusion - augmented reality. While it'll likely be more practical once Google Glass and other wearable tech is adopted on a wide scale, augmented reality allows users to project information on scenes, usually through a phones camera, which is how Audi does it.
Called eKurzinfo, the app looks through your phones camera to identify and explain different parts of the car. According to Metaio, the app's developer, the app recognizes 300 different parts of the car. Our sister site, Engadget, provides the best example of the app's abilities - if you point it at the engine temperature gauge, the app tells you what the gauge measures, and if the reading is too high, eKurzinfo will even show you where to find the coolant tank.

Audi Allroad Shooting Brake is a TT peep show

What you're looking at here is the almost-here third-generation Audi TT. Just compress the suspension a bit to take away its Allroad pretensions and rake its backlight to align better with the previous generation's aesthetic, and you're pretty well there. What you're looking at officially, of course, is the Audi Allroad Shooting Brake, a four-seat E-Tron hybrid showcar powered by Audi's venerable 2.0-liter TFSI four-cylinder (good for 292 horsepower) backed by a 40-kW electric motor and a secondary 85-kW motor acting upon the rear axle to provide low- and moderate-speed drive. The latter also provides through-the-road Quattro all-wheel drive when extra traction and power is called for.
All-in, Audi says the Allroad Shooting Brake's ETron powertrain is good for 408 horsepower and total system torque of 479 pound-feet, enough to haul the 3,500-pound German to 62 miles per hour in 4.6 seconds and up to a governed 155 mph. Despite that tidy performance, Audi says the Allroad Shooting Brake offers robust fuel consumption of 1.9 liters per 100k, equivalent to 124 miles per gallon, with a bladder-busting range of 510 miles.

The Volkswagen Group switches official language to English

The Volkswagen Group can't be fairly thought of as entirely German anymore, so the news that the company is switching its official language to English to help attract managers and executives is a rational, if surprising, decision. While many VW Group companies are still staidly German in character and culture, consider the other companies that it controls: Bentley (British), Bugatti (French), Ducati and Lamborghini (Italian), Skoda (Czech), Scania trucks (Swedish), and SEAT (Spanish). Not to mention the large Volkswagen Group of America operation, which constructs cars in Chattanooga, TN. Volkswagen's explicit motivation is to improve management recruitment – making sure the company isn't losing out on candidates for important positions because they can't speak German – and that's inherently sensible in a globalized economy. Particularly considering, like it or lump it, that English is the lingua franca of said global economy. It also should make it inherently easier to communicate between its world-wide subsidiaries and coordinate operations. It's hard to say for sure if this will have any impact on the consumer, although it's easy to see the benefits if, say, VW Group hires some American product planners or engineers and they push for features and designs that more closely suit American needs. After all, the US is a hugely important market for any manufacturer, and so the switch to English almost certainly has something to do with the outsized influence of the US in the global economy. And there doesn't seem to be a downside from a purely rational perspective, although it could mean that the Group's corporate culture becomes less German. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on your perspective. Related Video: Image Credit: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images Plants/Manufacturing Audi Bentley Bugatti Porsche Volkswagen SEAT Skoda