So the 2010 Toyota Prius wasn’t the only hybrid shown off at the Detroit Auto Show.  (Otherwise known as the 2009 North American International Auto Show).  Honda also unveiled its new design of the Honda Insight.

The 2010 Honda Insight! (No, it's not a Prius...)

I’m sure many of you had to do a double-take when you first saw it.  Remind you of anything?  Hmm … a Toyota Prius maybe?  I’m not sure what Honda and Toyota are pulling right now.  The new 2010 Toyota Prius looks more like something from Honda, and the new 2010 Honda Insight looks more like a Toyota.  Is that right?  No, really!  I mean here, just look at the last styling of the Honda Insight:

The last Honda Insight

Does the new Insight look anything like this?  Or does it look an awful lot more like this:

The new 2010 Toyota Prius (Not to be mistaken for a Honda Insight?)

Yeah.  I know.  It’s just not right, I say.  But here are the two new 2010 hybrid darlings side-by-side, just beacuse it’s that freaking … weird.

Again, the 2010 Honda Insight ... versus the 2010 Toyota Prius.

Freaking weird!

And for those of you who don’t know what a Toyota Prius looked like before, here’s an older model to compare the styling to.  Note that Toyota really is keeping to their theme pretty well.  While Honda … well, just what is Honda up to here, hmm?

Here's last year's Gen2 Toyota Prius

Okay, so enough visual freak out.  Honda, obviously, is desperate to take some of Toyota’s sales thunder.  Have they got what it takes to do it?  Let’s look at some numbers:

So, um, that would be a “no”.  Less power and worse fuel economy from the Honda Insight.  Toyota clearly has the better design.  But, rumor is, the Honda Insight will sell for cheaper.  Cheaper by a couple of grand.  Will that help them steal some of the Prius sales away from Toyota?

I don’t know.  I doubt it though.  It’s hard to beat a winner.  And that’s clearly what Honda is struggling with.  How do they beat a winner?  By trying to copy them, obviously.  Not by trying to actually be better.  Still, it’s a start.  The 2010 Honda Insight actually does compare fairly well with an older Toyota Prius.  The Gen 2 Prius had a combined 110 HP and had a combined fuel economy of 46 MPG, which is really not that far from this new Honda Insight.

So I guess what you could say, that with the styling change and all, what Honda has really done is cloned the old 2nd Generation Toyota Prius.  The Honda Insight is just a generation behind.

Mythbusters will not air any more RFID myth shows.

The question is why?

Adam Savage first explained that when a meeting was set up with Texas Instruments to explore the hackability and reliability of RFID, TI included in the conference legal pitbulls from practically every major credit card company.  Who quickly chomped down on their asterisk.  It was said originally that it was Discovery networks that chose not to ever air another RFID episode again.

But now a slightly different version is floating around, which even Adam Savage supports now.  (Under what duress however cannot be accounted.)  Which is thatTI only invited one credit card representitive to the conference call, because they could better explain how credit companies use the technology.  Technical questions were asked and answered as planned.  And that supposedly there was no pressure whatsoever on Mythbusters to cancel their RFID show.

Which is further changed that it was Beyond Productions (the production company for Mythbusters) who pulled the plug on Mythbusters, and not Discovery.  And that indeed, no RFID Mythbusters show will ever air again.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

I’m almost buying that.

(Sarcasm, by the way.  Just in case you couldn’t tell.)

Now I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t lay somewhere in the middle.  None of us outside know all of the facts.  But if there were no pressure from any lawyers, then why would anyone even consider cancelling the show?  Obviously there was support for the show originally, or else Mythbusters wouldn’t have tried to make it.  Something changed along the way.  If it wasn’t during the call with TI, then when was it?  If it wasn’t legal teams from major credit card companies, then who was it?

Hackers have already proven how easy it is to clone RFID chips, how easy it is to hack systems to glean information, and so forth.  These are not myths.  These have been done.  It’s bad enough when the RFID chips are in your little credit-keychain devices and cards that you just wave at a machine and don’t have to sign or type a thing.  Cloning those could cause serious annoyance.  (Only prevented from being more than an annoyance by limits on how much can be purchased in such a manner.)

But it’s much worse when you consider the new passports using RFID.  Doh!

It’s a serious issue.  And one that, apparently, big business is doing its best to make go away, when even myth heroes Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are stopped from telling you the truth.

PS. By the way, I seriously stress that if you feel a need to use any of these devices with RFID built in, that you at least keep them in an RF-shielded container when they are not being used.  These devices are designed to broadcast their information to any device which asks.  The security is atrocious as anyone, anywhere, can ping these devices as they sit in your wallet or purse.  Protect yourself.  Be secure.

And whenever possible, say no to RFID until these basic security issues are resolved.