Audi A8 wow technophiles at T3 Magazine Gadget Awards

Technology aficionados at the U.K.-based T3 Magazine have added a new 'Car of the Year' category to their annual Gadget Awards, and Audi is proud to be the recipient of the inaugural award for the A8 luxury saloon.

Presented recently at a high profile ceremony in London that also honoured many other ground-breakers from the worlds of computing, mobile communication, photography, audio and visual entertainment, the awards are allocated not only on the strength of verdicts from a panel of nine tech-savvy journalists, but also based on over 500,000 votes cast online on the T3 website.

Kieran Alger, T3 Magazine Editor-In-Chief, summed up the intensity of the competition for the awards and the calibre of the winners by saying, "This year's awards have been the hardest fought yet. Every single winning product is truly an outstanding example of innovation and design."

The primary focus of the Car of the Year award is not surprisingly technological merit. Singled out for particular praise in the A8 are its advanced adaptive air suspension system, its Audi connect technology bringing internet-based services such as Google Earth navigation and Google Street View to the car and creating a mobile wi-fi hotspot, and its 'unrivalled entertainment systems'.

Built around the advanced, predominantly lightweight aluminium Audi Space Frame, the Audi A8 range has recently been further enhanced by subtle styling revisions, equipment upgrades and improvements to engines, all of which now meet tougher EU6 emissions limits applicable from 2014.

Of particular interest to the gadget lovers at T3 will be the futuristic new MatrixBeam headlights and dynamic indicators, which become standard equipment for some new generation A8 models. The 25 individual LEDs in each MatrixBeam headlamp unit can be switched on and off or dimmed individually depending on the situation, meaning that the on-board computer can mask specific sections of the high beam by dimming or deactivating individual diodes when it detects other vehicles travelling ahead in either direction.