Aprilia Dorsoduro

The Aprilia SMV750 Dorsoduro is the latest in a small number of road-legal motorcycles taking their inspiration from the supermoto form of motorcycle racing - essentially motocross, or dirt, bikes fitted with slick road racing tyres and raced over a half-tarmac/half-dirt circuit.

This exciting but minority form of racing had not seen road bike applications until a few years ago, when Austrian bike-maker KTM began to produce bikes which could trace their heritage back to supermoto machines. Unusually, the popularity of road-legal Supermoto bikes caught the motorcycling press somewhat by surprise. In fact it was one of the rare occasions when the hype didn't arrive until after the event itself.

Supermoto bikes, in their racing form, are extreme machines. They have all the huge power and light weight of motocross bikes, but channel that subsequent speed to the road through huge racing tyres. However, the popularity of the road-going versions stems not only from their extreme power-to-weight ratios, unusual looks, and individuality, but from a practicality not envisaged by the manufacturers: on-road supermotos enjoy the high seating position of off-road bikes, giving excellent visibility, together with the sharp handling of sports bikes (but with a better turning circle) making them excellent (if somewhat hardcore) commuting machines for those who want all the speed of a traditional sports machine with a little more urban practicality. Add to this the long suspension travel Supermotos enjoy and you have what for many is the ultimate way to work (although, it has to be said, not too much further - long-distance machines they are not). Italian manufacturer Aprilia has a long and successful racing history in Supermoto. The concept suits Aprilia's desired corporate image as performance-related but not ordinary. The Dorsoduro was the company's first attempt to transfer that race pedigree to road bike sales.

SMV

SMV may refer to:

In computer science

Other uses

SMV (band)

SMV is a bass guitar supergroup formed in 2008. The group's name comes from the first initials of each of its members, Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten. The collaboration gained momentum when the three first played together at a concert held by Bass Player magazine in New York City in 2006, where Miller and Wooten joined Clarke on stage to present him with the magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award. SMV's debut album, Thunder, was released on August 12, 2008, with a supporting world tour beginning the same month.

References

External links

Mic (media company)

Mic (Formerly PolicyMic) is a media company focused on news for a generation known as the "millennials". The company reaches 19 million unique monthly visitors and has a higher composition of 18- to 34-year-old readers than any other millennial-focused news site, including BuzzFeed and Vice.

Mic received early attention for its on-the-ground coverage during the revolution in Tunisia, and The Hollywood Reporter remarked that Mic features "stories that intelligently cover serious issues important to young people".

History

PolicyMic was founded in 2011 by Chris Altchek and Jake Horowitz, two high school friends from New York. Since then, they have raised $15 million from investors, including Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape, who said that Altchek and Horowitz "remind me of my younger self". Other investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lerer Ventures, Advancit Capital, Red Swan Ventures, and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In 2014, PolicyMic announced they would re-brand their organization to target millennials, and renamed themselves as "Mic". The company will not disclose its valuation. According to The New York Observer, Mic currently does not make a profit and "is in the increasingly rare habit of actually paying each one of its writers, editors and contributors".

Microsoft Comic Chat

Microsoft Comic Chat (later Microsoft Chat, but not to be confused with Windows Chat, or WinChat) is a graphical IRC client created by Microsoft, first released with Internet Explorer 3.0 in 1996. Comic Chat was developed by Microsoft Researcher David Kurlander, with Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group and later a group he managed in Microsoft's Internet Division.

Comic Chat's main feature, which set it apart from other IRC clients, is that it enabled comic avatars to represent a user; this character could express a specified emotion, possibly making IRC chatting a more emotive and expressive experience. All of the comic characters and backgrounds were initially created by comic artist Jim Woodring. Later, tools became available that allowed user-created characters and backgrounds.

Comic Chat started out as a research project, and a paper describing the technology was published at SIGGRAPH '96. It was an experiment in automatic illustration construction and layout. The algorithms used in Comic Chat attempted to mimic some basic illustration techniques of comic artists (particularly Jim Woodring). Character placement, the choice of gestures and expressions, and word balloon construction and layout, were all chosen automatically. A widget called the "emotion wheel" allowed users to override the program's choice of expression.

MIC

Mic or MIC may refer to:

Organisations

Business

Government and politics

Clap

Clap may refer to:

People with the surname

See also