It is a fact that airbags inside automobiles have helped save thousands of drivers and their passengers from serious injury or even death. But what about collisions that involve cars and pedestrians or even cars and motorcycles? Airbags inside the car may protect the driver, but not the poor souls outside the vehicle. One Swedish company, however, is hoping to change all that.
Autoliv Inc. is the creator of new airbag system to protect people outside the car from serious injuries during accidents. The system operates when a front side impact is detected and inflates an airbag that covers most of the car’s hood and some of the front windshield. This would of course lessen the impact of persons outside striking the car’s hood and possibly protect them from crashing through the front windshield of the car.
Estimates from the Dutch Cycling Federation say that perhaps 60 lives and over 1500 serious injuries could be prevented if an external airbag system like that created by Autoliv is used. With a useful airbag system like this, hopefully it will find its way into all new cars around the world in the near future.
Read more at InventorSpot.
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One day, we will pay for nothing. All goods and services will be ad-supported. This will continue until the only advertisements are for more ad-supported services. Then, late one Monday afternoon, sometime in 2012, the Singularity will occur, snakes will swallow their own tails and, born from the collapse of reality, a second big-bang will birth the Googleverse.
Sure, there’s plenty of basic dive computers out there, but if you really want to get some attention under the sea, you may want to consider something like Linde Wrdelin’s new “Sea Instrument,” which can even be had in a special 18K yellow gold edition if you want to go all out. Whether you opt for that or the basic anodized aluminum model, however, you’ll get the same transflective color display and sapphire crystal glass cover designed to be readable underwater, along with a 3-axis compass and access to all the vital information you’ll need including depth, dive time, decompression stops, and temperature, to name a few, not to mention a rechargeable battery that promises to deliver 28 hours of continuous use. Of course, all that doesn’t exactly come cheap, with the aluminum version alone running €2,100 (or about $3,000). Oh, and you’ll also need a Linde Werdelin Biformeter watch to attach it to, which is only a few grand more.
Never one shy to pick a fight, Comcast is now taking square aim at AT&T, which it alleges is wreaking havoc with its internet service as a result of shoddy installs of the company’s U-verse TV service. More specifically, as Ars Technica points out, while both companies use different lines outside of the home (copper coax for Comcast and twisted pair for AT&T), they each use the same coaxial wiring inside the house, which Comcast says causes “feedback” to leak back out onto its network, possibly as a result of the two services using similar frequencies or filters. That, Comcast says, has caused service disruptions for some 20,000 users in the Chicago area, with it particularly affecting those that mix and match Comcast and U-verse services. To put a stop to that, Comcast is now seeking a restraining order against AT&T, although it apparently hasn’t received one as of yet. For its part, AT&T not only unsurprisingly says that “the suit lacks merit and that the company intends to vigorously fight it,” but that it plans to significantly ramp up the roll out of U-verse in Illinois.
Windows XP has a date with destiny scheduled for June 30, but it looks like the plucky OS just isn’t ready to go: Ultraportable OEMs will be able to preload XP until “one year after the general availability of Windows 7,” whenever that is, and now we’re hearing reports that Dell’s telling customers it’ll sell XP on professional systems until 2012. The Dell thing is just a rumor for now, but what’s Steve Ballmer doing telling reporters that although XP is EOL, “if customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter” and extend XP sales? Um, Steve? Customers have been feeding back like crazy and Microsoft has kind of ignored them, remember? Maybe it’s time for a quick nap.
