Hasta La Gadget!

A while back, there was some buzz about how hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius are silent and therefore dangerous to pedestrians, who can’t hear them coming as well as regular gasoline or diesel-powered cars.

To combat this problem, Lotus Cars and Harman have joined forces to create Electronic Sound Synthesis (ESS), a technology with two purposes: one, to funnel fake engine nose outside the car using front and rear-mounted speakers, so that people on foot can hear it when it’s approaching at low speeds, and two, to generate fake engine noise inside the car through the vehicle’s in-car entertainment system, in order to make it sound more like a regular vehicle when accelerating.

The agreement will also let the two companies work together in the other direction and further develop Lotus’s Road Noise Cancellation and Engine Order Cancellation technologies to quiet down cabin noise. All of this sounds like it adds up to a net result of zero, but I’ll take their word for it.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found in a new series of crash tests that drivers of 2009 versions of the Smart fortwo, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris risk “significant leg and head injuries in severe front-end crashes” with larger, mid-size vehicles, according to the Associated Press.

Worse, the Smart fortwo actually went airborne and turned 450 degrees–more than one full rotation–after hitting the other car (a Mercedes C-Class, itself no giant) in the test. The tests consisted of 40 mph head-on crashes between the fortwo and a 2009 Mercedes C-Class, the Fit and a 2009 Honda Accord, and the Yaris and the 2009 Toyota Camry–rare but possibly representative scenarios of real life crashes between two vehicles of different sizes.

“There are good reasons people buy mini cars. They’re more affordable,
and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear from our new
tests,” said Adrian Lund, the institute’s president, in the article.

Here’s the problem: automakers are saying that the IIHS’s tests in general rehashed past insurance industry arguments against tougher fuel efficiency requirements, according to the report. I always thought the IIHS’s crash tests were important, since they go far beyond what the government requires and often lead to safer car designs. But I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that everyone should drive large vehicles, especially considering that many have done poorly on IIHS tests.

It’s okay to be honest with yourself — if you’ve been struggling to keep your personal goods on your person, and hiring a personal bodyguard is simply out of the question, you might need nio. What’s nio, you ask? Why, it’s a Bluetooth security tag that links up your mobile phone and practically anything else you’d like: a briefcase, a set of keys, a pack of Doritos, etc. Essentially, it gives you the ability to be buzzed if your tracked belongings hover too far out of range with your cellie, though the inability to remotely taser the thief is a definite shortcoming. Seems that you’ll have to be real serious about this to even inquire about a price, but a totally explanatory video is waiting just past the break.

[Via Gadling]

Continue reading nio Bluetooth security tag keeps tabs on your belongings

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

nio Bluetooth security tag keeps tabs on your belongings originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Emergency personnel need the latest in radio, GPS, wireless, and cellular connectivity to do their jobs. Now researchers at the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany have developed flying quadcopter robots that join and assemble an ad-hoc wireless network in the event of a disaster, Engadget reports.

When joined together, the robots can offer both Wi-Fi and cellular access to emergency people on the ground. They’re built with off-the-shelf parts, including a GPS radio and a VIA chipset, and come in a kit that includes everything but the battery for about $380 each, the report said.

The battery is a killer, though—it costs about $1,200 and only lasts for 20 minutes of flight time, although once the thing finds a place to land, it can work for hours after that on the same charge. A robot will be on display in FutureParc hall at CeBIT, according to the report. This is easily the coolest thing I’ve seen all week.

Commuters on the road in Austin were in for an interesting surprise yesterday morning, as hackers took over two road signs and changed the usual traffic-related messages to warn of zombies instead, according to Austin News. A city spokesperson said in the report the hacked messages were only up for a few hours—and that someone had to cut a padlock and break into a password-protected computer inside in order to change the messages.

“Even though this may seem amusing to a lot of people, this is really serious, and it is a crime,” said Austin Public Works spokesperson Sara Hartley in the report. “And you can be indicted for it, and we want to make sure our traffic on the roadways stays safe.”

“I thought it was pretty funny,” said University of Texas sophomore Jane Shin, who saw the signs on Lamar Boulevard, in the article. “We wondered who did it.”