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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • Parking, made easy (or at least rage-free) 6/15/08   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Sunday, June 15, 2008 Sea-Tac video points you to parking spaces A project to enable the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport garage to direct travelers to open spaces yielded an unusual solution -- at least as far as parking garage technology goes. Facing a tight budget, the Sea-Tac team found that the two most popular systems for counting vacant spaces were too expensive. At the Portland International Airport, for example, each parking space is equipped with an ultrasonic detector that knows if the space is occupied. Albert Shen, the consultant who managed the technology retrofit for Sea-Tac, said Portland's system would cost $1,100 per space, or $9.5 million for Sea-Tac's 8,500 long-term parking spots. The other widely used system relies on copper wires embedded in the floor to sense and count cars as they enter and leave. That system, used at Dallas-Fort Worth, was also too pricey. So Sea-Tac decided to design its own system based on software the port already used for surveillance and security. In less than 18 months, a software engineer and a small army of IT workers built what Shen says is the first video analysis-based space count system. Shen said it's possible that Sea-Tac would license its system, which the airport hopes will cut down on parking-garage rage and carbon emissions. It uses 88 cameras throughout the garage. Software analyzes the video feeds, detects moving cars and keeps track of how many cars are parked in each section. Signs at entrances that tell drivers how many spaces are available in each section on each floor are updated frequently. The cameras aren't positioned to capture license plate numbers or serve any security purpose, and the airport doesn't keep the footage, said Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper. But the price was right -- $400 per space, or $3.4 million, Shen estimated. Red players beat blue in online game: It's better to be on the red team than on the blue team in an online multiplayer shooting game, according to researchers. The scientists studied the outcomes of 1,347 matchups between elite teams playing "Unreal Tournament 2004," a so-called first-person shooter game. The main activity in the game is running around and shooting at the avatars of the opposing team. As is the case with most team-based online shooting games, players of Unreal Tournament can choose to be on either the red team or the blue team, and their avatars wear those colors. But that choice is not as neutral as it seems: 55 percent of the time, the red team won, according to the study published this week in the journal Cyberpsychology & Behavior. Neuroscientist Mihai Moldovan of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark said the reason was most likely that the color red may act as a psychological distractor for men, possibly because men flush and turn red when they're angry. "While this is really an interesting analysis, the notion of red team versus blue team has been ingrained in the Unreal Tournament series for years. We don't anticipate any immediate changes to team colors," said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, the Cary, N.C.-based developer of the series. Web site offers insider look at major employers: Ever wonder whether you'd be better off working some place else? A new Web site called Glassdoor.com is trying to make it easier to find out by compiling free snapshots of the current salaries paid by hundreds of major employers, along with reviews anonymously written by current and past workers. "We think it's super-important that people are able to find a job where they can go home happy at the end of the day," said Robert Hohman, Glassdoor's co-founder and chief executive. The startup's other founders include Rich Barton, CEO of online home appraisal site Zillow.com. By providing free access to sensitive salary information and sometimes blunt reviews of companies, Glassdoor is bound to upset some employers, predicted Jupiter Research analyst Barry Parr. A Glassdoor feature that allows workers to rate their CEOs could be particularly provocative. To get the skinny on other companies, visitors must be willing to reveal their salaries and feelings about their employers. Engineers search for fuel-saving big rigs: Tractor trailers lose valuable miles per gallon to the drag that air exerts, but air may also help tame the fuel guzzling forces. Scientists at Georgia Tech's Research Institute are creating a "circulation control system" that blows a steady current of air around the back of the truck to help boost fuel efficiency. Trailers are an aerodynamic nightmare. Robert Englar, a Georgia Tech researcher who helped develop air stabilizers working for Lockheed Martin, decided to apply some of the same principles to big rigs. He connects curved bumpers at a truck's back end to a blower that pushes a steady stream of air through them and out the sides. That air flow reduces drag by replacing it with a positive pressure that helps propel the vehicle. On a test track, Englar's system reduced drag by 32 percent and increased fuel efficiency by 12 percent. That means a truck that once would get 5 miles per gallon gets 5.6 miles per gallon. That marginal increase could save thousands of dollars a year in fuel for a single truck. He hopes to bring the gadget's cost below $1,000 over the next few years and some day to include safety features, such as sensors to trigger the air flow to reverse when a driver starts to brake or push against threatening wind gusts. From the Associated Press

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