A new safety feature being developed by Nissan Motor Co. causes a car’s gas pedal to lift by itself to alert the driver of a possible collision.
That new technology, shown to reporters this week, combines radar sensors and a computer system to judge a car’s speed and the distance to the vehicle in front.
When the car senses a possible head-on crash, the gas pedal automatically rises against the driver’s foot as a signal to step on the brake.
If sensors detect a possible collision ahead, the brake automatically kicks in when the driver lifts his or her foot off the gas.
A buzz also goes off in what Nissan engineers tentatively dubbed the “magic bumper.”
Skeptics may see the technology as obtrusive, perhaps even risky, given that some drivers may prefer to rely on their own reflexes.
But Nissan says the magic bumper is helpful because research has shown that more than half of traffic accidents are caused by inattention, drowsiness and carelessness, rather than error in judgment or illegalities such as speeding and drunken driving.
Senior manager Yousuke Akatsu said Nissan hopes to offer the safety feature in about two or three years in Japan and also aims to offer it in the United States and Europe, although no plans have been set.
The technology is part of the Tokyo-based company’s larger effort to create the accident-proof car. So far, Nissan offers cruise control, warnings for cars veering off lanes and a system that helps drivers brake harder in emergencies.
Also demonstrated this week was a car-navigation monitor that uses digital cameras to show a computer-graphic bird’s eye view of the car. The system can, for instance, help drivers steer into tight parking spots.
Find out what “hmtcd.dll” is all about: Is “malfile.exe” a virus? What does “hmtcd.dll” do?
PC users sometimes come upon unfamiliar files on their hard drives, and identifying them is often a challenge. Many were fooled by a hoax e-mail that circulated a few years ago, instructing them to delete the alleged virus file “jdbgmgr.exe.” The file was perfectly innocuous, but it wasn’t easy to know that.
Internet security company Bit9 Inc. this week launched fileadvisor.bit9.com, a Web site that attempts to bridge that knowledge gap. Visitors can search data on 25 million Windows PC files, collected from Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp., the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other sources.
Visitors can search using filenames, but this approach can be fooled by files that appear in several applications under the same name, or viruses masquerading with a legitimate file name.
For more accuracy, users can download a small, free application from FileAdvisor. When the user right-clicks a file, the application gives the option of computing a unique number that identifies the file. That number is then compared to the FileAdvisor database, giving a better chance of identification.
Cell phone emergency call goals falling short: Despite an end-of-2005 goal to equip all emergency dispatch centers with the ability to locate a cell phone user who dials 911, a congressional report finds that some states will need another five years or more, while others may never reach full availability.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, noted that the deployment of “enhanced 911” location capabilities had tripled during 2004 and 2005 among the nation’s more than 6,000 dispatch centers.
Still, by late 2005, just 57 percent of the centers had upgraded their systems so their dispatchers could receive information from cell phone companies to pinpoint a 911 caller’s location within a few hundred yards, the GAO said, citing data from the National Emergency Number Association. That compared with 18 percent in late 2003.
The deployment of so-called E911 is a two-piece puzzle, as both cell phone companies and the emergency dispatch facilities need to upgrade their systems.
The federal government has no control over the state- and local-run dispatch centers. So only the wireless companies are actually covered by the 2005 goal for full deployment first set by the federal government ten years ago. Some cellular carriers have asked for extensions.
The GAO report was based on a survey of local officials that drew responses from every state except Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Officials from Washington, D.C., also failed to respond.
Americans love their music online: Music sales helped propel U.S. spending on online content to a record $2 billion last year, a 15 percent increase from 2004, the Online Publishers Association reports.
The entertainment/lifestyle category, which in 2005 surpassed personals/dating to become the leading category of paid content, will likely get an even bigger boost this year with the availability of more video online. Apple Computer Inc. opened its iTunes Music Store to video late in the year, while Google Inc. did not begin offering paid video until January 2006.
“Consumers are viewing the Web platform and going online as a major destination for entertainment,” said Pam Horan, vice president of marketing and membership for the New York-based trade group of media companies.
A few categories saw declines: sports, by 3 percent; user-generated content sites, such as classmates.com and IMDB.com, by 7 percent; and general news, by 11 percent.
From Herald news services
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