Items tagged with Safety
Maverick of Top Gun may have a need for speed, but Volvo drivers will not be able to ride on the highway to the danger zone. Volvo Cars plans to impose a top speed limit of 180 kph on all of its vehicles by 2020. The company hopes that this limitation will reduce the number of speeding-related accidents. According to the United States National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 25% of all traffic fatalities in the United States in 2017 were caused by speeding. Volvo hopes that if they limit their vehicle’s speed limit to 180 kph (roughly 112 mph), they can eliminate speeding fatalities and injuries. Håkan Samuelsson, President and Chief Executive of Volvo Cars, remarked,...
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Expanding a recall dating back to 2008, Japanese automobile airbag manufacturer Takata Corp is doubling the number of recalls for its potentially lethal product in the U.S. from 16.6 million to approximately 34 million vehicles (about one in seven of the over 250 million vehicles on American roads), which makes it the largest such recall in American history. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in conjunction with Takata state that the recall affects passenger- and driver-side airbag inflators that are installed in vehicles made by 11 automobile manufacturers. “We are committed to continuing to work...
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Here's something you're probably aware of: privacy is a major issue, and it's becoming bigger by the day. Just this week, Kickstarter's servers were infiltrated, just months after Target suffered one of the world's most serious data exploits. Companies are flowing out of the blue with a myriad methods to solve all of this and to keep your data buttoned up. SlickLogin was one of those companies, and going forward, it'll be housed under the Google umbrella. The premise of SlickLogin is actually pretty slick, as the title implies: users looking to login to a site on their PC would have their PC emit a sound that only one's phone could hear. That phone could act as the authentication method. The...
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In recent years, parents of teenagers have had to add digital safety to the long list of potential dangers keeping them awake at night. From stolen identities to cyberbullying, the online world can be a very dangerous one. To help equip parents and their kids to better navigate that world safely, the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), in collaboration with Facebook, launched a consumer education program “to provide teens and their parents with tools and tips to manage their privacy and visibility both on Facebook and more broadly on the Internet”. Leading the campaign is Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, who announced the program by saying, “Teenagers...
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Could the choice of font used in your vehicle's front dash kill you? Potentially yes, say researchers. That sort of claim is going to require some explanation, so let's hop - err, drive - to it. The conclusion was reached thanks to the joint study conducted by AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Monotype Imaging Holding Inc., a typeface vendor. The goal was to see if certain fonts could require more time than others to read and comprehend. The test utilized two different typefaces - one, a flat, "grotesque" font, the other more "humanist". I admit that I figured the "grotesque" font would be easier to read given its clean lines, but that wasn't the conclusion reached. Instead,...
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Over the years, exploding batteries have becoming quite the issue in consumer electronics (as seen here in this melted iPhone). And not just exploding, but overheating, melting and combusting ones, too. But now, we're making progress on potentially stopping that ruckus. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., have developed an inexpensive sensor that can warn of impending catastrophic failure in lithium-ion batteries. The sensor is based on the researchers' discovery of an intrinsic relationship between the internal temperature of lithium-ion cells and an easily measured electrical parameter of the cell. Due to their high energy density, lithium-ion...
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Is your mom telling you what you can and can't look at on the Internet? Do you have Web surfing restrictions? Back in the day, these restrictions were seemingly everywhere, and the media made it a priority to inform parents about the kinds of trouble their kids could get into online. Now, that has died down somewhat, and despite age restrictions attached to a number of Websites, a new survey found that more kids are using them than ever before. According to the findings, the amount of U.S. parents who would allow kids ages 10-12 years old to have a MySpace or Facebook account has "doubled" in the span of just a year. 17% of parents in the U.S. that were questioned said that they had no problem...
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San Francisco, home of the Giants and land of sometimes questionable mandates, like the one passed last year that would require cell phone retailers to slap a label on their devices indicating radiation levels. The measure created a bit of a firestorm on the Internet over whether such a label was really needed or simply ridiculous. For now, San Francisco is betting on the latter. According to a report in The San Francisco Chronicle, city officials have now decided to delay implementing what is known as the "Right to Know" ordinance, placing it on indefinite hold, likely until a different version takes its place. So why the change of heart? Image Credit: Flickr (Salim Virji) It's not just the...
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AT&T is adding two new enhancements to its Smart Limits for Wireless parental control offering. With the updates, parents will now be able to block up to 30 numbers to prevent unwanted or harassing calls and text messages on their child’s phone. To help prevent bill shock, AT&T is also adding 411 calls to a restricted list of numbers. The service also provides parents with the ability to limit or restrict on-phone purchases. AT&T Announces Enhancements to AT&T Smart Limits for Wireless Parents Now Able to Block Twice the Number of Unwanted Calls and Texts Dallas, Texas, May 02, 2011 - AT&T* today announced the addition of two new enhancements to AT&T Smart Limits...
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AVG launched AVG Family Safety, a new application that is designed to help parents protect their children online. AVG Family Safety acts as a virtual guardian for children by letting parents create age-appropriate settings and profiles for each child in the home. These profiles can be adjusted as the child gets older and as their digital behavior and habits change. AVG Family Safety can filter unwanted communication from over 80 social networking sites. Chats and network threads can also be monitored. The software can monitor what websites children are visiting and what searches they are conducting online. Full reporting is also available to help parents know what sites their children have visited....
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Last week, the FAA announced that there were a record number of "laser events" in 2010. What the FAA means by that, there was a record number of idiots who think it's funny to potentially temporarily blind a pilot with a laser pointer or even some high-powered laser device. The FAA created a formal reporting system for laser events in 2005. Reports nearly double from 2009 to 2010, with 1,527 and 2,836 events, respectively. In the first year for formal reporting, 2005, there were only 300 events. The top 10 airports in terms of laser events are: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) 102 Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) 98 Phoenix/Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) 80 San...
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Blue Coat announced the K9 Web Protection Browser for iOS. This free Web browser designed for Apple iPads, iPhones, and Web-enabled iPod Touch devices provides for a family-safe browsing experience. In addition to protecting from content that is not appropriate for children such as pornography, violence, illegal drugs, and gambling, the browser also protects against phishing and malware. The K9 Web Protection Browser uses Blue Coat’s cloud-based WebPulse service to offer users up-to-the-moment protection from objectionable content and threats. The K9 Web Protection Browser is available as a free download from the Apple iTunes App Store. Blue Coat Introduces Free Family-Safe Web Browser...
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The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has released its latest report, Trouble in Toyland: The 25th Annual Survey of Toy Safety. The report is something parents should look at as they rush out on Black Friday to gather bargains. What about if you are already at a store? How do you protect your children? HealthyChoice.org has help for you. It's a site with Flash widgets that show you both overall safety concern for products and lead only concern. That works for devices that support Flash (such as Android 2.2 devices), but for others, such as iPhone and older versions of Android, there is a mobile site. If you do not have a smartphone, you are not out of luck. You can SMS an inquiry, using...
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In the wake of the pair of thwarted bombings by Al Qaeda last month, the TSA has announced additional restrictions and guidelines for passengers traveling both within the United States and internationally. In additional to logical and prudent steps, such as banning packages from Somalia and Yemen (temporarily) and additional screening for packages classified as high risk, there's a new pair of rules that're collectively bizarre. From the DHS press release: Toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces will be prohibited on passenger aircraft in both carry-on bags and checked bags on domestic and international flights in-bound to the United States. This ban will also apply to certain inbound international...
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