air bag

Amazon wins its insane gadget-airbag patent

Amazon has been granted a patent for protecting gadgets from accidents by using tiny airbags and even jets of air.

The patent application made waves immediately after it was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last August. Amazon filed for it in February 2010 and was granted it today, Engadget notes.

At its core, the patent details a system that uses your gadget's built-in gyroscope, accelerometers, camera, and other onboard sensors to figure out if the device has gone airborne. If so, a system can keep the device from getting too badly damaged by changing its … Read more

Inflatable camera case an idea that floats

Some years ago, a friend of mine dropped my compact into the sea and all I could do was watch my poor camera sink into the embrace of Davy Jones' locker. Sometimes, that memory prompts strange thoughts of falling into the sea with a camera, and then wondering if I would have enough time to throw my point-and-shoot back onto land before it suffered a dunking with me.

When I stumbled on the Kata ABS-HD Air Bag system, I knew this was one indispensable piece of carrying gear that any adventurer/photographer ought to own. When deflated, the case is … Read more

Ford's crash-test smarties

Ford Motor offered a glimpse into one of its testing labs on Tuesday. The showcase was assumably to promote the new safety features in its upcoming lineup of cars, and as you can imagine, the peek into this world of crash test dummies is rather amusing.

One of the technologies Ford talked about testing was a new air bag system, which was put in the 2009 F-150 and will be in the 2010 Ford Taurus. Instead of being acceleration-based, the new sensors are pressure-based, which makes them more accurate, according to Ford, but also more sensitive.

The company wanted to … Read more

New air bag technology passes shopping cart test

It may sound easy enough, but don't try this at home. To test the performance of new pressure-based air bag sensors equipped on the 2010 Taurus and 2009 Ford F150, Ford engineers have employed equipment more commonly found in shopping malls than in laboratories, such such as water cannons, basket balls, shopping carts.

Unconventional as these tests may seem in a state-of-the-art testing facility, it's exactly what these vehicles might encounter in the real world and what engineers need to test against.

As part an effort to achieve the highest safety ratings, Ford has replaced acceleration-based sensors with pressure-based sensors that more accurately measure the severity of a crash.

These new air bag pressure sensors, according to Ford, have several advantages over air bags equipped with acceleration-based sensors: they deploy 30 percent faster, perform better in new federal side-impact and oblique-impact tests, are less likely to be affected by vehicle design differences, and give designers more flexibility because they take up less space. … Read more