Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST Joyce Hung http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120207/11315417688/dailydirt-who-drives-best-men-women-robots.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120207/11315417688/dailydirt-who-drives-best-men-women-robots.shtml

A New York City traffic study found that male drivers were responsible for 80% of car accidents in which pedestrians were severely injured or killed. Blame it on testosterone, which increases aggression and risk-taking. [url]

A University of Michigan analysis of 6.5 million car accidents in the U.S. between 1998-2007 found that female drivers were responsible for 68.1% of all crashes. Apparently, women have trouble navigating intersections, as they were most often hit on the driver's or passenger side while trying to turn left or right. [url]

A more recent UK study showed that women are actually better at parking than men, dispelling the myth that men have better spatial awareness than women. According to the professional driving instructor who created the study, men learn and perform better during driving lessons, but it's possible that women retain what they learn better than men. [url]

Let the car park itself. Many automakers, including Ford, Toyota, and BMW, are offering self-parking systems in their vehicles now. While they can guide cars into parking spaces with minimal driver involvement, they aren't always reliable. [url]

To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120207/11315417688 Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110120/18430612752/dailydirt-wearing-technology-your-sleeve-your-brain.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110120/18430612752/dailydirt-wearing-technology-your-sleeve-your-brain.shtml

BMW sponsored a bunch of "urban transportation concepts" for wearable personal transportation. But a lot of these designs look much less useful than a Segway. [url]

Really small supercapacitors grown on fibers could create a variety of textiles that could act like batteries. We probably won't be wearing batteries anytime soon, but flexible batteries might be useful. [url]

A paralyzed woman has learned to control a BrainGate implant and has used it as a computer input device for over 1,000 days. She can perform "point and click" actions with >90% accuracy. [url]

To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110120/18430612752 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:35:36 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/1122416833.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091106/1122416833.shtml applying for a patent on a method using technology to solve problems. You can read the patent application for a Method for Systematically Identifying Technology-Based Solutions if you'd like. It's not quite as broad as the claim on Autoblog that it's a patent application on "technological creative thinking," but it is ridiculously broad. Read through the actual claims, and it's difficult to see how this deserves a patent at all. There shouldn't be a monopoly on a method for how you solve problems.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> no-thinking-for-you http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091106/1122416833