safety

Report: Phones really could cause planes to crash

Have you ever forgotten to turn your cell phone off during a flight? Did you survive?

The question might seem slightly churlish, but the airline industry would like you to know that your little electronic devices--yes, just one of them--can really, truly, seriously mess with the aircraft's systems.

ABC News managed to get hold of a report by the International Air Transport Association that makes for very interesting reading. For it seems to link up to 75 incidents on planes with interference from cell phones or other electronic devices.

Rational minds will, no doubt, judge the evidence through their … Read more

Cell phones and the radiation risk (roundup)

Based on new findings, the World Health Organization classifies cell phones as a potential cancer risk much like exhaust from gasoline-powered vehicles and lead. Meanwhile, CNET launches a series on the state of cell phone research and what consumers can do to protect themselves.

Cell phone radiation: A self-defense guide (FAQ) For many people, it's just not practical or realistic to avoid cell phones altogether. And it may not be necessary, if you take some of these suggestions for reducing your exposure. (Posted in Signal Strength by Marguerite Reardon) June 6, 2011 4:00 AM PDT

The trouble with the cell phone radiation standard … Read more

Inside Foxconn's fatal iPad factory

"Among the three factories, occupational health and safety issues in Chengdu are alarming."

That passage is from a report (PDF) released by the Hong Kong-based group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) two weeks before Friday's explosion at Foxconn's Chengdu plant that killed two workers and injured more than a dozen others.

SACOM researchers visited Foxconn plants in Chengdu, where iPads are produced; in Chongqing, a smaller facility making mostly HP products; and Foxconn's huge campus in Shenzhen, where half a million workers assemble a variety of computers, mobile phones, and additional products for Apple, HP, Nokia, Dell, and others. The researchers claim to have observed a number of problems at the Chengdu facilities in particular:

Workers do not have adequate training on usage of chemicals and do not have regular on-post health examinations. A number of interviewees even complain they suffer from allergy, but the management does not probe into the adverse health impacts of workers. Workers also highlight the problem of poor ventilation and inadequate personal protective equipment.

While SACOM notes the lack of ventilation as a possible threat to workers' respiratory health, it appears that it may also have been a contributing factor to Friday's explosion, which reportedly was centered in the "polishing" section of Foxconn's facilities. … Read more

Microsoft and Facebook team up to fight child porn

Facebook is expanding its efforts to fight child pornography using Microsoft technology, Redmond announced in a blog post yesterday.

The world's largest social network has joined the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's PhotoDNA program. The service, which was developed by Microsoft Research and Dartmouth College in 2009, uses image-matching technology to find known depictions of child pornography across the Web. Facebook plans to use the technology across its network to ensure child pornography is not circulating through the site.

Microsoft has been using PhotoDNA with great success since the service's development. According to the company, … Read more

IoSafe Rugged Portable review: Anger management alternative

Admit it! Sometimes you are so mad, you just want to slam something on the floor, step on it, and then kick it a few times. I know a friend who did just that with his portable drive only to later regret losing data and hurting his big toe. If only he had had the IoSafe Rugged Portable, his data would have been safe. His toe's another story, however.

First introduced at CES 2011 with a bang (quite a few bangs, actually), IoSafe's Rugged Portable is the first mobile external hard drive that can really withstand serious beatings and abuse. The drive can handle drops, water submersion, dust, chemicals, and being crushed by a vise. I have personally shot at it with a shotgun--at a demo, not out of anger--and it didn't break.

This means that if you happen to drop it in the street and the thing gets run over by cars, chances are it will survive quite easily. As a matter of fact, the only situation it seems the Rugged Portable won't survive is extreme heat, which its brother the IoSafe SoloPro can handle. To make up for this, the Rugged Portable is about 15 times more compact and lighter. The drive is slightly smaller than a 3.5-inch internal hard drive and weighs about 1 pound. It's designed to be carried around, while the SoloPro is meant to be used at home only. … Read more

Stay prepared with the American Red Cross Axis Safety Hub

I am not the type who's well-prepared (my fridge is almost always empty), nor do I want to scare people into getting things that they don't really need.

However, I ran across the American Red Cross Axis from Eton the other day and thought it was a really handy device to have around the house, or in your car.

It's hard to classify the Eton Axis as one specific type of device because it's many things in one. It's a radio (AM/FM/NOAA Weather), a flashlight, and a cell phone charger. Best of all, … Read more

iPhone app tells you if you drive like a jerk

Is your idea of driving hell someone sitting in the passenger seat telling you how to drive?

Well, here's something even more fun: an iPhone app that grades your driving and tells you if you if you're a danger to society.

State Farm, the fine upstanding insurance company, has launched a Driver Feedback app that acts as your driving schoolteacher.

According to State Farm, the three parts of your driving that need to be measured are, wait for it: acceleration, braking, and cornering.

Strangely, this omits staring at people out of the window, nodding off at the wheel, and talking on your iPhone while on the road.

This little demon of an app needs only to be activated before it gives you a score at the end of every journey you take. Which, for some, would surely rank alongside having your eyebrows being bitten away by a rabid centipede.

It is entirely understandable that companies are creating apps for everything they can think of to somehow inveigle their way into people's increasingly smartphoned lives. … Read more

Software alerts parents of Facebook users (podcast)

ZoneAlarm SocialGuard (download) from Check Point Software Technologies is a Windows program released today that allows parents to monitor children's Facebook activities to see if they're bullying, being bullied, friending strangers, or engaging in potentially dangerous online activities.

No stealth mode For parents to monitor their kid's profile, the child has to sign in once with his or her Facebook user name and password. That password is not passed on to the parent and the parent can't actually see the child's profile or what they're posting. Instead they get alerts of anything that the … Read more

2011 Hyundai Equus is earns top safety award

Hyundai's flagship model, the 2011 Hyundai Equus, just received a "Top Safety Pick" rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The $58,000 luxury sedan rated "Good" in all crash protection safety categories including front, side, rollover, and rear.

The Equus features the Vehicle Stability Management (VSM) system, which governs the Electronic Stability Control (ESC), the electronic parking brake, smart cruise control, the collision-warning sensor, and the seat belt tensioning system.

Additional safety features include Hyundai's Lane Departure Warning System, nine standard airbags (advanced dual-front airbags, front and rear seat-mounted side-impact airbags, … Read more