Ferrari has reportedly applied for a new patent application that’s said to cover technology that monitors a driver’s mental and physical state in order to adjust a car’s stability and traction control systems in order to help avoid potential accidents resulting from a loss of control.
The patent describes the installation of a series of sensors, located around a car’s cabin, which constantly monitors a driver’s state.
Any time you find yourself in an argument about frivolous lawsuits and tort reform, someone’s probably going to bring up “that woman who sued McDonald’s over the hot coffee and won four ba-jillion dollars in damages.” The popular version of the story has a little something for everyone: a stalwart national company, the apparently absurd premise that someone would object to coffee being served hot, and a cash settlement that was large enough to be memorable.
Although the particulars of the case have been repeated so often that it has begun to sound like an urban legend, there really was a “hot coffee lawsuit.” How well do people remember the facts of the case that’s often used as the epitome of out-of-control litigiousness? Let’s take a look at 1994’s Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants.
The world’s most infamous cup of coffee spilled on February 27, 1992 in Albuquerque, NM. Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old grandmother, was a passenger in her grandson’s car when they drove through at a McDonald’s, and after she received her styrofoam cup of joe her grandson pulled the car forward and parked so Liebeck could mix in her cream and sugar.
LIFE has posted “A Brief History of Computing.” Not sure how brief a fifty page slideshow is but it is still worth checking out.
Miss Nebraska Teresa Scanlan, 17, was crowned Miss America 2011 by Miss America 2010 Caressa Cameron, during the Miss America pageant, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011 in Las Vegas.
She beat out 52 other contestants for the crown, a $50,000 scholarship and a yearlong run as Miss America.
Scanlan became the youngest winner of the Miss America crown since the pageant’s first competition in 1921, when the District of Columbia’s Margaret Gorman won at age 15.
So anyway, what about this unique ID we’ll all be getting? Well, though details are still pretty scant, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, speaking at an event at the Stanford Institute, stressed that the new system would not be akin to a national ID card, or a government controlled system, but that it would enhance security and reduce the need for people to memorize dozens of passwords online. Sorry, Locke, sounds like a national ID system to us.
Chrissie Wellington did not even discover sport until her early twenties. Now, the civil servant from rural Norfolk is the greatest female endurance athlete on the planet. Here, she describes the sacrifices she has made for ironman triathlon and why they are all worthwhile.
