#49 Safety First

Anything which makes users of the road safer is always a good thing. That is why one of the best ideas relating to road safety which I have come across recently is something I am going to briefly talk about. Whilst some of you will already know that I’m a car man, you’ll be quite surprised that I am not going to talk about cars for this one, but for the greater unknown in my internal combustion life, motorbikes.

Reevu are a helmet manufacturer, more specifically, a motorbike helmet manufacturer and they have just launched an updated version of one of their products, the MSX1. A helmet yes, but this one has a rear view mirror. Something which is quite an achievement in itself, managing to contain all the necessary parts into such a confined environment, whilst keeping the general form factor of a helmet and making it compliant with a number of stringent regulations which apply to helmets. A design success in my honest opinion.

The mirror is out of the line of sight for the user, a bit like the rear view mirror in a car, and its mechanism is fully mechanical, no electronic parts which would need charged up, ultimately making it safer as there is no chance of it dying in the middle of a journey.

The combination of the mirror and the helmet is one of pure genius. Unlike the mirrors in a car,  or daresay on a motorbike, it should only have to be adjusted once in the lifetime of the helmet, as the helmet tends to be used by one person and one person only. So once you get the positioning right, you’re set. It also reduces the need for the rider to turn around to check behind them, or to see behind them at certain points of their journey, though for safety, it should be used in conjunction with all of the other safety techniques taught.

It’s great when you find something which has been designed to make peoples lives safer and easier rather than just to make money.

Engadget Source

Reevu Website

#37 Deferring Vol. III: Some Viewing Material

Before I start, I would like to point out that for post #37 I was originally going to write a post about our Design Studies project. Whilst it has been written and has been for a week or so, I decided not to post it yet since I just didn’t think it was any good. And also before I continue, this post was going to be called ‘Too lazy to write Vol.I’ for the reason that I couldn’t think of anything else to write.

As the title of this post suggests, I’m relatively too lazy to write something for this post so I’ll just post some videos which I found and thought were a good way to pass the time. The finding of these videos really is the result of procrastination, and what can I say in my defence? Ehm… nothing.

First video onto the chopping block is one which deserves to be watched in 1080p, well shot, and appeals (or a-peel, if you may) to the geekier side of me. I would like to do something like that, along with actually making a Reubens tube, but more on that another time.

Next up is one which I have known about for a while, well, since it was uploaded to YouTube. Just shows what can be done if you have enough determination. I really like this video.

This is something which I also quite like, in execution not really the product in this video. Videos which show how things are made from start to beginning. I have a video in a similar sort of vein to this from a few years ago showing the new new MINI. In this case it is Google’s Nexus One smart phone. Links to the other parts of the Nexus One videos are posted after the video.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Finally, I leave you with a video of something quite truly fantastic. Nothing I have watched has ever come close to the sheer brilliance of this video (this weekend anyway). Liquid Nitrogen and laptops go very well together.