This folding helmet was created by Patrick Jouffret of the French design studio Agency 360. The helmet is supposed to offer the same amount of protection as a normal helmet, but it can fold up so it’s easily transportable when it’s not on your head. The folded size is small enough to fit in a backpack, purse or bag, which is cool.

Overade was first prototyped in 2010, but it’s supposed to finally go into production in 2012.

[via designboom]

But if I were to take up motorcycle riding, this would be protective gear which would convince me to ride.

Designed by Rejean Neron, the Safety Sphere is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a special bike suit that automatically inflates into a sphere, enveloping the rider and protecting them from injury if they ever go flying off the bike in a crash. The suit inflates to its full capacity in 5/100ths of a second, and fills with compressed air to cushion the impact. The sphere is made up of two layers of fabric, including an inner layer of thin elastic material, and an outer layer of parachute-type cloth. A battery connects to an electric ignition which triggers nitrocellulose canister, inflating the suit in the event of an impact.

Yes, the resulting expanded suit looks completely ridiculous. I’m reminded of that part of Willy Wonka where Violet Beuregarde turns into a blueberry, except this time you’ll be turning into a navel orange. Still, I’d rather look stupid than end up dead. From the looks of things, you might still need some Oompa Loompas to come rescue you after an accident, too.

[via Motorcycle News]

The idea behind Green Footprint is simple. When a fire is detected, a special ceiling fixture releases a glowing flourescent liquid into hallways and offices. As people move around the room, the dye leaves a trail of glowing footprints wherever they walked. In theory, this would lead firefighters to see exactly where people made their exit or if they were trapped along the way.

If you’re wondering how the stuff would glow – the fixture would actually have lights inside of it, charging up the glow-in-the-dark goo all day long until a fire comes along and triggers a temperature sensor.

I know there are already fancy infrared cameras which let firefighters see the heat signatures of humans (and flames), but this seems like a nice low-tech solution which could definitely save lives – assuming that you can actually see the glowy footprints through the smoke.

Green Footprint was an entrant (and winner) of a Red Dot design concept award, and was conceptualized by Chen Hongyu, Tang Ruoqing, Wang Sheng, Zhu Baixuan and Bian Jing.

For example, what should you do when some chemical accidentally gets into your eyes? Or how do you dispense acids when you need to handle them? And a pretty common concern: what do you do when something nearby catches fire from your Bunsen burner?

Well, for the third question, it actually depends on the class of fire you’re dealing with. These types of fires are classified based on what material is burning, and as a result, also require different firefighting agents in order to put them out. But when you’re in a huge hurry, then often you might just rush off to grab a bucket of water or hose it down with the chemical extinguisher without taking some time to identify what type of fire it is and what it needs to be put out completely.

Something that can definitely be of use is the FireFormula, which is a handy and portable firefighting device that contains both CO2 and H2O firefighting agents in different compartments. All you have to do is identify the fire, identify what it needs to be put out, and push the button.

The FireFormula extinguisher is a pretty neat concept design by Sheng-Hung Lee and Chen-Hua Wang, but not without some complications. First and foremost, the amount of each agent will be available in limited quantities because of the size. Second of all, the agents are usually pressurized so they’re able to extinguish the fire in a shorter amount of time.

That said, the FireFormula is a good idea, but it just needs to sort out some of the kinks in order to become a really, really good idea.

[via Yanko Design]

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think having one of those emergency distress buttons would be pretty cool. Not for your home or office or car (although it would be pretty cool to have a button at each of these locations), but for yourself. And that’s essentially what you’ll get with MyRingGuard.

Currently in the prototype stages, MyRingGuard is a ring that’s molded from silicone and plastic that, when triggered, sends off a signal to your smartphone via Bluetooth to fire off a pre-programmed text message to a set group of people, along with your exact location via GPS.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

MyRingGuard is up for funding at Indie Gogo with a target goal of $30,000. Assuming the project is funded, a $39 pledge will get you a MyRingGuard personal emergency button for yourself. Now there’s another way of putting a ring on it.

[via Oh Gizmo!]

The  iSAVE-SC1 vehicle has been dubbed as the “safest electric vehicle in the world” by Humanix, the company responsible for developing it alongside Hiroshima University. It diverges from how cars are usually made, since the airbags are usually hidden in the wheel or dashboard of vehicles, and not “worn” all over on the car’s exterior.

Another thing that makes the iSAVE-SC1 different from most cars is that it only has three wheels instead of the usual four.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It’s obviously a pretty small vehicle, only seating up to three persons comfortably. Humanix plans to sell the first units of the car this November for appx. $10,400 (USD), while mass production has been slated for sometime in 2012.

I don’t know how effective it will be in cushioning the blow upon a real-world impact, but what’s pretty obvious is that this car won’t need any paint jobs at all after a collision.

[via TechCrunch via Oh Gizmo!]

I didn’t have the mind to reason with her then that it was because the peephole was way up there and I way way down here. So that was the last day I answered our door (until I grew tall enough), which wasn’t much of a problem for me because it’s not like I wanted to stop what I was doing every time someone would knock or ring the bell.

But with this premise in mind, designer Hyun-june Yang has come up with the “Who Is Out There?” peephole that’s designed for kids and elderly adults who can’t reach the regular old peephole anymore.

Aside from being a normal peephole, “Who Is Out There?” also integrates a periscope to create a child-friendly peephole. What results is an extended peephole that looks a bit like some pipes welded together, but it could prove to be really useful.

[via Yanko Design]

The new SteriPEN Freedom is charged up with USB power and relies on UV rays to purify water. It’s also a lot more compact than a Brita filter or filtration device, but then again it doesn’t actually filter contaminants. However, in under a minute, after you’ve stuck it into a glass of water, it will have killed off 99.9% of the nasty bacteria, viruses and protozoa hanging out in the water. This makes it quite convenient, especially if you’re stuck in the outdoors.

The Steripen sells for $120(USD) and it’s available right now.

[via PopGadget via DVice]

Scary thought, I know, which is why I think the City Scars app is a very good idea, even though that’s all it is right now: an idea.

The app has a pretty scary (and strange name) but in a way, it does make sense. It tracks down the scars of the city you’re in (scars being crimes, broken street lights, among others) from user-submitted information and pushes alerts and notifications to other users of the app.

Through the app, concerned users can also share “digital witness” information to the authorities about stuff that they just happened to capture and, well, witness.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Yanko Design]

Kent Frankovich, Adam Pettler and Jim Houk designed Revolights to actually replace that crummy little headlight and red taillight you might have on your bicycle with something much more sexy and useful. A normal headlight projects light out from the front of the bike and then down to the ground, but the Revolight actually casts light directly from the rim of your front wheel forward and onto the ground beneath the tire.

Similarly, the top-rear segment of the rear tire illuminates in red, providing a bright and functional taillight.

Revolights use a series of thin LED rings that mount to each wheel rim, and then use a small magnet to provide information about speed and position of the wheel to the system’s controller so it can illuminate the correct bank of LEDs at the right time.

At this point, the Revolight is in the later stages of prototyping and they’re ready to move onto the next stage of development before offering them to the public. That said, the Revolight team has a Kickstarter project going on for the next few days to raise funds for the final prototypes leading up to a product release.

A pledge of $200 or more will get you a set of Revolights once produced, and they’ve already blown through their initial goal of $43,500 by almost $100,000 – so you know there’s a market for these things.

The contraption comes from an aerospace consulting firm called IDEA Inc., started by a pair of former Boeing engineers in 2005. The cheap version of this capsule would seat up to seven people and would cost only about $1,000 (USD). The idea is that when a tsunami is coming that the people can’t flee they can climb inside and buckle in to literally ride the flood waters out.

The device will apparently support up to seven folks for a few hours until the waters subside. A stronger version would sell for $5,000. It’s not clear just how strong the cheap version is. With the giant tsunami that hit Japan the number of cars and collapsed buildings the shelter would have crashed into is worrisome, though. I think this might also do well as a zombie survival shelter.

[via TechFlash]

The system uses a camera to see where the turn lane is and then has three laser scanners in the front of the car. The scanners are able to map the area 100M in front of the car and can sense cars, trucks, and motorcycles. The driver of the car has a HUD that would give warnings if they were in danger of a collision.

If the driver is still rolling into traffic and the systems senses an oncoming car, it will apply the brakes if the vehicle is below 10km/h. I guess that is the threshold to keep the system from hitting the brakes on you if you are trying to zip through traffic. The brake can be cleared by pressing the pedal if the system applies it.

The USB-rechargeable halo can be set to constant-on, or to flash on a regular basis. Sure, your bike might already have LED front and rear lights, but drivers coming from anywhere other than head-on or behind you might not see you – making dark intersections especially dangerous. With this bright yellow halo wrapped around your dome, there’s no way that drivers will miss you. Of course, they might point and laugh – resulting in a different kind of  safety risk – driver distraction. At least they’ll have a good laugh before they crash.

You can find the Angel Bicycle Helmet over at Firebox for £49.99 (appx. $83 USD).

[via 7Gadgets]

On the front of the helmet is a small light to help people see you. The back has a small red light for those coming up behind you and on each side of the helmet are orange lights that look like an “on” switch to me. When the rider is cycling along, those lights on the side of the helmet act as blinkers.

The rider would slap their ear area and the blinkers would activate to show the drivers which way you are turning. This looks like the exact helmet Tron would have worn when learning to ride his light cycle as a child.

While the Blink is currently just a concept design, there’s really no reason why we won’t see this come to market at some point soon.

[via Design Buzz via Gajitz]

According to Sahara Reports, Adeloju won AU$16,000 (appx. $16,400 USD) for his concept. The article also stated that it is likely that the concept will be turned into an actual product. Here’s the life-saving weapon in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You wouldn’t want to hit your target spot on with the Longreach though, or else you might do more harm than good.

[James Dyson Award via Instash]

The U.S. Army has announced that it is set to deploy more than 13,000 new gadgets in the field with soldiers. The gadgets are called the Individual Gunshot Detector or IGT. The thing has three acoustic sensors and an attached LCD screen. The sensors will hear a gunshot and then show what direction it came from on the LCD.

The idea is to allow the solider to quickly and easily determine what direction a gunshot came from, so they can fire back or take cover. The Army will deploy as many as 1,500 of the IGDs in Afghanistan over the next year. The tech will be integrated with Land Warrior and Nett Warrior systems in the future.

The incredible SawStop system uses capacitive sensors to detect when you accidentally touch the deadly spinning blade with your flesh. The SawStop can detect skin within 5 milliseconds, and as soon as it senses flesh, an aluminum brake springs into action, stopping the blade and forcing the blade beneath the top of table. Power is instantly shut off at the same time. Your finger might get a little nick, but the injury potential is greatly limited by the system.

The technology manages to stop a saw that’s spinning at 5,000 RPM dead in its tracks. If you don’t believe it, check out this video of Steve Gass, SawStop’s creator, who’s so confident in his invention that he sticks his own finger right into the path of a spinning saw blade.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Sure, the mechanism pretty much destroys the saw blade and the mechanism in the fraction of a second that it takes to stop the blade on a dime, but I’d rather destroy $69 blade cartridge than lose my digits. And if you don’t believe it, check out these images of actual customer’s fingers which have been spared by SawStop technology.

Plus, as we learned from the video, it will also prevent hot dogs from being mangled – in case you frequently drop those into the buzz saw.

[via Make:]

EMILY uses its sonar to detect “underwater movements associated with swimmers in distress”. EMILY also has a camera and a speaker, so that onshore lifeguards can talk to the person in distress to calm them down and give them instructions. The robot has an electric impeller that allows it to go as fast as 28mph, and it can go as far as 80 mi on a single charge.

For now, EMILY is remote-controlled. But Hydronalix, its manufacturer, will start selling an autonomous version next spring for $3,500 (USD). I wonder if robots think EMILY is hot.

[via PopSci]

While the iPhone works fantastically for me, the thing wouldn’t last for long in the wilds. For the worker all alone in the middle of nowhere, an injury that might not be that big of deal in the normal world can be a major catastrophe in a remote area all alone. Sonim has a new mobile phone called the XP3 Sentinel just for these lone workers in challenging conditions. The device is ruggedized to military specs for water resistance shock, humidity, pressure, chemicals and more, and offers 2 months of standby time on a single charge.

The phone also has a cool call for help feature that uses green, amber, and red buttons. Red calls for help immediately even if the phone is locked and sends GPS coordinates for rescue. The amber button signals for close watching because of a hazardous environment, and the green is for starting and ending a shift. The only thing better would be if it worked on satellite networks, so you could get a signal anywhere.

It’s a nice app created with a noble purpose, and correct me if I’m wrong but can’t one also use this app for the exact opposite reason, i.e. to mass text your contacts? I think you can customize the notifications that the app sends, so instead of saying “Please don’t text me I’m busy,” it can say “Party at my house tonight!” or “I’m driving wooooo!”

Download Don’t Text Me for free at the iTunes App Store (link opens iTunes).

[via PFSK]