Not that we haven't heard a few miraculous gadgets-saving-lives stories before, but this one is in a league of its own. According to the always-embellishing Sun, one David Fitzherbert is thanking his smartphone after coming entirely too close to falling 700 feet to his death. As the story goes, he got wedged between a pair of rocks after losing control of his skis in the Matterhorn, and while we aren't quite sure why he chose RIM's BlackBerry over -- say, chap-stick, car keys, his wallet or a fattening breakfast -- he credited it with adding just enough width to his person to keep him wedged. Two hours after finding himself between a rock and a hard place, rescue crews arrived and flew him to a hospital where he used the "0.5-inch wide" phone to tell his wife that he had survived a nasty spill. We still say David owes a round of thanks to genetics, luck and Zeus, but hey, what do we know?

While it may seem as if BMW and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany just hate seniors, we kind of doubt that's the prevailing mentality behind the admittedly brilliant Emergency Stop Assistant. Said technology is being testing as part of the Smart Senior project, and in theory, it will be able to detect medical emergencies, activate hazard lights and autonomously pull the car over safely if the driver cannot. Of course, we're still anxiously awaiting details on how the system plans on detecting said calamities and figuring out how to pull over without crashing, but one thing's for sure: OnStar just got a lot more outdated.

OnStar has been working with the CDC for a few years now in an effort to deliver real-time crash information to first responders, and it looks like it has now finally come up with something that's ready to be put to use. That comes in the form of OnStar's new Injury Severity Prediction technology, which apparently takes some recent CDC findings into account, and uses a whole range of sensors in the vehicle (along with other crash data) to predict whether a crash is likely to have caused severe injury to the people in the vehicle. That information can then be relayed to first responders with a simple severity prediction of "normal" or "high," which OnStar says should be especially helpful in cases where crash victims cannot speak for themselves. While there's no exact date for a rollout just yet, OnStar says it should be available to OnStar advisors "early next year," and that it'll be available on all vehicles equipped with OnStar's Automatic Crash Response system.

[Via GM FastLane]

The IEEE International Conference of Robotics and Automation is kicking off today in Kobe Japan. In other words, the world's leading researchers in the field of robotics are gathered in a single location to plot our doom. Don't believe us? Just check out the video after the break. It's a research piece from the Germany Aerospace Center depicting experiments of robots crashing into human test dummies. They claim that the research explores human-robot accidents so that robots can be made safer. We're not so sure though, judging by the devious laughter heard after the first gruesome impact.

Here's a tip folks: don't get in car wrecks. If you someday find such a situation unavoidable, however, here's another: keep that laptop of yours in the trunk, or at least in a case tucked down behind the driver's seat. Mounties in British Columbia are reporting that a Canadian woman who perished in a car accident last month was actually killed by the laptop within her vehicle. As the story goes, the 25 year old's vehicle was struck by a tow truck, flinging her laptop into the rear of her head. A coroner pegged the cause of death as a "blunt force trauma," and investigators believe that the whole thing was survivable had the machine not been in the back seat. Not surprisingly, officials are using the incident to encourage others to secure their belongings whilst traveling.

[Via Switched]

It's okay to be honest with yourself -- if you've been struggling to keep your personal goods on your person, and hiring a personal bodyguard is simply out of the question, you might need nio. What's nio, you ask? Why, it's a Bluetooth security tag that links up your mobile phone and practically anything else you'd like: a briefcase, a set of keys, a pack of Doritos, etc. Essentially, it gives you the ability to be buzzed if your tracked belongings hover too far out of range with your cellie, though the inability to remotely taser the thief is a definite shortcoming. Seems that you'll have to be real serious about this to even inquire about a price, but a totally explanatory video is waiting just past the break.

[Via Gadling]

We haven't heard much from SPOT since its Messenger was initially launched in August of 2007, but the personal tracker is finally seeing an update courtesy of some swank new functionality. Announced here at CES, SPOT Assist is meant to provide GPS-based roadside assistance, a first for a portable device such as this. Users who purchase the upgrade will be able to slam the above pictured Help button in order to receive roadside (or jungle-side, as the case may be) service around the clock in the continental United States (and Canada later this Spring). SPOT even notes that OnStar relies on positioning data received through cellular networks, though a bona fide GPS lock should provide a much more accurate indication of your true location. The Messenger is currently selling for $169.99, while SPOT Assist service will run $129 per year; full release is past the break.

Nintendo's Wii has been maiming careless gamers since the day it was launched, but an inexplicable uptick in Britain has professionals scratching their heads. According to Dr. Dev Mukerjee of Broomfield Hospital: "There has been a 100 percent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis." Turns out, Wii-itis is their word for playing so much Wii that you injure yourself. Astonishingly, up to ten people per week are being "hospitalized with injuries caused by playing Nintendo Wii games," which has forced medical personnel to "issue warnings of the dangers associated with the video game system." Some of the most common injuries are Wii-knee (seriously) and tendon stretching / tearing, both of which could likely be avoided if gamers would bother to stretch before breaking a sweat. Sheesh -- what do folks even learn in Physical Education these days?

How's this for dual purpose? Zhao Wencai and Li Zhoumu, two graduate students at the China University of Geosciences, have concocted a prototype device which checks for two important bits of information before allowing a car to start. First, it scans your fingerprint to make sure you're on the authorized driver database; second, it takes a long, hard look (okay, so maybe 20 seconds isn't all that long) at the sweat on your digit to determine just how sober or inebriated you are. There's no telling when this will hit motorcars en masse, but we'd say the whole thing needs to get a whole lot smaller before it's a viable option.

[Via Wired]

Face it, kids. You missed the best time to be a teenager by around five or so years. As it stands now, technology is cutting into that adolescent fun, with device like Ford's MyKey and this one here ensuring that you're actually safe behind the wheel. In all seriousness, the terribly named Key2SafeDriving is a fine concept (at least in the parent's eye), as it fuses a cellphone jammer (of sorts) into a key fob in order to put the kibosh on freeway conversations. Essentially, the signal blocking kicks into action anytime the "key" portion is flicked out, connecting to a handset via Bluetooth or RFID and forcing it into "driving mode." No actual jamming, per se, is going on; it's more like a manual override of the ringer. Anyone who phones / texts you while you're safely driving will receive an automated response informing them of such, though we are told that handsfree devices can be utilized. Researchers at the University of Utah are hoping to see it on the market within six months via a private company "at a cost of less than $50 per key plus a yet-undetermined monthly service fee."

[Via Gadgets-Weblog]

So, you've a lead foot? What of it, right? Honda's hoping to make that bad little habit vanish by using the tried and true guilt trip method, or more specifically, the Ecological Drive Assist System. For starters, the technology's ECON Mode works with the CVT and engine to "support more fuel-efficient driving." The real kicker, however, is the color-based "guidance function" -- drive like a granny, your speedo lights up green, drive a little wilder, and things get a bit blue, and if you toss fuel economy to the wind and let 'er rip, expect a full-on blue screen and the voice of God to come thundering through your sound system instructing that those horses be held. The EDAS should appear in the automaker's Insight hybrid as early as Spring 2009, though there's no word if it'll be standard equipment on the rumored S3000.

Traffic wardens over in the UK have been wielding handheld camcorders for well over a year now, but Ponca City, Oklahoma is making waves here in America with a slightly more sophisticated alternative. In conjunction with Honeywell, the town is implementing a broadband mesh network comprised of over 490 wireless nodes and gateways from Tropos Networks, and aside from providing free WiFi to some 30 square miles of residents, it's also hoping to use the abundant connectivity to help public safety. For instance, the city has installed wireless video cameras in police vehicles so "dispatchers and supervisors can monitor activities during traffic stops, and quickly deploy additional officers and resources if necessary." 'Course, that's just the official word -- everyone and their mother knows this is just the beginning of "C.O.P.S.: Live in Oklahoma."

[Via Slashdot, image courtesy of CanMag]