“Cool? Or Just Clunky? The Fight Over Dashboard Touch Screens,” says a headline today in the New York Times. Without mentioning it, the Times report tells of the aftermath of technology that was honored thirty years ago with an Ig Nobel Prize. The Times explains: do-it-all touch screens, the nerve centers of many new cars, have […]
“We found evidence that when men were manipulated to feel that they had a relatively small penis, they ranked sports cars as more desirable than when they felt relatively well endowed and that this effect was most pronounced in men 30 and over,” say the authors in this new study: “Small Penises and Fast Cars: […]
Over the years, a number of scholars have reported on the implications of ‘Car Face’ design. For a recent example, see the work of Xueyuan Zhang, Liqing Huang and Mingzhu Li of the School of Art, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China, who report, in E3S Web of Conferences 236, 02042 (2021) regarding Research on the Shape […]
The effects of different styles of music on angry automobile drivers were analyzed, to some extent, in this study: “The Effects of Various Music on Angry Drivers’ Subjective, Behavioral, and Physiological States,” Maryam FakhrHosseini and Myounghoon Jeon, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications Adjunct, pp. 191-196. ACM, 2016. […]
The research that won an Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for Volkswagen also involved monkeys watching cartoons while they inhaled automobile fumes — a fact that was not publicly known at the time the prize was awarded. Nor was it known to the Ig Nobel Board of Governors. The monkeys/cartoons news was reported today by Jack […]
Ford produced this deadpan, precisely accented video narrated by engineer Svenja Fröhlich, about testing the repeated interaction of car seats and human butts. The official Ford announcement says: “A robot has been created to move like a human behind – and perfectly simulate how drivers and passengers get in and out of their car seats. Engineers used […]
NOW: Stuff reports: The [UK] Department for Transport has acted to ban drivers from using Google Glass – even before Google’s smart eyewear launches to the general public. Stuff has learned that the government department is concerned about the potential for distraction that could result from using Google Glass while driving, and has taken pre-emptive action ahead […]
W.C. Fields developed a method to deal with bad drivers. He filmed this dramatization of it (presented here in two parts): UPDATE: Those videos have been removed from YouTube. We do not know why. Here’s a description of what you would have seen. This is from an essay by Roger Fristoe, on the Turner Classic […]
Investigator Jonathan Ryder sent us this image which, he reports, “came with an Evenflo Tribute 5 Child Restraint System.” The diagram warns owners “DO NOT place rear-facing child seat on front seat with air bag“. The drawing makes a further injunction against placing the device in the driver’s seat. Ryder commends the manufacturers for this— he […]
InventorSpot reports: Golden Gasoline: Use Your Pee for Fuel A recent scientific advancement could see to it that a routine “pit stop” might someday kill two birds with one stone. Think about it – on long road trips you stop at gas stations to do what two things? Empty your bladder and fill your tank. […]