WalkSafe app keeps you from strolling into traffic

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By Rosa Golijan

Using a smartphone while walking can be dangerous business ? you could stroll right into a light pole, off a bridge, into traffic or away from reality.

But this particular risky activity doesn't exactly bring a lot of public service announcements, laws and warnings though. Instead it comes with apps which enable obsessed smartphone users to excuse their distracted demeanor.

One such app is called WalkSafe and it can be downloaded for free?through the Android Market.

WalkSafe was created by researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Bologna.?The app uses a smartphone's back-camera to keep an eye on traffic and calculates whether there is danger using a combination of machine-learning and image-recognition algorithms.?(According to Technology Review, this means that the?WalkSafe is able to detect when a car is aproaching at 30 miles per hour ? or faster.)

Once the app has detected potential danger, it will issue a warning in the form of sound and vibrations. In theory, that buzzing and chirping should be enough to startle you into paying attention to the car that's about to run you over.

It's worth noting that despite how clever WalkSafe is, you shouldn't completely trust it with your life. It's not meant to replace common sense and paying attention,?it's simply there to remind you that there are things?more urgent than a phone call.

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Want more tech news, silly puns or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/28/9066102-walksafe-app-keeps-you-from-strolling-into-traffic

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China launches probe of US renewable energy policy (AP)

BEIJING ? China's government announced a trade probe Friday of whether U.S. support for renewable energy companies improperly hurts foreign suppliers, adding to tensions over an industry seen as an important source of jobs and economic growth.

The announcement comes after Washington said Nov. 9 it would investigate whether Beijing is inappropriately subsidizing its own makers of solar panels, allowing them to flood the U.S. market with low-priced products and hurt American competitors.

"The Commerce Ministry has begun an investigation into whether U.S. support policies and subsidy measures for renewable energy industries promote trade barriers," the ministry said on its website.

The ministry said it was acting on a complaint by Chinese manufacturers.

Trade tensions over renewable energy are especially sensitive at a time when the United States and other Western economies want to boost technology exports to revive economic growth and cut high unemployment.

The United States and China are the two biggest markets for solar, wind and other renewable energy technology. Both governments are promoting their own suppliers in hopes of generating higher-paid technology jobs.

China's trade probe will cover wind, solar, hydro and other renewable energy policies and include six projects in Washington, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey and California, the Commerce Ministry said.

Business groups complain that Beijing appears to be trying to limit foreign access to its fast-growing renewable energy market with proposals to limit ownership or require companies to transfer technology to Chinese partners.

The U.S. commerce secretary, John Bryson, said Chinese officials told him the country is expected to invest $1.7 trillion over the next five years in renewable energy and other emerging industries.

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Chinese Ministry of Commerce (in Chinese): http://www.mofcom.gov.cn

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_us_energy_investigation

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