Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Intersections in Pleasanton, California, have been outfitted with radar that not only detect bicycle traffic to trigger green lights, but differentiate between bicycles and cars.

The devices, called Intersectors, have been installed at eight intersections across the city alongside bike lane and pavement projects. They use a combination of microwave and presence sensors to detect a vehicle, and offer enough precision to determine whether a vehicle has two, four or more wheels. Because it can detect what kind of vehicle is about to cross, it will adjust signal timing accordingly (as seen in the video).

“To the city of Pleasanton, this is the best of both worlds — providing additional green timing and green extension timing only when bicycles are present, while utilizing more efficient traffic signal timing more appropriate for vehicle traffic the remaining times,” Pleasanton’s senior transportation engineer Joshua Pack told the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.

ITS America liked the new intersections so much that they recognized the city’s bike detection project with a Smart Solution Spotlight award.

If existing intersections feature any accommodations for cyclists, it’s usually in the form of an induction coil beneath pavement and sometimes a digital camera trained on a certain spot. Colloquially known as a “bike box,” it’s usually marked with an icon or “wait here for green” sign, like the one shown above.

Normally, the induction coil detects a vehicle and triggers a light when it senses metal. Unfortunately, the latest, lightest bikes have very little metal in them and therefore cyclists can end up stranded or choose to run a light. Even when they work, a bike box usually triggers the same green cycle that a car would use.

Intersectors, which cost between $4,000 and $5,000 each, can be installed without digging up pavement and are relatively easily retrofitted to existing intersections. They’re unaffected by inclement weather. If the pilot project in Pleasanton is a success, the city’s traffic office expects similar detectors to appear at bike-friendly intersections across the country.

Video: City of Pleasanton, CA. Photo: benet2006/Flickr

Android 2.3 or Gingerbread is installed on 54.9% of all Android devices, while Android 2.2 or Froyo is installed on another 30.4% of all Android devices, which makes Android perhaps the least fragmented it’s ever been.

According to the latest data from Android Developers, out of all the older and now obsolete Android versions only Android 2.1 or Eclair has a significant market share – 8.5%, while earlier versions have less than 2% put together.

Of course, this almost ideal situation – given how badly the Android platform has been fragmented at certain points in the past – won’t last long. The newer versions – Android 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 and 4.0 are looming behind the corner, and most upcoming Android devices run or at least support one of these.

 

A new law in Belarus will restrict access to foreign websites, and will require Internet cafes and clubs to report users who visit forbidden pages.

The Eastern European country’s law (Improvements to the Usage of the National Segment of the Internet, law number 317-3), goes into effect Friday — censorship making it illegal to conduct ecommerce with Belarusian citizens through sites outside the country’s .by domain name.

All companies and individuals registered as entrepreneurs in Belarus must use the national portal for conducting business, providing services and exchanging email, explains the Library of Congress in an online post. That means citizens are restricted from buying from Amazon or the Apple Store, and selling on eBay, among many other sites.

The law’s restrictions don’t stop without banning “extremist” and “pornographic” sites.

Citizens caught breaking the new law — as well as those providing Internet connection to people breaking the law — can be punished with fines of up to 1 million Belarus rubles (about $125) by the tax authorities, police and secret police.

Both the U.S. and the UK have condemned President Alexander Lukashenko’s repression of his political opponents, restricted travel to the country, and frozen assets channeled to the government, the BBC reports.

Do you think Belarus is helping its economy by keeping ecommerce on its own domain sites or is it hurting itself by restricting foreign business?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, selensergen

Two airlines have announced they are raising fares to cover the cost of Europe’s new carbon trading plan, effectively passing the expense of the program on to consumers.

The move comes just days after the European Union expanded its emission trading system, which has since 2005 imposed pollution quotas on more than 11,000 utilities and manufacturers, to include airlines. As of January 1, any airline arriving at or departing from the EU must have sufficient carbon credits or pay a fine.

International carriers will be given emission permits making up 85 percent of the industry cap in 2012 and will have to buy the remaining 15 percent at auction, Reuters reports. According to the International Air Transport Association, the EU’s emission trading system could cost airlines $1.6 billion this year.

Delta Airlines, the world’s second-largest carrier in terms of passengers carried, said this week it will add $6 to the cost of a round-trip ticket to Europe to cover its anticipated carbon costs. Lufthansa said it will add a surcharge, but didn’t specify how much. According to the Associated Press, the airline says it will have to buy one-third of the certificates it expects to need this year.

The emissions quotas are part of the EU’s effort to curb carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the impact of global climate change.

The rules require all flights into and out of the EU to have sufficient credits to cover the entire duration of the flight, regardless of where it originated. This has outraged many foreign carriers, who say it is unfair for the EU to impose what is, effectively, a tax on that portion of a flight beyond EU airspace. Under the plan, a carrier flying from Los Angeles to Paris would be charged many more carbon credits than a carrier flying from Rome to Paris, even though the latter flight spends more time over Europe.

Several U.S. and Canadian airlines have joined more than 40 nations opposing the EU plan. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation prohibiting domestic carriers from participating in the program.

But late last month the European Court of Justice threw out a challenge to the law, saying the “emissions trading scheme is valid,” according to the Agence France Presse.

Now China is saying bluntly it will not pay the charges, which airlines must begin paying in March, 2013. The China Air Transportation Association is pressuring the EU to drop the plan, calling its action a unilateral move that does not represent a global effort.

“China will not cooperate with the European Union on the ETS” the CATA’s Chai Haibo told Reuters, “so Chinese airlines will not impose surcharges on customers relating to the emissions tax.”

India, too, may attempt to scuttle the plan, according to Reuters.

The kerfuffle comes as the airline industry continues its campaign to curb fuel consumption and, by extension, emissions. New aircraft and engine designs, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A320NEO promise to dramatically reduce airline emissions.

But the EU wants deeper cuts in airline emissions, which have increased dramatically over the continent in recent decades. The global airline industry contributes roughly 2 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions created by human activity. Recent improvements in airplane efficiency have not been able to keep up with increased demand for aircraft and air travel. This means the percentage of emissions from the airlines is likely to grow in the coming years.

Photo: Delta

Getting a jump on the imminent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung unveiled its latest DualView point-and-shoot camera, the DV300F, a few days early. The new model adds Wi-Fi for easy sharing of photos and videos.

Samsung made something of a name for itself by more or less creating the this new camera category back in 2009 with the TL225. Samsung’s DualView cameras feature a front-facing LCD screen to make certain photography tasks easier.

Which tasks? Besides the obvious help with self-portraits, the 1.5-inch LCD on the DV300F can display a countdown in large type for when you need to use the self-timer. The screen can also play pre-loaded animation to get young children to actually look at the damn camera for photos. (As the parent of a two-year-old, I’d really appreciate that one.)

With Wi-Fi on board, the DV300F is able to email photos or share them to various online services such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube. You can also transfer images wirelessly to your PC (Samsung says it won’t be compatible with Mac) or store them on a cloud service like Samsung’s AllShare Play or Microsoft SkyDrive.

Rounding out the specs, the DV300F has a 16-megapixel sensor, 5X optical zoom and a Split Shot feature that lets users combine up to three pics into one. The camera comes in black, navy, silver and red. It’ll cost $199 and be available in March.

Hot damn.

Lexus, a company with a design ethos perhaps best described as visual Valium, is rolling into the Detroit auto show with a drop-dead gorgeous sports coupe. Not just any sports coupe, mind you, but a hybrid sports coupe. An exciting hybrid sports coupe.

Exciting? Lexus? Yes.

The sexy LF-LC 2+2 concept, designed at Toyota’s Calty design studio in SoCal, is an attempt to remake Lexus as a sportier, more stylish brand. Whether that will work is anyone’s guess, but the LF-LC is jaw-dropping.

This being a sneak peek before the auto show, Lexus of course didn’t say anything of significance. It did mention the car being “a design exercise” for its new “L-Finesse” design theme, so even if the LF-LC never appears in showrooms, it will influence more sedate vehicles in the Lexus lineup.

Although Toyota wasn’t saying much, Road & Track got the inside scoop. Kevin Hunter, president of Calty Design Research, said his team was given a blank sheet of paper told to design a car with avant-garde beauty, originality, driving joy and unequaled technology. Toyota boss Akio Toyoda specifically instructed Hunter to make sure the car had the “wow” factor.

He succeeded. This car is a stunner.

Photos: Toyota