If you're a fan of activities that you need to wear a helmet for, you know there are two major problems that can arise from a crash: you break the helmet or you hurt your head. Both can be harder to tell than you'd think. This "Smart Helmet," at least, will know if you're injured.
The Smart Helmet (not pictured above — that's just a dude skiing) is the work of a professors-and-students team from Northeastern University in Massachusetts. It's lined with sensors that measure how hard an impact is, and a corresponding LCD on the helmet displays a color based on that. If you see an angry red screen, for instance, you're in trouble.
The helmet is still in its early stages, but the team wants to do you one better than just saying, "Hey, you're hurt!" Instead, they envision a helmet that could also let nearby medical professionals known right away. Skiers and snowboarders on a slope, for instance, would get immediate attention if the helmet found they were hurt hard enough.
The helmet isn't just for recreational pursuits, either, as the technology could be adapted so that, say, medics could know when a soldier is hurt, or that soldier could tell if an explosion hit him with too hard a concussive blast.
Source:
PhysOrg, via CrunchGear
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