crash

Michael Robert Dacre, a 53-year-old aircraft entrepreneur, died when his Jetpod--a prototype "air taxi" twin-jet aircraft --crashed on take-off during a test flight in Malaysia. Dacre had hoped to revolutionize city commuting with the jetpod, an aircraft he invented with the ability to take off or land on very short stretches of road or grass for short-hop commuting.

For a closer look at how FlexAll cushions a crash, launch the slideshow by clicking 'View Photos' at left

During a race on Virgina's Richmond International Raceway in 2003, Nascar driver Robby Gordon lost control of his car as he roared into the pit at 55mph. He smashed sideways into the concrete slab that separates the crew from the pit road and wrecked his car. Luckily, he didn't do the same to his body. Had he hit the divider head-on, the collision could have transferred a 100G-force jolt to his body, more than enough to kill him.

Blinding rain. Careening traffic. Distracted drivers. There are lots of reasons why car crashes are America's leading cause of accidental death. And one way that most accidents could be prevented: with cars that predict a coming collision-and take action to stop it.

Tony Rose

Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

All computers lock up or crash, and no operating system is immune (as a matter of fact, we crashed once as we wrote this answer), but singling out specific reasons oversimplifies the issue, explains Daniel Jackson, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The underlying cause, Jackson says, is that hardware and software developers are trying to bring products to market in "Internet time"-that is, hyperfast. The result: Quality and reliability suffer.