Helmet

The Can-Am Spyder gets a trio of fully-faired touring versions

By Gizmag Team

18:49 September 17, 2009 PDT

Bombardier Recreational Products has had a remarkable success with its three-wheeled Can-Am Spyder since the roadster’s launch more than two years ago, and the big news is that the Spyder is to be developed into two streams – one for sports riding and one for touring. The existing GS model will now be designated the Spyder RS (roadster sport) and the new touring range will be designated Spyder RT (roadster touring). There’s also a new special edition Spyder RS-S model, with a host of additional features as standard, three RT models and a purpose-built 622 liter trailer. Read More

ARPRO sports helmet offers protection from multiple impacts

By Jude Garvey

02:22 July 7, 2009 PDT

It’s a fact of life that when you engage in certain sports you need to wear protective gear. Obviously, your head needs to be protected from any accidental impact and that’s where sports helmets come in. If you’re a keen sportsman, you’re likely to be frustrated by the fact that every sport requires a different helmet, which are not always comfortable or particularly cheap. Worse, if you happen to come to grief on your bike, snowboard, or other thrill seeking conveyance, you’ll be forced to buy a new helmet every time it's subjected to an impact. That could be about to change - Tatoo is a new sports helmet that is designed for comfort and can still be used even after multiple accidents. Read More

Thudguard safety hat for toddlers

By Emily Clark

21:51 April 7, 2008 PDT

In the UK, over 500,000 children's head injuries are recorded each year and part of this is due to bumps and falls as toddlers learn to walk. Thudguard is a lightweight safety hat for kids to keep them safe while the find their feet and reduce the severity of the everyday bumps and bruises. Read More

The first commercial Brain Computer Interface

By Mike Hanlon

17:30 February 21, 2008 PST

The Computer-Human Interface has a new heavyweight contender technology - brain computer interface technology pioneer Emotiv Systems will have its EPOC neuroheadset to market before Christmas 2008. The lightweight US$300 EPOC is worn on the head but does not restrict movement in any way as it is wireless. The set detects conscious thoughts, expressions and non-conscious emotions based on electrical signals around the brain. It opens up a plethora of new applications which can be controlled with our thoughts, expressions and emotions, including for example, the prospect of live animation using the unit’s facial recognition sensors to mimic a gameplayer's facial expressions in an animated avatar. Read More

Q-Sight lightweight helmet-mounted display

By Kyle Sherer

15:40 November 4, 2007 PST

November 5, 2007

BAE Systems has developed a new line of lightweight, modular and ergonomic helmet-mounted displays for rotary-wing pilots known as Q-Sight. The four-ounce model is highly integrated with existing gear, compatible with night-vision goggle, attachable to any helmet and easily altered for different missions. Read More

Golden Helmet for Italian Dindo Capello

By Mike Hanlon

December 14, 2006 Audi factory driver Dindo Capello has received the "Golden Helmet” from Italian motorsport magazine Autosprint, acknowledging the 2006 American Le Mans Series title won by the Italian with the Audi R10 TDI. "In Italy, the ‘Casco d’oro’ is the ‘Oscar of motorsport’, that’s why this award means a lot to me,” explained the two-time Le Mans winner who was handed the trophy in Bologna last Saturday. Read More

BRP BV2S Snowmobile Helmet Concept

By Mike Hanlon

August 11, 2006 In the beginning, snowmobile helmets were motorcycle helmets, often failing to meet the injury protection standards of the day, and invariably quite unsuitable for the severe winter conditions encountered snowmobiling. In addition to the extreme windchill factor, the most pressing problem with adapting a motorcycle helmet to snowmobiling is the fogging of the visor, which caused many a heart palpitation as riders attempted to lift the visor to defog it or risked the inevitable of riding with partially obscured vision in what is essentially a sight-response sport. Bombardier Recreational Products has been working in the recreational product field for a long time now and in recent times its inspired recreational machine concepts for 2025 have been a huge hit with Gizmag fans, most notably in the form of the Embrio One-Wheel Concept and recreational watercraft. The BV2S is a helmet system designed to offer an improved experience when riding a snowmobile and represents the best effort so far to tackle the issues of breathing out and maintaining a crystal clear visor. Read More

New helmet enables normal breathing underwater

By Mike Hanlon

May 12, 2006 Jules Verne would be proud. Columbian start-up Aquanautas has created a new method of enjoying underwater activities without the need for scuba gear, tanks, masks and regulators. By wearing on of the company’s new helmets, a human can breath underwater as they would on the surface. The Aquanautas is designed primarily for tourism-related activities such as resorts and aquariums and is suitable for anyone over the age of 12. Indeed, you don’t even need to know how to swim or even remove your glasses. they only need to wear a swim suit and a pair of sandals. Aquanautas is seeking international distribution and pilot sites. Read More

The US$240,000 Helmet

By Mike Hanlon

March 23, 2006 It’s one of the most serious high tech toys on the planet and all you’ve got to do to get your hands on one is graduate all the way to ultra-elite flight crew level. Boeing’s Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) is used on U.S. Air Force (USAF) and Air National Guard F-15 Eagles, USAF F-16 Fighting Falcons, U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, as well as the most mission-critical fighters of five international air forces. The system offers the ability to rapidly acquire and designate a target simply by looking at it. By placing an aiming cross, projected on the helmet visor, over the desired target and pressing a button, the pilot can quickly and easily aim weapons and sensors to designate and attack airborne or ground targets. JHMCS also displays aircraft altitude, airspeed, gravitational pull and angle of attack on the visor, as well as tactical information to increase situational awareness. How good? So good that Boeing has just received its third full-rate production order of more than 400 JHMCS systems, expanding production capacity for the second consecutive year and the total number of systems in the field to more than 2000. The JHMCS not only makes the pilot and aircraft more lethal, but it also makes them more survivable because it reduces the time the pilot and aircraft are exposed to potential enemy fire. Very serious! Read More

Redesigning the cricket helmet

By Mike Hanlon

February 28, 2006 Cricket is one of the oldest and most original of all modern sports, originating somewhere between 700 and 900 years ago in England, with international competition beginning a century ago and almost no major rule changes since. As incredible as it may seem to the uninitiated in this most beguiling of contests, each international match lasts 30 hours over five days and often ends without a result, with each international series comprising five such matches (150 hours) also frequently ending without a clear winner. Played with a small, very hard ball which is bowled (thrown with a straight arm), at up to 160 km/h, it is illustrative of the staid mindset afflicting the governing body of the sport that helmets for the human being in the firing line were not introduced until 30 years ago despite a history of horrendous injury. Like nearly everything else in a sport afflicted by stubborn traditionalism, the design of the cricket helmet has trailed well behind the technologies available and with mid-2004 university tests showing that helmets can delay a batsman’s reactions by up to a quarter of a second, you’d think that we might have seen a rethink of cricket helmet design since then, but we haven’t noticed one. Inspired by those tests, designer Ravinder Sembi has reengineered the cricket helmet with a view to overcoming this fundamental problem. Read More

The rear-view helmet

By Mike Hanlon

November 22, 2005 NEW IMAGES Seeing behind you on a motorcycle has always been a problem. Sometimes the mirrors vibrate, and sometimes they offer a terrific view of your elbows, and most of the time they offer a distinctly inferior view of the rear compared to that you get in a car because you can’t see the parts directly behind you. As a soldier in combat will tell you, when your situational awareness is down in a hostile environment, the risk of injury multiplies enormously. And hence when a helmet with an integrated rear view mirror system was launched last week in Munich we think it’s worth a look. Manufacturers Reevu spent ten years developing the helmet, which has a built-in 180 degree unbreakable rear-view mirror system in the hope it will save lives on the roads by improving situational awareness and hence preventing accidents. The innovative technology allows the wearer to see the road behind, using a system of unbreakable mirrors constructed out of ABS, which are contained inside the helmet shell and provide a window in the top of the helmet opening – a robust, low cost heads-up display. Read More

Boeing Starts F/A-18F Aft Seat Testing of Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System

By Mike Hanlon

November 4, 2005 Boeing is conducting flight tests with a view to integrating its Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) into the aft cockpits of the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18F Super Hornet. The testing marks the first time both the pilot and weapon systems officer have used the helmet in an F/A-18F and brings the Navy closer to providing aircrews with a significant increase in situation awareness and combat effectiveness. First used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, JHMCS gives flight crewmembers the ability to rapidly acquire and designate a target simply by looking at it. By putting an aiming cross, which is projected on the helmet visor, over the desired target and pressing a button, the pilot can quickly and easily aim weapons and sensors to designate and attack airborne or ground targets. JHMCS also displays aircraft altitude, airspeed, gravitational pull and angle of attack on the visor, as well as tactical information, to increase the crew member's awareness of the state of the aircraft and the combat situation. Read More

Motorcycle and pushbike helmet heads-up Display

By Mike Hanlon

August 15, 2005 The creators of the world’s first personal Heads Up displays have just created a powerful new feature – radar detection display. The SportVue MC2 alerts motorcycle riders of the presence of radar in a personal helmet-mounted display. Using radar detectors on a motorcycle is difficult because of increased road, traffic and wind noise. And it’s hard to mount a detector so the rider can see the display. The MC2 offers this plus MUCH more, particularly when hooked to a datalogger such as the compatible Veypor unit. Indeed, it's hard to argue against the MC2 not offering a degree of safety for motorcycle racing too - and it'd be handy to know your laps times as you're doing them so you know what's working on the stopwatch. It'd be more than handy to know how close the guy behind is and who it is too. For road riders, we've been mightily impressed with this idea since we first wrote about it. The addition of radar is an absolute no brainer for the sports motorcyclist and the addition of the datalogger is a godsend for the thinking sports motorcyclist. Read More

Child Automobile Helmet links to video, music and game systems to encourage use

By Mike Hanlon

July 17, 2005 Amateur inventor of a children's lightweight automobile helmet, Michael P. Fleming has filed a formal patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for his new child safety device. There is currently no child safety device designed specifically for head protection of children inside automobiles but Fleming believes the need for one is clear. To make the device more attractive to children, Fleming's design makes it compatible with audio and video devices found in many of today's automobiles. It can also be hooked up to handheld gaming systems popular with children. Read More

Futuristic BMW off-road helmet and body armour

By Mike Hanlon

June 21, 2005 With the forthcoming release of the new cross-country BMW HP2 motorcycle, BMW has put together some fancy new off-road gear, and the pick of the bunch is carbon fibre, Kevlar and fibreglass off-road helmet that’s also aerodynamic and aesthetic enough to be seen anywhere. Indeed, we’re predicting that when the helmet becomes available it will be a best seller, particularly if the company decides to fit its Bluetooth and noise cancellation technologies which will enable it to work with a mobile phone and eventually with other Bluetooth devices such as MP3 players and the like. Now there’s a promising thought – imagine trail riding whilst listening to crystal-clear classical music. The new off-road helmet is reconfigurable, and can be used with or without both the visor or the screen and adds to an impressive BMW helmet line-up which also includes the featherweight SportIntegral carbon fibre helmet that weighs just 999 grams. Read More

Yolk ski and snowboard helmet

By Mike Hanlon

Yolk is a soft helmet designed to overcome the unfashionable image that helmets seem to have with the young-at-heart on the ski slopes of the world. ‘Yolk’ under regular use is flexible and conformable to the user’s head but when subjected to an impact it instantaneously forms a rigid shell dispersing and absorbing the energy . This is achieved utilising a semi- rigid liner and a Kevlar skin which is impregnated with a shear thickening fluid. ‘Yolk’ allows the user to plug in a two way radio, music player, or mobile phone to the integrated headphones and controls thereby creating a convenient and seamless transition.

‘Yolk’ can be fitted with of a choice of skins which can be stretched over the liner to match the user’s personal style. With similar safety standards across bike riding, inline skating, skateboarding, there are vast opportunities to develop different skins for these sports using the same liner. Read More

Motorola and Burton unveil Bluetooth Snowboarding Jacket, Helmet and Beanie

By Mike Hanlon

LAS VEGAS 9 January 2005 Next winter, the world's snowboarders will add another "trick" to their repertoire with the ability to switch between their iPOD playlist and incoming calls in mid-air thanks to three new products from Motorola and Burton Snowboards. Launched at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show, these Bluetooth-enabled jackets, helmets and beanies will provide wireless, high-performance connectivity and playability on the slopes for the 2006 winter season. Read More

Landmark BMW helmet system

By Mike Hanlon

BMW has shown a landmark new helmet system designed to reduce noise via noise cancelling technology inside the helmet and enable crystal clear voice communications and music. The helmet uses state-of-the-art materials (kevlar, carbon fibre) to create an ultralight, aerodynamic and very quiet helmet wind-tunnel tested to be the quietest helmet on the market. The helmet will enable communication with the pillion, or anyone via your bluetooth phone, or to listen to music clearly and wirelessly ON ANY MOTORCYCLE. The entire system is inside the helmet so it can be used on any motorcycle. Read More

Bluetooth Enabled Motorcycle Helmet

By Mike Hanlon

Motorola and MOMODESIGN have announced their first Bluetooth enabled motorcycle helmet that will make it possible for motorcycle riders to scoot around town and stay connected. Built on the award-winning design of Motorola's popular HS810, the wireless helmet headset is the latest addition to Motorola's portfolio of Bluetooth products. The helmet is unfortunately only available in an open-face helmet at this stage, with the design drawing inspiration from air force pilots helmets, with carbon fibre detailing a prominent design element.

According to the information available at this point, taking and making calls will be easy as all functions (answer, end, redial, voice dial and volume) can be made from the cover on the helmet. Read More

Retro-fit heads-up display system for motorcycle and bicycle helmets

By Mike Hanlon

Fighter pilots have had it for years but Formula One drivers have only just begun experimenting with heads-up displays, so it was unexpected to find Motion Research Corporation showing their forthcoming consumer heads-up display for motorcycle and bicycle helmets at last Friday's 23rd Annual Cycle World International Motorcycle Show in Seattle. Read More

Helmet-mounted Information Display Systems

By Mike Hanlon

When Ralf Schumacher took third in the Hungarian F1 GP, it was an important event - it was the first time that a heads-up display had been used in a Grand Prix and gave great validity to the coming wave of information visualisation systems. Read More

BMW develops head-up display for Ralf Schumacher's helmet

By Mike Hanlon

BMW Technology Office has taken the wraps off an innovative Formula One product - a miniature (6x8 mm) head-up display system will be integrated in Ralf Schumacher's helmet next season to create a "visual information window" enhancing pit-driver communications and safety. Read More