Volvo invented the three-point seat belt 67 years ago; now it has improved it

Volvo invented the three-point seat belt 67 years ago; now it has improved it

fivenewscrypto    janvier 28, 2026   

Volvo provided flights from Austin, Texas, to Stockholm, Sweden, and accommodation so Ars could learn about its new seatbelt. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

With the launch of its all-new, all-electric EX60, Volvo has put lessons learned from the EX30 and EX90 to use. The EX60 is built on Volvo’s new SPA3 platform, made only for battery-electric vehicles. It boasts up to 400 miles (643 km) of range, with fast-charging capabilities Volvo says add 173 miles (278 km) in 10 minutes. Mega casting reduces the number of parts of the rear floor from 100-plus to one piece crafted of aluminum alloy, reducing complexities and weld points.

Inside the cabin, however, the real achievement is Volvo’s new multi-adaptive safety belt. Volvo has a history with the modern three-point safety belt, which was perfected by in-house engineer Nils Bohlin in 1959 before the patent was shared with the world. Today at the Volvo Cars Safety Center lab, at least one brand-new Volvo is crashed every day in the name of science. The goal: to test not just how well its vehicles are protecting passengers but what the next frontier is in safety technology.

Senior Safety Technical Leader Mikael Ljung Aust is a driving behavior specialist with 20 years under his belt at Volvo. He says it’s easy to optimize testing toward one person or one test point and come up with a good result. However, both from the behavioral perspective and from physics, people are different. What’s not different, he points out, is how people drive.

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Doctors face-palm as RFK Jr.’s top vaccine advisor questions need for polio shot

Doctors face-palm as RFK Jr.’s top vaccine advisor questions need for polio shot

fivenewscrypto    janvier 28, 2026   

The chair of a federal vaccine advisory panel under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his stance clear on vaccines in a podcast last week—and that stance was so alarming that the American Medical Association was compelled to respond with a scathing statement.

Kirk Milhoan, who was named chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December, appeared on the aptly named podcast "Why Should I Trust You." In the hour-long interview, Milhoan made a wide range of comments that have concerned medical experts and raised eyebrows.

Early into the discussion, Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, declared, "I don't like established science," and that "science is what I observe." He lambasted the evidence-based methodology that previous ACIP panels used to carefully and transparently craft vaccine policy.

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Why has Microsoft been routing example.com traffic to a company in Japan?

Why has Microsoft been routing example.com traffic to a company in Japan?

fivenewscrypto    janvier 28, 2026   

From the Department of Bizarre Anomalies: Microsoft has suppressed an unexplained anomaly on its network that was routing traffic destined to example.com—a domain reserved for testing purposes—to a maker of electronics cables located in Japan.

Under the RFC2606—an official standard maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force—example.com isn't obtainable by any party. Instead it resolves to IP addresses assigned to Internet Assiged Names Authority. The designation is intended to prevent third parties from being bombarded with traffic when developers, penetration testers, and others need a domain for testing or discussing technical issues. Instead of naming an Internet-routable domain, they are to choose example.com or two others, example.net and example.org.

Misconfig gone, but is it fixed?

Output from the terminal command cURL shows that devices inside Azure and other Microsoft networks have been routing some traffic to subdomains of sei.co.jp, a domain belonging to Sumitomo Electric. Most of the resulting text is exactly what’s expected. The exception is the JSON-based response. Here’s the JSON output from Friday:

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Apple's AirTag 2 is easier to find thanks to new chip

Apple's AirTag 2 is easier to find thanks to new chip

fivenewscrypto    janvier 28, 2026   

Apple is introducing a new version of its AirTag tracking device—simply dubbed "the new AirTag"—and claims it offers substantial improvements thanks to a new Bluetooth chip.

The original AirTag came out five years ago now, and it became popular in a variety of contexts. There were some problems, though—there was real concern about unwanted tracking and stalking with the devices, based on real stories of it being used for that. The company gradually introduced new features and protections against that, getting it to a much better place.

This new version is focused on making the device more effective in general. Thanks to the inclusion of the second-generation Ultra Wideband chip (the same one found in other recently released Apple devices like the iPhone 17), Apple says the new AirTag can work with the Precision Finding feature in the Find My app to direct users to the AirTag (and whatever lost item it's stored with or attached to) from up to 50 percent farther away.

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“Wildly irresponsible”: DOT's use of AI to draft safety rules sparks concerns

“Wildly irresponsible”: DOT's use of AI to draft safety rules sparks concerns

fivenewscrypto    janvier 27, 2026   

The US Department of Transportation apparently thinks it's a good idea to use artificial intelligence to draft rules impacting the safety of airplanes, cars, and pipelines, a ProPublica investigation revealed Monday.

It could be a problem if DOT becomes the first agency to use AI to draft rules, ProPublica pointed out, since AI is known to confidently get things wrong and hallucinate fabricated information. Staffers fear that any failure to catch AI errors could result in flawed laws, leading to lawsuits, injuries, or even deaths in the transportation system.

But the DOT's top lawyer, Gregory Zerzan, isn't worried about that, December meeting notes revealed, because the point isn't for AI to be perfect. It's for AI to help speed up the rulemaking process, so that rules that take weeks or months to draft can instead be written within 30 days. According to Zerzan, DOT's preferred tool, Google Gemini, can draft rules in under 30 minutes.

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TikTok explained why some US creators are seeing posts with "0 views"

TikTok explained why some US creators are seeing posts with "0 views"

fivenewscrypto    janvier 27, 2026   

TikTok has been glitching for US users since Sunday, and TikTok's new US owners finally confirmed the cause: a power outage at a US data center.

"Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate," the TikTok USDS Joint Venture posted on X on Monday morning. "We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon."

By Monday evening, the issues had not been resolved, with the TikTok USDS account posting an update warning users to expect "bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content." The X post directly confronted creator concerns about receiving "0 views" on new videos and/or missing earnings. The glitch is temporary, TikTok USDS said, "your actual data and engagement are safe."

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EU launches formal investigation of xAI over Grok's sexualized deepfakes

EU launches formal investigation of xAI over Grok's sexualized deepfakes

fivenewscrypto    janvier 27, 2026   

The EU has launched a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s xAI following a public outcry over how its Grok chatbot spread sexualized images of women and children.

The billionaire entrepreneur has come under scrutiny from regulators around the world this month after people began using Grok to generate deepfakes of people without consent. The images were posted on the X social network as well as the separate Grok app, both of which are run by xAI.

The probe, announced on Monday under the EU’s Digital Services Act, will assess if xAI tried to mitigate the risks of deploying Grok’s tools on X and the proliferation of content that “may amount to child sexual abuse material.”

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