Pitcher protection

Although it doesn’t happen often, a batter’s line drive can rocket right back at the pitcher, with potentially devastating consequences.

Last August, a 101-mph line drive off the bat of Pittsburgh’s Jordy Mercer hit Miami Marlins pitcher Dan Jennings in the left temple. Jennings, who’s now a reliever with the Chicago White Sox and one of twelve active pitchers in the major leagues who have been hit in the head by line drives, thankfully suffered only a concussion.

Now, according to ESPN, Jennings is the first pitcher to begin wearing protective padding after having been struck in the head. “If it happened again and I wasn’t wearing anything, I’d feel pretty stupid,” Jennings told ESPN.

The 1.6 ounce insert Jennings uses was developed by Georgia-based Safer Sports Technologies and is built from a blend of carbon fiber and Kevlar with high-density polyurethane padding. It slides inside the lining of his baseball cap, covering that portion of the head from above the ear to the middle of the forehead.

Jennings is convinced the high-tech insert would have protected him in last summer’s hit. “I might have had a headache for a few days,” he told ESPN. “But it’s protection in the perfect spot where I was hit.”

Ratings boost

Many shoppers on Amazon’s website won’t make a purchase without checking the product’s average star rating. But, since a product’s rating is just the simple average of all the reviews, it may not reflect the value-added of newer or more helpful reviews.

To make reviews more relevant to customers, Amazon is turning to a technology it already applies to customer purchases and is the reason Amazon seems “magically” to know about your interests: artificial intelligence or machine learning.

The new system gives more weight to newer reviews, those from verified Amazon purchasers, and those that more customers vote as being helpful. The new 5-star rating will likely change more frequently.

Amazon’s new review system, which the company is rolling out only in the United States for now, will also combat “astroturfing,” a practice in which marketers post fake, inflationary reviews to influence a product’s star rating. —M.C.

‘See-through’ trucks

Attempting to overtake a large tractor-trailer rig on a narrow two-lane road is a high-risk maneuver under any circumstances. But if you could see what the truck driver in front of you is seeing, your chances of safely overtaking the truck are significantly improved.

Samsung has implemented this idea in what it calls “Safety Truck.” A wireless camera mounted on the front of the truck sends real-time images to a video “wall” on the back of the trailer made up of four exterior monitors. Drivers following the vehicle have a clear view straight “through” the truck, giving an extra margin of safety when deciding to overtake.

Samsung equipped and tested a prototype Safety Truck in Argentina, which, according to Samsung’s blog, has one of the world’s highest rates of traffic accidents—most of which occur on its many two-lane roads.

Working with NGOs and the Argentine government, Samsung says the “next step is to perform the corresponding tests in order to comply with the existing national protocols and obtain the necessary permits and approvals.” —M.C.