Honda Advanced Safety Vehicles talk to each other

This fascinating article from Honda describes the latest generation of its broad-based vehicle safety research program. A core technology is "mesh networking," which enables moving cars to communicate with each other and with fixed, OnStar-like networks. The idea is that a car experiencing a panic stop automatically communicates its location to the network, and other approaching vehicles alert their drivers to the situation, tighten their seatbelts, and so on.

No word if audio systems will use the network to exchange MP3s, but the recording industry is probably looking into it.

Honda also discovered that motorcycles are more visible to car drivers if the front end resembles a human face. Wait, now. If the front looks like a face, does that mean the rear should look like… Oh, never mind. [Via Auto-IT]