It’s something people who fly don’t like to think about. ‘What happens in the event of a serious crash?’ But federal safety officials are increasingly looking at improving crash survivability and new regulations kick in October 27th aimed at improving the odds that more passengers will walk away from serious accidents.

We wanted to see what these new guidelines will look like so we went to AMSAFE, an airplane seatbelt manufacturer based in Phoenix, Arizona. Over the last several years AMSAFE has been testing and producing airbags that they install in their seatbelts. They demonstrated the airbag in a crash test complete with two dummies, one with an airbag and one without, and a hard crash into a plane’s bulkhead. The violent crash was equivalent to a head on car collision at 30 MPH. The dummy without the airbag lurched forward even with his seatbelt on and smacked into the bulkhead suffering what would be a fatal head injury. The dummy with the airbag survived the crash without any injury.

Airlines will not be required to have airbags, but the devices could actually save them a lot of money. In order to comply with the new regulations airlines have to show that every passenger can survive a crash up to 16 times the force of gravity. With stronger seats throughout the aircraft most passengers will be fine. The exceptions are the rows directly behind the bulk head and exit rows. That’s because the bulkhead and seats in front of the exit row don’t move forward during a crash. Airlines will have to either move seats further away from these immovable objects or install airbags that greatly cushion the blow.

Federal safety officials estimate that over the last 14 years fifty lives could have been saved if these new requirements had been in place.

So the next time you fly check out your seat belt. It just might come equipped with an airbag.

The i-house's rooftop deck.

It’s not your father’s mobile home. The i-house combines modular construction with environmentally-friendly features and a trendy, Scandinavian-influenced design.

Clayton Homes CEO Kevin Clayton says his company gave its architects free reign to come up with the new concept. “Take it as far as you can. There are no limits. There are no boundaries. We want to see what’s possible,” he said.

The i-house costs between $100 and $130 per square foot, about half the price of a standard “stick built” home. Its energy efficient windows, insulation and appliances, which include optional solar panels on its butterfly roof, can reduce the i-house’s electric bill to $1 a day, according to the manufacturer.

The i-house gets its name from its unique shape: A long rectangular main unit with a separate “flex room” to “dot the i.” Click on the video below to watch our FOX Report.

Related links:

• View more of Jonathan’s photos of the i-house on Facebook.
• i-house virtual tour on Clayton Homes website

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Big Brother or Robocop? American motorists have a love-hate relationship with red light cameras.

You have been warned.

Your own opinion, likely, depends on whether you’ve ever been inconvenienced by red light runners, or whether you’ve ever received a traffic citation in the mail, along with a photo of your car.

While manufacturers report a surge in red light camera orders nationwide, some states impose restrictions on their use.

Complaints from motorists have prompted the Mississippi legislature to ban red light cameras altogether starting Oct. 1, 2009.

In Georgia, state law requires municipalities to pay a flat fee to the private companies that monitor the cameras, instead of sharing revenue from traffic fines. The intent is to reduce the financial incentive for companies to boost the number of violations the devices spot.

But shifting the total cost to local governments has its own pitfalls. Revenue from red light cameras decreases over time as motorists become more cautious around monitored intersections — a mixed blessing for municipalities trying to balance public safety with tight budgets.

“Because of the economic situation, we really can’t afford to do something that doesn’t pay for itself,” says Phil McLemore, city administrator of Duluth, GA.

The Atlanta suburb is phasing out its red light camera program, which has been in place at several busy intersections for the past three years.

The cameras brought the city more than $1 million in revenue during the program’s first year. But McLemore says improved driving habits and a new state law increasing the duration of yellow lights have drastically reduced the number of violations. Keep Reading …

Wake Forest University

When Kathryn Waggoner interviewed with Wake Forest University, the prospective student didn’t have to travel to North Carolina. In fact, she didn’t even have to leave her parents’ home in Memphis, Tennessee.

Waggoner is among 200 Wake Forest applicants who have used webcams to conduct their interviews with admissions officials.

“It allowed them to get a better feel of who I am, without me having to come all the way to Wake Forest,” Waggoner told me in an interview (also conducted over webcams).

Based in Winston-Salem, the private university began offering webcam interviews in September. Wake Forest, which recently dropped its SAT requirement, now places more emphasis on student interviews.

“It’s always good to have information about the student that goes beyond the numbers,” said Martha Allman, Wake Forest’s director of admissions. “It enables us to ask them questions about parts of their application, about their intellectual activities, their academic passions, their extracurriculars.”

Wake Forest is the first major institution to use webcam interviews for undergraduate admissions. However, about a dozen graduate schools have used the technology for several years.

University of Georgia had tried webcams to interview applicants for its MBA program. But UGA officials suspended their use, citing problems with the software they purchased.

Wake Forest admissions officials conduct their interviews over Skype, a free website. They said they’ve experienced no major problems — just the minor domestic hazards one would expect when people speak to you from their homes.

“We have the random doorbell ringing, or the dog barking, Allman said. “The student has to say, ‘Let me get my dog. Just a minute.’”

And while we’re on the topic of college, I’d like to send kudos to our student intern, Rebecca Hood from Kennesaw State University. She produced the video version of this report and came up with some great, out of the box ideas on how to showcase this new technology in our story.

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“You think about James Bond. You think about Knight Rider and all these fictional characters. They all had cool cars. This car is actually real.”

The Carbon Motors "E7"

That’s how Carbon Motors CEO William Santana Li describes the “E7″ — a prototype vehicle that he hopes will become standard issue for police departments across America.

Unlike conventional police cruisers, which are modified consumer passenger vehicles, the E7 is the first car built specifically for law enforcement.

Night vision, automatic license plate recognition cameras and other high-tech crime-fighting gadgets are embedded in the car. Read my story on FOXNews.com for full details.

The prototype is on a nine city, nationwide tour as company officials try to market the E7 to law enforcement officials and municipal fleet managers. We caught up with the car in Greenville, SC. I brought my personal camera along and shot the video below.

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