Some car insurers, such as Progressive Insurance in the US, already use sensors that report back on how abruptly drivers brake or whether they are heavy on the accelerator to help it set insurance premiums.

CNN: US carmakers to offer mobile connection

Indeed, more than half are derived from driveline parts--the connections that set a car in motion when the accelerator is pressed.

FORBES: Beefing up the rump

Professor Egil Lillestol of Bergen University has been pushing thorium for some years now, and thinks that Norway should set the trend in building a prototype accelerator-driven reactor in which a massive particle accelerator converts thorium-232 to uranium-233 by irradiating it with slow (spallation) neutrons generated by the impact of a 1.6 GeV proton beam on a lead target.

FORBES: Thorium Nuclear Power -- A Lesson From Norway

The U.S. Open champion raced through the opening set in just 23 minutes, and while she took her foot off the accelerator in the second, the match was always within the 15th seed's keeping.

CNN: Kirilenko shocks Sharapova in Melbourne