Dyson Awards: Smart Biking Gear Takes Top Honors

While rakish American Ryan Jansen may have been the crowd favorite at last night’s James Dyson Awards festivities in New York City, the top honors in the international competition went to two designs that address bike safety. First prize went to London-based design student Michael Chen for his “Reactiv jacket” (modeled above), a Nintendo Wii-inspired way for urban cyclists to signal their intentions to others on the road. Using something called an accelerometer, the jacket senses movement and adjusts its LED lights accordingly: the back lights up green when accelerating, red when braking.