A Canadian auto supplier wants to make smart headrests.

Windsor Machine Group, with in-house molding and foam production, has developed a headrest that can move forward, back, up, down and side to side while linked to a rear-facing camera or radar system. If the sensor picks up another vehicle in danger of hitting the back of your car, the headrest will automatically adjust to provide more protection from possible whiplash injuries.

Richard Truett of our sister paper Automotive News takes a long look at Windsor Machine's development of the True Active head restraint.

Movable headrests are not new, as Richard notes, with Volvo and Saab brands offering them in the 1990s. U.S. auto safety laws required changes to headrests in 2008 to place them closer to the head for additional protection in rear crashes. But that positioning isn't comfortable for most drivers, so they simply adjust them to a spot that may feel better when driving but isn't as effective.

Having a smart headrest that can move during an emergency can provide more protection. There are somewhere between 300,000 and 1 million whiplash injuries from crashes each year in the U.S. — the wide range due to the fact that many of these injuries aren't reported.

"It's an opportunity to get the occupants in a better position prior to impact and improve things earlier in a crash," Marcy Edwards, a senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told Automotive News. "We think it has potential, but we have to find out for sure."

IIHS is helping finance studies on the True Active restraint. Windsor Machine hopes to have final results of the study in September.

Little Tikes' latest take on the Cozy Coupe — with the toddler toy converted into an ice cream truck complete with two plastic cones and a payment pad — is one of seven toys competing to be the first "Ride-On Toy of the Year" winner in the Toy of the Year contest sponsored by the Toy Foundation.

The Ice Cream Cozy Truck is up against some fast competition. There's Tesla's battery-powered ride-on car that is modeled after the car company's upcoming Cyber truck; an electric mini-motorcycle capable of going up to 15 mph; a Mario Kart-branded ride-on electric vehicle; a mini bumper car for toddlers; and other items.

Category winners will be announced Sept. 20, with the overall winner and People's Choice winner named Nov. 21 in time for the holiday shopping season.

First the United Kingdom grocery chain Waitrose abandoned colored high density polyethylene caps for its milk jugs to increase the amount of HDPE available for food-grade recycled plastic.

Now Müller Milk & Ingredients, the company that processes 20 percent of all dairy in the U.K., has expanded the clear cap program to the Aldi store chain, with green caps to be replaced at stores in Cheshire, Manchester and Liverpool this month, Aldi said in a news release.

When Müller introduced the clear caps at Waitrose in March, it said that while the HDPE caps are recyclable, using a color means they cannot be turned back into new jugs. The Waitrose clear closure program adds 1,560 metric tons of HDPE to the recycling stream for food packaging.

The expansion to Aldi will add another 60 tonnes to the HDPE stream.

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