Bose has developed a vibration-dampening truck seat that it says will reduce driver fatigue and back problems. What Bose is refusing to say is whether the new seat, which could cost up to $15,000, will go on sale in Australia where long-distance trucking is big business.

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According to The Wall Street Journal, the traditional sound company plans to start selling the Bose Ride, an electronically controlled, vibration-damping driver's seat, to trucking companies by April 2010. The new seat is built around a high-tech shock absorber with an electromagnetic piston that raises and lowers the driver's seat in response to sensors that feel bumps, potholes and washboard roads through the truck floor, said The WSJ.

The system is designed to keep the driver's head and torso level, even as the truck vibrates and bounces. Drivers still feel the road through the steering wheel and the foot pedals.

Mike Rosen, head of commercialisation in Bose's auto group, said the seats will reduce driver fatigue, head and neck tension and back problems, which affect more than half of truckers today, accoring to Labor Department statistics.