Cirrus has included these in it's line of small private planes. There are however still questions of the Ballistic Recovery Systems reliability (note bottom of article). Overall I think it is a good idea. I wonder how this would affect the bane of all GA operators... Insurance. Hopefully once all the kinks have been worked out this might be akin to having air-bags in a motor vehicle. As a pilot I would never soley rely on this type system, but it would be nice to have in an "all-else-has-failed" scenario.
CNN Article
CNN Article