Taxis don't care that you're texting

Now, whether it’s on the streets of New York City or down the aisle of a local Walmart, its commonplace to see someone paying more attention to the tiny screen of their phone than to to the sights and sounds around them.

There has been, finally, a lot of forward progress in the world of augmented reality, and more importantly, the futuristic hardware that will drive it. Up to this point, virtual reality has required goofy looking eye-gear to perform its duties. Usually the viewer would be given an image made from small LCD screens that would “project” an image of 45-90 inches in front of them. Nothing behind these images were visible and because of the close actual proximity of the screens a eyestrain-induced headache was sure to follow.

Few people would be caught dead wearing such a contraption. In a society where bluetooth headsets have a certain amount of douchiness associated with them (at least according to The Daily Show), a Geordi LaForge piece of eyewear would be sure to cause one’s chase from town from an angry torch-wielding mob. The thing about those bluetooth headsets though is that there weren’t really necessary. In fact, they were often more trouble than convenience. The batteries on them had to be charged, they had to be readily accessible (or permanently attached to your ear), and you had to have already figured out how to pair it with your phone – usually not an obvious task. It’s was just easier to hold the phone up to your head when the phone rang, phone radiation be damned.

Google Project Glass headset

Bluetooth headsets will have its place though, but not exactly as we know them now. In the movie Minority Report, two of the main characters use cell phones that are not much more than earbuds. If I’m not mistaken the props used in that movie were actually Bang & Olufsen earphones that had the cords cut off. The technology to implement phone like this is right around the corner. Hardware has become smaller, and the idea of real voice recognition technology has become more mainstream thanks to Apple’s Siri technology. Who wants to bet that Apple has a screenless cell phone using Siri technology sitting in its prototype lab right now? It depends on the task, but a visual interface isn’t always the most efficient way to go.

But back to the screens. When you look down at the screen of your smartphone, are you truly aware of anything else around you? Do an experiment: pick a pedestrian-heavy street or a shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon. Walk towards your destination while sending a long text message to a friend. When you send the message, stop for a second and see if you can remember what you passed while you were doing that. Did you almost walk into anybody? Did you see that two-for-one sale at that store along the way? Probably not.

The distraction of cell phones, especially smart phones is well documented, especially in driving situations. Driving a car requires a lot of multi-tasking even though its second nature to most people. When you look away from the road though, a lot of those multiple tasks fall by the wayside. Why? In order to interact with something you need to pay attention to it.

A fighter jet HUD

Fighter jet pilots have this problem as well. It’s information overload. We drive a car and have to worry about our speed and whether the light up ahead is red or green. A fighter pilot has an insane number of decisions to make in a combat situation. It’s all important, but looking down at an altimeter in the heat of a mission could be the difference between life and death.

To counteract this information overload, fighter jets have HUDs (heads up displays) installed. They are basically small pieces of glass tilted at a 45 degree angle that will have primary information projected on such as speed, altitude, pitch and targeting information. The key factor in the HUD is the glass – the pilot can see this projected information while still seeing the terrain directly in front of them. Instead of having to look down to gather technical information, the pilot can process it concurrently with the environment around him.

Heads up technology has made its way into a few cars over recent years. Okay, so perhaps driving a car isn’t quite the same challenge as delivering a smart bomb through an open window, bit its no doubt safer to keep the driver’s eyes focused on the road. Along with the basic information that can be given to a driver, a HUD can also supply secondary information such as navigation, radio preferences or even additional safety features such as obstacle avoidance. Pretty neat.

Uber sexy!

What would happen if we applied the same idea to our smartphones? Set aside the geeky look of the gear for a second. If you could process secondary information about the world around you as you traverse through it, how much of an advantage could you potentially gain? In addition to navigational items and location-based information, your entire daily information stream could be presented without you having to take your complete focus off of your environment. Wow, imagine being able to see that cute puppy being walked by the even cuter girl down the street as you are reading the latest tweet from your friend. I mean really – if you saw both, which one would you want to pay attention to?

A few years from now we’re going to look back at these smartphones and realize how dumb they were. Certainly portable small devices with screens will always have a place, at least for the foreseeable future. As the technology to reduce the size of projected-screen devices continues to improve you’ll see more and more people using them as their primary device. Information is a huge part of our society, and those willing to embrace and utilize it will lead the way. Hey, they laughed at the concept of a television too. And a microwave. And a – oh, you get the point!

Produced using a grant from State Farm, the GHSA report, titled Distracted Driving: What Research Shows and What States Can Do [PDF] looks at the main external driver distractions. Not surprisingly, talking on cellphones, fiddling with gadgets and texting while driving are some of the most common driver distractions.

After reading the 50-page document, it’s clear that this study contains as many certainties as uncertainties. As GHSA Executive Director Barbara Harsha says in a statement, “Much of the research is incomplete or contradictory. Clearly, more studies need to be done addressing both the scope of the problem and how to effectively address it.”

Still, one certainty is that cellphone usage increases the risk of crashing and texting is likely more dangerous than using a cellphone.

What is the Solution?

Understanding that drivers who text or talk on the phone are more likely to get into car crashes than those who don’t, what can be done to decrease these distractions?

Unfortunately, the GHSA study is inconclusive on the effects of both texting bans and public service announcement campaigns for distracted driving.

From the report:

• Laws banning hand-held cellphone use reduced use by about half when they were first implemented. Hand-held cellphone use increased subsequently but the laws appear to have had some long-term effect.
• A high-visibility cellphone and texting law enforcement campaign reduced cellphone use immediately after the campaign. Longer term effects are not yet known.
• There is no evidence that cellphone or texting bans have reduced crashes.

Still, the GHSA encourages states to pass more bans of driving while texting and while talking on cellphones — hands-free or not.

via Reuters on Yahoo! News

Besides pursuing a career as a computer engineer, it seems Barbie is also considering espionage as a side gig. The Barbie Video Girl Doll, which was just unveiled at Toy Fair, features a video camera ‘hidden’ in Barbie’s necklace that can capture up to 30 minutes of footage. But what’s more disturbing is the LCD display fused to her back that allows you to play back those videos.

Now I know Mattel has never been that concerned with anatomical correctness in the Barbie line, but I’m pretty sure they’re taking some real creative licenses here. There’s also a USB port hidden somewhere on the doll, not exactly sure where, that allows the videos to be downloaded to a PC and/or uploaded and edited on Barbie.com. The whole idea just seems kind of creepy to me, probably even more so if there was a Ken version, but don’t let me stop you from picking one up in July when they’ll be available for about $50.

1. 3-D will become a standard feature. TV makers will put a premium price on anything 3-D in the next few years (much as they did with HD), as Alfred Poor points out in his new 3DTV report at GigaOM Pro (subscription required); but over time, the technology will become just another standard feature. Chances are in five years we’ll see $799 50-inch 3-D TVs from Vizio at Costco.

2. Invasion of the 3-D movie theaters. 3-D movies are bringing in higher per-screen revenues than their 2-D counterparts, and by the end of this year there should be 7,000 3-D screens worldwide. Hollywood has caught 3-D fever, and it’s logical to think the big focus on 3-D in the theater will migrate over time to the living room.

3. Those crazy gamers. Gamers have been enjoying crude 3-D effects since Wolfenstein 3-D, and more and more are being pulled into a new dimension with the latest 3-D technology.  Sony has stated that existing game catalogs will be 3-D upgradeable through software, which could build the library of content quickly and justify the cost of accessories such as glasses.

4. Cheap glasses. While active shutter glasses would set you back at least 50 bones today, prices will fall through the floor once they’re manufactured at scale.  Think four-packs at Wal-Mart for $25 in about five years.

5. Kids. 3-D’s secret weapon, really. I have to wonder how many 3-D skeptics are child-less. Just as tens of millions of parents came down with Wii tennis elbow in recent years, so will they be donning 3-D glasses in the future.

3-D in the home will continue to be a source of both skepticism and excitement in the coming years. But make no mistake, as both the DVD and HDTV gravy trains continue to slow to a crawl, TV makers and Hollywood are seeing an extra dimension.

See the original article at GigaOm.

I know a lot of people love the feel of paper between their fingers, but devices like this are the end of paper books and newspapers as we know it. It has been speculated that the Kindle has outperformed Apple’s early iPod days in terms of sales – that would be pretty significant if true.

For the little fashionista who loves dressing up and trying on makeup, this “handy” little gadget is sure to be a great big hit with girls of all ages!

The pretty-in-pink digital device,  which connects to a laptop or desktop computer, prints pre-made or handmade designs directly onto the user’s fingernail in a matter of seconds.  Now anyone can do their nails from the comfort of their own home, for a fraction of the cost of an expensive manicure.

Coat the fingernail with a non-toxic basecoat and place the finger in Barbie B-Nails machine. A quick push of the button takes a picture of the nail for proper alignment…

[ed]I might never use this myself but wow, what a fantastic idea![/ed]

Read the full article at InventorSpot.

Read the full article at Engadget

The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users ‘Z2K9′, due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country. According to tipster Michael, the Zune users experienced something like this:

Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar (as pictured above). I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune. Then I checked out the forums and it seems everyone with a 30GB HDD model has had this happen to them

What hasn’t emerged yet, largely due to the fact that MS’s support lines aren’t yet open for the day, is why these devices are failing. The evidence seems to point to a software glitch, but simple resets aren’t providing any relief. Some reports indicate that only Zunes with the latest firmware are affected, but this hasn’t yet been confirmed.

The proximity of the events to the New Year, which inspired the Y2K9 moniker, provides little more than a colorful backdrop; it’s unlikely that the switching of years in the Zune’s internal calendar has anything to do with the failures (besides, it hasn’t even happened yet).

Read the full article at Gizmodo

Read the full article at TechCrunch

My Series 3 Tivo is like the gremlin that eats after midnight. It’s slow at times, it doesn’t like to multi-task and it’s temperamental. And it crashes — a lot. I’ve learned that if the Tivo is recording two shows at the same time then don’t, no matter how badly you want to, don’t ask it to do anything else. Stop recording one of the shows if you don’t want the screen you see here. What is this screen? Well, it’s the startup screen you see after the Tivo very quietly crashes. No error messages, no clues as to what happened, not even an acknowledgement that something has gone seriously wrong. Just 7 or 8 minutes of time that the Tivo refuses to stay awake for.

I just wanted to watch a rerun of Family Guy. Now I’m writing a blog post. Oh well…