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Parents! Are you looking for a way to make sure your teenagers are safe while they drive? Also, are annoyed while they drive? Well Ford has your back. Its new MyKey system is sure to make driving an infuriatingly annoying ordeal.
A bus driver in Honolulu, Hawaii was suspended without pay recently after he was discovered playing video games while driving. Photos taken by a concerned passenger caught him red handed with his PSP, and she complained that he would play at stoplights and "with two hands... at times, while he was driving in traffic." As baffling as all this is, I am even more surprised that he wasn't fired on the spot. And why didn't anyone speak up with a "hey dumbass, keep your eyes on the road before you kill us all?" [KITV via Kotaku]
California is joining seven other states and Washington DC by imposing a full-on ban of text messaging while driving. The bill signed by the Governator himself imposes a $US20 fine for the first offence and $US50 for repeat offenders starting next year. Kind of a slap on the wrist if you ask me—but that is more than 43 other states in this country are doing. [LA Times via CrunchGear]
Previously named the DS400GB, the SmartMirror is a GPS system that is mounted in place of your conventional rear-view mirror, and has a rear-facing cam input. With Navigon Mobile Navigator 6.5 inside, it's got "reality view", a 4-inch touchscreen, integrated speakers and Bluetooth and takes SD cards. It's actually got two inputs for rear-view cameras, which may be good news for the parking-skill-challenged. It sounds like a neat solution, but I'm a little unconvinced that mounting a GPS high up there on the windscreen isn't actually going to distract you from looking in the rear-view mirror— after all, we know how distracting GPS can be. SmartMirror will be available August 1st for US$799. [Navigadget]
LEDs sure get put to some creative uses: here they're built into the "world's first anti-glare LED panel for night-drivers." The idea is that at night your pupils naturally dilate to let more light in, but while driving this can result in dazzle and glare from other cars' head- and tail-lights. So you just strap this gizmo to your sun visor, and it shines gentle (adjustable) light onto your face, making your pupils shrink enough to reduce glare, but still letting you see. Sounds sensible, but this safety and comfort comes at a cost: around US$363. [Red Ferret]
We might have come up with a list of ridiculous things you can do while driving with a handsfree Bluetooth set, but some people actually acted it out. And who wants to read when you can just stare?
PLX Kiwi, as seen above, is a plug-in device that analyses how you drive and teaches you how to do it in the most gas-efficient way possible. Although you could easily accomplish the same thing by yourself after reading some tips online--Kiwi says you get about 20-33% improvement in your fuel efficiency--it's easier to have something always there reminding you to not gas so hard or drive so fast or brake so much. There's also "challenges" that teach you how to do this, which could be a fun distraction when you're driving along a long stretch of highway. On the other hand, the Kiwi has a MSRP of US$299, which takes a bit of savings to earn back. [PLXDevices]
The big day has now passed for California drivers and mobile phones are effectively banned on the road. At least not without a hands-free device...which Californians will inevitably forget to charge or lose. Other states have this law, but California is the driving-while-talking state. California is regularly ranked the worst for traffic congestion, and its 60 million residents spend more time in traffic not driving than just about anybody else. It's a big deal, but also, this law is a joke: The fine is only US$20. The dumbest thing, however, is that there is a laundry list of far more distracting gadget and non-gadget tasks that are still perfectly legal behind the wheel of a car:
We could only surmise that this "realistic" DaVinci driving simulator from Mirage3D is for teaching this morning. I mean, why else would this thing have a passenger seat? Riding shotgun for a video game? Not when the couch is so comfy, thanks. Then again, this is also the perfect gift for that cousin with a penchant for racing and DUIs, as it lovingly recreates the extreme driving experience with roll bars, uber-realistic, working gauges (controlled by an on-board PC), and Dolby 5.1 surround--all without the danger of having him sloshed on I-90. Oh, and there's a seat belt. That's the DaVinci, alright: safety first, dignity second.
This top-down Google Maps-based driving simulator is one step closer to our ultimate dream: simulated driving on any street, anywhere, based on data available from Google Maps/Google Earth. Geoquake's 2D Flash version may be really simple—you only have a choice of four vehicles and there's no actual collision detection—but it's got the right idea. When someone can take in street data and feed it into a 3D driving engine so we can simulate a trip to the Grand Canyon without leaving our desks, that's when we'll know the future has arrived. [Geoquake]
