Bianca Bosker's Blog, page 9
September 19, 2013
Doesn't This Just Make You So Mad? (Now Go 'Like' It)
It was the story people couldn't stop sharing. Nina Davuluri's victory at the 2014 Miss America contest set off an explosion of racist tweets, which news sites quickly bundled into stories that immediately seemed everywhere online. One group's rage sparked another's: On Facebook and Twitter, a cacophony of irate individuals expressed outrage at other people's anger. A single Buzzfeed story about the racist posts, "A Lot Of People Are Very Upset That An Indian-American Woman Won The Miss America Pageant," was shared by more than 62,000 people and has been viewed over 5.3 million times.
The racist tweets, as well as the outrage they produced online, underscore an important but often ignored truth about the kind of conversation that social media encourages: The wisdom of crowds is no match for the rage of crowds.
Post by Nelson Yong.
Madison Avenue taught the world that "sex sells." But that motto needs an update in the social media age, where information travels in new ways and is carried along by different people. Online, rage rules. I hate, therefore I "like." (And since everyone wants a "like," people aim to provoke.)
"Negative comments are much more memorable and much more noticed," observed Stanford University professor of communication Clifford Nass in an interview earlier this year. "In a world where you're trying to get noticed, going negative is the way to go."
As a growing body of research shows, subtlety isn't what succeeds on social networks. Anger-inducing, emotionally-charged content spreads best, and the success of those posts may in turn be shaping the way we think and communicate with one another -- lending an almost feverish pitch to our interactions online. Although social media sites claim they're about kumbaya social connection, their design actually makes them extremely well-suited to arousing our emotions.
Many have argued precisely the opposite, saying that Facebook, Twitter and even email are some of the most effective mechanisms ever devised for spreading happy stories. And there is some research to support this: We're incentivized to share helpful, heartwarming and hilarious things, since these make us look good to our friends. The language of Facebook and Twitter, with "likes" and "favorites," also gives happy stuff a boost. "[N]euroscientists and psychologists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories," wrote The New York Times' John Tierney earlier this year. The title of his piece declared, "Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks."
That sounds nice, only it's not entirely true. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Research published last week by a team at China's Beihang University concluded that anger was more contagious than other emotions, spreading faster and more widely online than sadness, disgust and even joy. The scholars examined 70 million posts from China's Weibo, a Twitter-like service used by over 500 million people, and tracked how people who interacted frequently with one another influenced the emotional tone of each other's posts. Did certain sentiments spread more quickly than others? Would an angry message posted by one person be more likely to prompt another angry post, than, say, a depressing or happy one? Absolutely, they concluded.
"We find the correlation of anger among users is significantly higher than that of joy, which indicates that angry emotion could spread more quickly and broadly in the network," the researchers wrote. The title of their paper says it all: "Anger Is More Influential Than Joy."
A 2011 study that examined the diffusion of sentiment across Twitter reached a similar conclusion, albeit with an exception. The researchers found that in the domain of news, bad news is viral news, or "negative news is more retweeted than positive news." But non-newsy tweets, such as social updates, were shared more when they were positive. The authors advised people seeking out more followers to "sweet talk your friends or serve bad news to the public."
Those who maintain that cheerful trumps dreadful online frequently cite the research of Wharton School professor Jonah Berger, the author of "Contagion: Why Things Catch On." In one study, Berger and his co-author Katherine Milkman analyzed nearly 7,000 stories that made it to The New York Times' most-emailed list to figure out if they could decode a pattern to the articles' popularity. They found uplifting stories (i.e. "Wide-Eyed New Arrivals Falling in Love with the City") were more viral than depressing ones. But "highly arousing content," like articles that induced anxiety or anger, did best of all.
"Online content that evoked high-arousal emotions was more viral, regardless of whether those emotions were of a positive (i.e. awe) or negative (i.e. anger or anxiety) nature," the researchers noted -- a conclusion echoed by a slew of other studies. When emotionally charged content gets readers agitated, their instinct is to hit "share."
These findings have major implications for our experience online, far beyond how to win more followers. They suggest that social media can actually reward-- through its currency of shares, retweets and "likes" -- outbursts of rage and anything that make us agitated. Hype wins, nuance loses.
Tweets sent following Davuluri's victory, some of which have seen been deleted. (via PublicShaming.tumblr.com.
The problem with the viral nature of extreme emotions is that we both ingest that content and emulate it. If that's what we share then that's what we'll see, which in turn will shape how we act. It's not a leap to suggest heated emotions breed more heated emotions online, or rage more rage. A study by Facebook's data science team found that if people used negative words, such as "petty" or "lame," in their status updates, their friends became more likely to include negative words in their own posts. The bump in usage persisted even three days after the initial post, and the effect also applied to positive terms.
Just as we act differently at frat houses and family reunions, we adjust our behavior online according to what we see around us. Instagram got people to share gorgeous photographs by initially seeding the app with a small community of artists and designers. If we reward people posting nasty things with our attention -- and we do -- that becomes the acceptable standard.
Pundits have raised concerns that the Internet's hyper-personalization might lead to a "filter bubble," where people see only content that reinforces their existing interests and views. This, they argue, could lead to more polarized political views and stronger biases, while decreasing curiosity and creativity. But we should be just as concerned about the tone of what we see as its topic. Pandering to emotion might get us to read and share something, but it won't make us more thoughtful people. And the research suggests hysteria may be winning the web.
But the success of anger online isn't always a problem, either. In fact, the viral nature of rage has proven a powerful force that can bring attention to issues -- especially in countries lacking a free press. The Beihang University study of Chinese social media found two prime events were most likely to set off angry posts, both of them political: diplomatic disputes with other countries, and domestic ills, such as corruption, bribery and food safety scandals. Weibo, they wrote, "is a convenient and ubiquitous channel for Chinese to share their concern about the continuous social problems and diplomatic issues."
Even the disparaging tweets about the new Miss America could have some function, beyond their unfortunate intention to just spew hate: They force people to acknowledge persistent racism and misunderstanding. If we see the problem, and the anger, perhaps it's easier to address it.
The racist tweets, as well as the outrage they produced online, underscore an important but often ignored truth about the kind of conversation that social media encourages: The wisdom of crowds is no match for the rage of crowds.
Post by Nelson Yong.
Madison Avenue taught the world that "sex sells." But that motto needs an update in the social media age, where information travels in new ways and is carried along by different people. Online, rage rules. I hate, therefore I "like." (And since everyone wants a "like," people aim to provoke.)
"Negative comments are much more memorable and much more noticed," observed Stanford University professor of communication Clifford Nass in an interview earlier this year. "In a world where you're trying to get noticed, going negative is the way to go."
As a growing body of research shows, subtlety isn't what succeeds on social networks. Anger-inducing, emotionally-charged content spreads best, and the success of those posts may in turn be shaping the way we think and communicate with one another -- lending an almost feverish pitch to our interactions online. Although social media sites claim they're about kumbaya social connection, their design actually makes them extremely well-suited to arousing our emotions.
Many have argued precisely the opposite, saying that Facebook, Twitter and even email are some of the most effective mechanisms ever devised for spreading happy stories. And there is some research to support this: We're incentivized to share helpful, heartwarming and hilarious things, since these make us look good to our friends. The language of Facebook and Twitter, with "likes" and "favorites," also gives happy stuff a boost. "[N]euroscientists and psychologists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories," wrote The New York Times' John Tierney earlier this year. The title of his piece declared, "Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks."
That sounds nice, only it's not entirely true. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Research published last week by a team at China's Beihang University concluded that anger was more contagious than other emotions, spreading faster and more widely online than sadness, disgust and even joy. The scholars examined 70 million posts from China's Weibo, a Twitter-like service used by over 500 million people, and tracked how people who interacted frequently with one another influenced the emotional tone of each other's posts. Did certain sentiments spread more quickly than others? Would an angry message posted by one person be more likely to prompt another angry post, than, say, a depressing or happy one? Absolutely, they concluded.
"We find the correlation of anger among users is significantly higher than that of joy, which indicates that angry emotion could spread more quickly and broadly in the network," the researchers wrote. The title of their paper says it all: "Anger Is More Influential Than Joy."
A 2011 study that examined the diffusion of sentiment across Twitter reached a similar conclusion, albeit with an exception. The researchers found that in the domain of news, bad news is viral news, or "negative news is more retweeted than positive news." But non-newsy tweets, such as social updates, were shared more when they were positive. The authors advised people seeking out more followers to "sweet talk your friends or serve bad news to the public."
Those who maintain that cheerful trumps dreadful online frequently cite the research of Wharton School professor Jonah Berger, the author of "Contagion: Why Things Catch On." In one study, Berger and his co-author Katherine Milkman analyzed nearly 7,000 stories that made it to The New York Times' most-emailed list to figure out if they could decode a pattern to the articles' popularity. They found uplifting stories (i.e. "Wide-Eyed New Arrivals Falling in Love with the City") were more viral than depressing ones. But "highly arousing content," like articles that induced anxiety or anger, did best of all.
"Online content that evoked high-arousal emotions was more viral, regardless of whether those emotions were of a positive (i.e. awe) or negative (i.e. anger or anxiety) nature," the researchers noted -- a conclusion echoed by a slew of other studies. When emotionally charged content gets readers agitated, their instinct is to hit "share."
These findings have major implications for our experience online, far beyond how to win more followers. They suggest that social media can actually reward-- through its currency of shares, retweets and "likes" -- outbursts of rage and anything that make us agitated. Hype wins, nuance loses.
Tweets sent following Davuluri's victory, some of which have seen been deleted. (via PublicShaming.tumblr.com.
The problem with the viral nature of extreme emotions is that we both ingest that content and emulate it. If that's what we share then that's what we'll see, which in turn will shape how we act. It's not a leap to suggest heated emotions breed more heated emotions online, or rage more rage. A study by Facebook's data science team found that if people used negative words, such as "petty" or "lame," in their status updates, their friends became more likely to include negative words in their own posts. The bump in usage persisted even three days after the initial post, and the effect also applied to positive terms.
Just as we act differently at frat houses and family reunions, we adjust our behavior online according to what we see around us. Instagram got people to share gorgeous photographs by initially seeding the app with a small community of artists and designers. If we reward people posting nasty things with our attention -- and we do -- that becomes the acceptable standard.
Pundits have raised concerns that the Internet's hyper-personalization might lead to a "filter bubble," where people see only content that reinforces their existing interests and views. This, they argue, could lead to more polarized political views and stronger biases, while decreasing curiosity and creativity. But we should be just as concerned about the tone of what we see as its topic. Pandering to emotion might get us to read and share something, but it won't make us more thoughtful people. And the research suggests hysteria may be winning the web.
But the success of anger online isn't always a problem, either. In fact, the viral nature of rage has proven a powerful force that can bring attention to issues -- especially in countries lacking a free press. The Beihang University study of Chinese social media found two prime events were most likely to set off angry posts, both of them political: diplomatic disputes with other countries, and domestic ills, such as corruption, bribery and food safety scandals. Weibo, they wrote, "is a convenient and ubiquitous channel for Chinese to share their concern about the continuous social problems and diplomatic issues."
Even the disparaging tweets about the new Miss America could have some function, beyond their unfortunate intention to just spew hate: They force people to acknowledge persistent racism and misunderstanding. If we see the problem, and the anger, perhaps it's easier to address it.
September 16, 2013
No One Understands The Scariest, Most Dangerous Part Of A Self-Driving Car: Us
The most dangerous moment in a self-driving car involves no immediate or obvious peril. It is not when, say, the computer must avoid a vehicle swerving into its lane or navigate some other recognizable hazard of the road -- a patch of ice, or a clueless pedestrian stepping into traffic. It is when something much more routine takes place: The computer hands over control of the vehicle to a human being.
In that instant, the human must quickly rouse herself from whatever else she might have been doing while the computer handled the car and focus her attention on the road. As scientists now studying this moment have come to realize, the hand-off is laden with risks.
"People worry about the wrong thing when it comes to the safety of autonomous cars," says Clifford Nass, a Stanford University professor and director of the Revs Program, an interdisciplinary research center. "There are going to be times where the driver has to take over. And that turns out to be by far the most dangerous and totally understudied issue."
Thrust back into control while going full-speed on the freeway, the driver might be unable to take stock of all the obstacles on the road, or she might still be expecting her computer to do something it can't. Her reaction speed might be slower than if she'd been driving all along, she might be distracted by the email she was writing or she might choose not to take over at all, leaving a confused car in command. There's also the worry that people's driving skills will rapidly deteriorate as they come to rely on their robo-chauffeurs.
In the effort to engineer self-driving cars, the best and brightest minds have already mastered many of the technological questions, producing vehicles that can park themselves, navigate highways and handle stop-and-go traffic. But one of the biggest impediments remains the very thing that motivated the quest for self-driving cars in the first place: the limits of human abilities. Psychologists, engineers and cognitive scientists are now probing how humans interact with such cars, cognizant that these realities must shape how the systems operate.
"The greatest challenge to having highly automated vehicles is not technological," observes Richard Wallace, a director at the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit research organization. "It's handling the transition when humans must take back control of the vehicle."
Inside a dark room at Stanford University's automotive research lab sits a four-week-old, $600,000 driving simulator that will be one of the first used to study how drivers trade duties with their self-driving cars and how the cars should be designed to ensure the trade-off is done safely.
Stanford University's driving simulator.
Nass, the simulator's chief champion, boasts that Stanford's new tool is unique in its ability to shift instantaneously from full- to zero-automation, and Nass plans to track drivers' concentration, attention, emotional state and performance when they take over for the self-driving car under different conditions.
His lab's findings will help inform the design of future driverless cars -- from the layout of their dashboards and infotainment systems, to how they deliver alerts and ask drivers to take control. Do people drive more safely if their cars speak to them, flash messages or, say, vibrate the steering wheel? Should cars give an update on road conditions just before the human driver takes over at the wheel, or are such details distracting? And how does a driverless car clearly outline what it can and can't do? Nass has a laundry list of such questions, the answers to which are likely to be monitored closely by automakers: In addition to his position at Stanford, Nass also consults for Google on its driverless cars and for major car companies, such as Nissan, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford and Toyota (Toyota helped fund the Stanford simulator).
These car manufacturers, along with Google, have assured the public that driverless cars will make our commutes safer, more efficient and more productive. They point out that machines don't drink and drive or doze off at the wheel. Since algorithms react more quickly than humans, cars can be grouped into platoons, eliminating stop-and-go traffic and conserving fuel. Drivers will be able to read, text and work while their intelligent vehicles handle four-way stops.
Yet despite these rosy predictions, carmakers won't immediately deliver robo-taxis. The first generation of self-driving cars are more likely to be capable co-pilots that pass driving duties back to a human when complex situations arise, much as planes' autopilot systems ask pilots for help in emergencies. As one report authored by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently noted, "driverless is really driver-optional."
Nass' biggest fear is that unless car-human collaboration is better understood, self-driving cars could prove even more dangerous than the existing, imperfect automobile technology.
"One of the great ironies is that autonomous cars are much more dangerous, but not while they're being autonomous,” Nass says. “They're dangerous because of the driver taking over from the situation."
Nass has spent more than 25 years studying how people speak to, look at, criticize, make friends with and lie to machines. He's examined how sad drivers respond to peppy virtual voices; how people react to flattery from their computers; and why a group of German men thought their perfectly-functioning GPS systems were broken (they didn't trust directions spoken by a female voice, Nass discovered). In the process, Nass has proven over and over again that individuals treat gadgets as if they are other humans, expecting machines to be sensitive to our moods and feelings.
As Nass sees it, driverless cars should eventually be capable of acting as our "wingmen," proactive and aware of our faults so they can assist us in the best possible way.
We're witnessing "the transition of the car from being your slave to being your teammate," he explains. "You can start to think about a radical new way of designing cars that starts from the premise that [the car] and I are a team."
Nass' new simulator will give him the most detailed view yet into our relationships with our cars. What's special about this setup, he explains excitedly, is that it allows him to match up exactly what's happening in the driver's head with what's happening, at that instant, inside the car. His test subjects will be equipped with high-tech gear that tracks their emotional and mental states throughout the courses they drive. They can be outfitted with EEG sensors that measure brain activity, skin conductance sensors that track emotional arousal, and eyetracking glasses that follow their gaze. Nass will use data from these tools, in conjunction with questionnaires and logs of the car's activity, to see how automation affects drivers' reaction speeds, focus and their ability to avoid obstacles after driving a car that's been driving itself.
A researcher in Nass' lab is outfitted with eyetracking glasses, EEG sensors and skin conductance sensors ahead of his drive in the simulator.
In one of Nass' first studies, he will try to determine how long it takes drivers to "get their act together" after the autonomous car hands back control. Google's self-driving Lexus SUV offers one current template for the hand-off: When the car knows it needs human help -- often when approaching a construction zone or merging onto a freeway -- an icon or message will flash on a custom-made screen mounted on the car's dash, and drivers usually have 30 seconds' notice before they need to take over.
But is that just enough time, too much or too little?
Nass invited me to be one of his first lab rats in the simulator, and he was curious to see how I handled the obstacles that popped up on the road in the moments after I took over for the car.
I buckle my seatbelt in the driver's seat of the full-sized 2012 Toyota sedan. The car is surrounded by curved screens the size of billboards, onto which six projectors shine interchangeable animated driving courses. One minute I'm passing trucks, Land Rovers and Audi sedans in what vaguely looks like a Boston neighborhood. The next I'm cruising down a highway lined with office parks and TGI Fridays resturants. ("I built the world," boasts one student who works at Nass' lab.) A subwoofer mimics the growl of an engine, and the whole scene is so lifelike, I'm even starting to feel carsick.
The Toyota's autonomous mode kicks in, and the car takes over. Seconds later, a white BMW swerves in front of me and slams on its brakes. Normally I'd panic, but the car has this one handled. The Toyota immediately taps the brake, slows down, then picks up speed once the other car has driven far enough ahead.
"We're interested in your attention level. Do you freak out more when you get cut off, or when the computer gets cut off? When is it scary?" Nass explains. Later, he elaborates that knowing my emotional state would help researchers understand whether I trusted my driverless car to handle emergencies for me. "The point is, if the car gets cut off and you remain totally calm, it means you trusted the car would keep you safe. One of the critical issues with autonomous cars is trust. Because if you don't trust the car, it won't work."
Slightly further down the road, the car tells me it's my turn to drive. I dutifully put my hands back on the wheel and fix my eyes on the road -- just in time to see a construction worker emerge from a pile of orange cones and amble across the street. I swerve the car to avoid it, sending the Toyota spinning over the median and into oncoming traffic. Car 1, Human 0.
The simulator's sideview mirrors are LCD screens that show the vehicles on the road "behind" the driver's car. The rearview mirror reflects the image of another screen, hung behind the car itself.
Though Nass' research will offer more precise insights into self-driving cars, engineers have already spent decades studying how people work with automated systems in cockpits, trains, nuclear reactors, mines and ships. Of course, each situation has its own nuances. Yet on the whole, research suggests that drivers could have difficulty adjusting to their car's electronic "wingman."
Pilots' collaboration with autopilot systems offers a useful point of comparison for anticipating how drivers will adapt to driverless cars, these experts say. They also warn that any problems with automation in aviation are likely to be magnified when transferred to drivers, who aren't as well-trained as pilots, and to roads, where cars face numerous obstacles and a slim margin of error.
They also warn that any problems with automation in aviation are likely to be magnified when transferred to the general driving population, which isn't as well-trained as pilots, and to roads, where cars face numerous obstacles and a slim margin of error.
Though autopilot systems have yielded enormous improvements in airline safety, some experts caution pilots have become so dependent on help from intelligent software that they are forgetting how to fly. The Federal Aviation Administration has become so concerned about the rise of "automation complacency" that it recently ordered airlines to have their pilots reserve time to practice hand-flying planes.
If automation can cause skill degradation among an elite group of professionals who train for years, imagine what it may do to drivers, who are tested only once (when they get their driver's license) and have a much broader range of driving abilities. (Teenagers drive cars. They'd never be allowed in the cockpit of a Boeing 777.) Researchers predict drivers will get rusty, making them ill-equipped to take over for their cars. Exacerbating the problem: Autonomous vehicles are likely to need assistance with the most challenging driving scenarios -- think slippery streets -- that out-of-practice drivers would likely be poorly prepared to handle.
"It's ironic: We have all these automated planes, but what we need is to go back to flying without automation," observes Raja Parasuraman, a psychology professor at George Mason University and director of the graduate program in human factors and applied cognition. "I could envision a similar situation in driving."
And as exciting as the technology may seem now, operating driverless cars will ultimately be extremely boring. When required to monitor autonomous systems for long periods of time, human babysitters frequently get distracted and tune out, which can lead to accidents, slowed reaction times and delays in recognizing critical issues. In 2009, two pilots operating a flight to Minneapolis from San Diego entrusted the autopilot with control of the plane, and eventually turned their attention to their laptops. They became so engrossed in their computer screens that they failed to realize they'd overshot the airport by about 110 miles.
In the recent MIT report on driverless car technology, Missy Cummings and Jason Ryan of the school's Humans and Automation Lab write that drivers in autonomous or highly autonomous cars failed to react as quickly in emergency situations. "[A]t precisely the time when the automation needs assistance, the operator could not provide it and may actually have made the situation worse," they concluded.
In time, technology could even solve that problem, too. Nass, along with engineers at Toyota, Ford and Mercedes-Benz, are already looking ahead to creating cars that monitor both road and driver, and could behave differently depending on the driver's mood or mental state. The latest Mercedes models claim their "Attention Assist" technology can detect if a driver is getting drowsy, though for the time being, its only recourse is to sound an alert.
In short, the self-driving car could one day map its drivers as well as it maps the roads. And when that happens, it won't only drive you around -- it'll also be your best friend.
"In the same way you become attached to friends, you'll become attached to your car, though not in an unhealthy way," Nass says. "From a business standpoint, this is the dream of the century."
In that instant, the human must quickly rouse herself from whatever else she might have been doing while the computer handled the car and focus her attention on the road. As scientists now studying this moment have come to realize, the hand-off is laden with risks.
"People worry about the wrong thing when it comes to the safety of autonomous cars," says Clifford Nass, a Stanford University professor and director of the Revs Program, an interdisciplinary research center. "There are going to be times where the driver has to take over. And that turns out to be by far the most dangerous and totally understudied issue."
Thrust back into control while going full-speed on the freeway, the driver might be unable to take stock of all the obstacles on the road, or she might still be expecting her computer to do something it can't. Her reaction speed might be slower than if she'd been driving all along, she might be distracted by the email she was writing or she might choose not to take over at all, leaving a confused car in command. There's also the worry that people's driving skills will rapidly deteriorate as they come to rely on their robo-chauffeurs.
In the effort to engineer self-driving cars, the best and brightest minds have already mastered many of the technological questions, producing vehicles that can park themselves, navigate highways and handle stop-and-go traffic. But one of the biggest impediments remains the very thing that motivated the quest for self-driving cars in the first place: the limits of human abilities. Psychologists, engineers and cognitive scientists are now probing how humans interact with such cars, cognizant that these realities must shape how the systems operate.
"The greatest challenge to having highly automated vehicles is not technological," observes Richard Wallace, a director at the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit research organization. "It's handling the transition when humans must take back control of the vehicle."
Inside a dark room at Stanford University's automotive research lab sits a four-week-old, $600,000 driving simulator that will be one of the first used to study how drivers trade duties with their self-driving cars and how the cars should be designed to ensure the trade-off is done safely.
Stanford University's driving simulator.
Nass, the simulator's chief champion, boasts that Stanford's new tool is unique in its ability to shift instantaneously from full- to zero-automation, and Nass plans to track drivers' concentration, attention, emotional state and performance when they take over for the self-driving car under different conditions.
His lab's findings will help inform the design of future driverless cars -- from the layout of their dashboards and infotainment systems, to how they deliver alerts and ask drivers to take control. Do people drive more safely if their cars speak to them, flash messages or, say, vibrate the steering wheel? Should cars give an update on road conditions just before the human driver takes over at the wheel, or are such details distracting? And how does a driverless car clearly outline what it can and can't do? Nass has a laundry list of such questions, the answers to which are likely to be monitored closely by automakers: In addition to his position at Stanford, Nass also consults for Google on its driverless cars and for major car companies, such as Nissan, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford and Toyota (Toyota helped fund the Stanford simulator).
These car manufacturers, along with Google, have assured the public that driverless cars will make our commutes safer, more efficient and more productive. They point out that machines don't drink and drive or doze off at the wheel. Since algorithms react more quickly than humans, cars can be grouped into platoons, eliminating stop-and-go traffic and conserving fuel. Drivers will be able to read, text and work while their intelligent vehicles handle four-way stops.
Yet despite these rosy predictions, carmakers won't immediately deliver robo-taxis. The first generation of self-driving cars are more likely to be capable co-pilots that pass driving duties back to a human when complex situations arise, much as planes' autopilot systems ask pilots for help in emergencies. As one report authored by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently noted, "driverless is really driver-optional."
Nass' biggest fear is that unless car-human collaboration is better understood, self-driving cars could prove even more dangerous than the existing, imperfect automobile technology.
"One of the great ironies is that autonomous cars are much more dangerous, but not while they're being autonomous,” Nass says. “They're dangerous because of the driver taking over from the situation."
Nass has spent more than 25 years studying how people speak to, look at, criticize, make friends with and lie to machines. He's examined how sad drivers respond to peppy virtual voices; how people react to flattery from their computers; and why a group of German men thought their perfectly-functioning GPS systems were broken (they didn't trust directions spoken by a female voice, Nass discovered). In the process, Nass has proven over and over again that individuals treat gadgets as if they are other humans, expecting machines to be sensitive to our moods and feelings.
As Nass sees it, driverless cars should eventually be capable of acting as our "wingmen," proactive and aware of our faults so they can assist us in the best possible way.
We're witnessing "the transition of the car from being your slave to being your teammate," he explains. "You can start to think about a radical new way of designing cars that starts from the premise that [the car] and I are a team."
Nass' new simulator will give him the most detailed view yet into our relationships with our cars. What's special about this setup, he explains excitedly, is that it allows him to match up exactly what's happening in the driver's head with what's happening, at that instant, inside the car. His test subjects will be equipped with high-tech gear that tracks their emotional and mental states throughout the courses they drive. They can be outfitted with EEG sensors that measure brain activity, skin conductance sensors that track emotional arousal, and eyetracking glasses that follow their gaze. Nass will use data from these tools, in conjunction with questionnaires and logs of the car's activity, to see how automation affects drivers' reaction speeds, focus and their ability to avoid obstacles after driving a car that's been driving itself.
A researcher in Nass' lab is outfitted with eyetracking glasses, EEG sensors and skin conductance sensors ahead of his drive in the simulator.
In one of Nass' first studies, he will try to determine how long it takes drivers to "get their act together" after the autonomous car hands back control. Google's self-driving Lexus SUV offers one current template for the hand-off: When the car knows it needs human help -- often when approaching a construction zone or merging onto a freeway -- an icon or message will flash on a custom-made screen mounted on the car's dash, and drivers usually have 30 seconds' notice before they need to take over.
But is that just enough time, too much or too little?
Nass invited me to be one of his first lab rats in the simulator, and he was curious to see how I handled the obstacles that popped up on the road in the moments after I took over for the car.
I buckle my seatbelt in the driver's seat of the full-sized 2012 Toyota sedan. The car is surrounded by curved screens the size of billboards, onto which six projectors shine interchangeable animated driving courses. One minute I'm passing trucks, Land Rovers and Audi sedans in what vaguely looks like a Boston neighborhood. The next I'm cruising down a highway lined with office parks and TGI Fridays resturants. ("I built the world," boasts one student who works at Nass' lab.) A subwoofer mimics the growl of an engine, and the whole scene is so lifelike, I'm even starting to feel carsick.
The Toyota's autonomous mode kicks in, and the car takes over. Seconds later, a white BMW swerves in front of me and slams on its brakes. Normally I'd panic, but the car has this one handled. The Toyota immediately taps the brake, slows down, then picks up speed once the other car has driven far enough ahead.
"We're interested in your attention level. Do you freak out more when you get cut off, or when the computer gets cut off? When is it scary?" Nass explains. Later, he elaborates that knowing my emotional state would help researchers understand whether I trusted my driverless car to handle emergencies for me. "The point is, if the car gets cut off and you remain totally calm, it means you trusted the car would keep you safe. One of the critical issues with autonomous cars is trust. Because if you don't trust the car, it won't work."
Slightly further down the road, the car tells me it's my turn to drive. I dutifully put my hands back on the wheel and fix my eyes on the road -- just in time to see a construction worker emerge from a pile of orange cones and amble across the street. I swerve the car to avoid it, sending the Toyota spinning over the median and into oncoming traffic. Car 1, Human 0.
The simulator's sideview mirrors are LCD screens that show the vehicles on the road "behind" the driver's car. The rearview mirror reflects the image of another screen, hung behind the car itself.
Though Nass' research will offer more precise insights into self-driving cars, engineers have already spent decades studying how people work with automated systems in cockpits, trains, nuclear reactors, mines and ships. Of course, each situation has its own nuances. Yet on the whole, research suggests that drivers could have difficulty adjusting to their car's electronic "wingman."
Pilots' collaboration with autopilot systems offers a useful point of comparison for anticipating how drivers will adapt to driverless cars, these experts say. They also warn that any problems with automation in aviation are likely to be magnified when transferred to drivers, who aren't as well-trained as pilots, and to roads, where cars face numerous obstacles and a slim margin of error.
They also warn that any problems with automation in aviation are likely to be magnified when transferred to the general driving population, which isn't as well-trained as pilots, and to roads, where cars face numerous obstacles and a slim margin of error.
Though autopilot systems have yielded enormous improvements in airline safety, some experts caution pilots have become so dependent on help from intelligent software that they are forgetting how to fly. The Federal Aviation Administration has become so concerned about the rise of "automation complacency" that it recently ordered airlines to have their pilots reserve time to practice hand-flying planes.
If automation can cause skill degradation among an elite group of professionals who train for years, imagine what it may do to drivers, who are tested only once (when they get their driver's license) and have a much broader range of driving abilities. (Teenagers drive cars. They'd never be allowed in the cockpit of a Boeing 777.) Researchers predict drivers will get rusty, making them ill-equipped to take over for their cars. Exacerbating the problem: Autonomous vehicles are likely to need assistance with the most challenging driving scenarios -- think slippery streets -- that out-of-practice drivers would likely be poorly prepared to handle.
"It's ironic: We have all these automated planes, but what we need is to go back to flying without automation," observes Raja Parasuraman, a psychology professor at George Mason University and director of the graduate program in human factors and applied cognition. "I could envision a similar situation in driving."
And as exciting as the technology may seem now, operating driverless cars will ultimately be extremely boring. When required to monitor autonomous systems for long periods of time, human babysitters frequently get distracted and tune out, which can lead to accidents, slowed reaction times and delays in recognizing critical issues. In 2009, two pilots operating a flight to Minneapolis from San Diego entrusted the autopilot with control of the plane, and eventually turned their attention to their laptops. They became so engrossed in their computer screens that they failed to realize they'd overshot the airport by about 110 miles.
In the recent MIT report on driverless car technology, Missy Cummings and Jason Ryan of the school's Humans and Automation Lab write that drivers in autonomous or highly autonomous cars failed to react as quickly in emergency situations. "[A]t precisely the time when the automation needs assistance, the operator could not provide it and may actually have made the situation worse," they concluded.
In time, technology could even solve that problem, too. Nass, along with engineers at Toyota, Ford and Mercedes-Benz, are already looking ahead to creating cars that monitor both road and driver, and could behave differently depending on the driver's mood or mental state. The latest Mercedes models claim their "Attention Assist" technology can detect if a driver is getting drowsy, though for the time being, its only recourse is to sound an alert.
In short, the self-driving car could one day map its drivers as well as it maps the roads. And when that happens, it won't only drive you around -- it'll also be your best friend.
"In the same way you become attached to friends, you'll become attached to your car, though not in an unhealthy way," Nass says. "From a business standpoint, this is the dream of the century."
September 4, 2013
Samsung Announces A Watch You Won't Stop Watching
On Wednesday, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy Gear smartwatch, a gadget being hailed as a leap forward for wearable computing, the first such device from a major technology company and an important offensive in Samsung’s ongoing battle with Apple.
What Samsung has done with its gadget is certainly impressive. But what its smartwatch could do to us is even more remarkable.
Next to the smartwatch, checking a smartphone seems downright cumbersome. It has to be fished out of pockets or purses, woken up from its slumber, unlocked and navigated. By tying a 1.6-inch display onto our wrists, Samsung ensures the Galaxy Gear is never out of sight or reach. In turn, that guarantees we’re never out of sight or reach to the people and companies that want access to us.
“The ability to put away a smartphone is a feature, not a flaw,” noted Nathan Jurgenson, a social media theorist a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland. “With smartwatches, we’re strapping technology onto things we wear all the time, and I think that’s a major hurdle for them. Being able to put them away is really important.”
The Galaxy Gear can answer calls, send text messages, snap photos, play music, take voice memos, track steps and currently offers over a dozen apps -- including Tripit, Path, Line, Evernote and, for those who need the flexibility to buy antiques from their wrist, eBay. It also notifies wearers when they receive incoming calls, texts, emails or alerts from their apps, and allows them to quickly share content in messages or on social networking sites. The device, set to launch in September for $299, currently works only when paired with Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 10.1 -- though the company plans to add more phones to that list.
Samsung bills the Gear as a device that will “enhance the freedom of mobile communications.” But it’s not only the Galaxy Gear wearers who are more free to communicate, whether speaking into the watch, Dick Tracy-style, or snapping photos from its wristband. It’s also the app creators, who, with their new wrist real estate, will become closer and less avoidable than ever. Samsung has handed them an entirely new way to feed us information -- and feed on ours.
The chief executive of Glympse, a location-sharing service that developed an app for the Galaxy Gear, said he sees the smartwatch as a way for his company to increase how frequently people interact with his service. With the Galaxy Gear, checking the Glympse app can become a “reflex,” or “something people can do multiple times a day,” Bryan Trussel, Glympse's co-founder and CEO, noted.
“Anything that gets us in front of the consumer more often, with a simplified interface, we’re all over,” Trussel explained. “[The smartwatch] is a way to get them to use Glympse more often and more regularly.”
The Galaxy Gear might be a new gadget, but it seems poised to exacerbate a (relatively) old problem: the torrent of buzzes and beeps overwhelming peoples’ existing mobile devices, and their constant compulsion to be connected.
A growing number of smartphone-toting humans are already troubled by how much time they spend staring at their screens, and are searching for ways to escape the tyranny of the app. Sleep-away camp has become step-away-from-the-phone camp. Unplugging now refers to people, not gadgets. Digital detox is the new coveted spa treatment.
Though some companies promise the tech that created the tech overload will also cure it, through virtual personal assistants or context-aware devices, Samsung, at the launch of the Galaxy Gear, offered no such immediate solutions. Instead, Samsung Director of Research Pranav Mistry stressed the "ease of glanceability" of the device.
Trussel acknowledged that smartwatches could become an annoyance unless developers show some “restraint and respect” when it comes to what they push to their users. But is there reason to be so optimistic? True, apps risk being deleted if they bother us too often. And yet so far, web companies, for all their innovation, have largely used a one-size-fits-all approach to their notifications. The alerts sent to my iPad and iPhone vary very little, even though one device is always with me, and the other I glance through only at night. It remains to be seen whether those firms will respect the intimate space to which we're giving them access.
If the past is any guide, however, we'll just end up watching our watch.
What Samsung has done with its gadget is certainly impressive. But what its smartwatch could do to us is even more remarkable.
Next to the smartwatch, checking a smartphone seems downright cumbersome. It has to be fished out of pockets or purses, woken up from its slumber, unlocked and navigated. By tying a 1.6-inch display onto our wrists, Samsung ensures the Galaxy Gear is never out of sight or reach. In turn, that guarantees we’re never out of sight or reach to the people and companies that want access to us.
“The ability to put away a smartphone is a feature, not a flaw,” noted Nathan Jurgenson, a social media theorist a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland. “With smartwatches, we’re strapping technology onto things we wear all the time, and I think that’s a major hurdle for them. Being able to put them away is really important.”
The Galaxy Gear can answer calls, send text messages, snap photos, play music, take voice memos, track steps and currently offers over a dozen apps -- including Tripit, Path, Line, Evernote and, for those who need the flexibility to buy antiques from their wrist, eBay. It also notifies wearers when they receive incoming calls, texts, emails or alerts from their apps, and allows them to quickly share content in messages or on social networking sites. The device, set to launch in September for $299, currently works only when paired with Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Note 10.1 -- though the company plans to add more phones to that list.
Samsung bills the Gear as a device that will “enhance the freedom of mobile communications.” But it’s not only the Galaxy Gear wearers who are more free to communicate, whether speaking into the watch, Dick Tracy-style, or snapping photos from its wristband. It’s also the app creators, who, with their new wrist real estate, will become closer and less avoidable than ever. Samsung has handed them an entirely new way to feed us information -- and feed on ours.
The chief executive of Glympse, a location-sharing service that developed an app for the Galaxy Gear, said he sees the smartwatch as a way for his company to increase how frequently people interact with his service. With the Galaxy Gear, checking the Glympse app can become a “reflex,” or “something people can do multiple times a day,” Bryan Trussel, Glympse's co-founder and CEO, noted.
“Anything that gets us in front of the consumer more often, with a simplified interface, we’re all over,” Trussel explained. “[The smartwatch] is a way to get them to use Glympse more often and more regularly.”
The Galaxy Gear might be a new gadget, but it seems poised to exacerbate a (relatively) old problem: the torrent of buzzes and beeps overwhelming peoples’ existing mobile devices, and their constant compulsion to be connected.
A growing number of smartphone-toting humans are already troubled by how much time they spend staring at their screens, and are searching for ways to escape the tyranny of the app. Sleep-away camp has become step-away-from-the-phone camp. Unplugging now refers to people, not gadgets. Digital detox is the new coveted spa treatment.
Though some companies promise the tech that created the tech overload will also cure it, through virtual personal assistants or context-aware devices, Samsung, at the launch of the Galaxy Gear, offered no such immediate solutions. Instead, Samsung Director of Research Pranav Mistry stressed the "ease of glanceability" of the device.
Trussel acknowledged that smartwatches could become an annoyance unless developers show some “restraint and respect” when it comes to what they push to their users. But is there reason to be so optimistic? True, apps risk being deleted if they bother us too often. And yet so far, web companies, for all their innovation, have largely used a one-size-fits-all approach to their notifications. The alerts sent to my iPad and iPhone vary very little, even though one device is always with me, and the other I glance through only at night. It remains to be seen whether those firms will respect the intimate space to which we're giving them access.
If the past is any guide, however, we'll just end up watching our watch.
September 3, 2013
Why People Don't Buy Microsoft's Phones (And Might Not Start)
Microsoft's $7.2 billion deal to buy ailing smartphone maker Nokia will likely do little to change one basic problem these two companies face: No one seems all that interested in their flagship phones, the Nokia-made Lumia line, which runs Microsoft software.
The issue people have with the phones has little to do with their design or how they're marketed, two areas Microsoft has promised to prioritize following its Nokia deal. Instead, buyers will often try the Lumia smartphones, then abandon them, wondering why they can’t access Instagram, play Candy Crush or download thousands of other apps readily accessible on Android and Apple phones.
“[Customers] say it has no apps and so it’s useless,” said a sales associate at Verizon's Sixth Avenue store in Manhattan, echoing an explanation given by employees at AT&T and T-Mobile stores around New York City.
She estimated that 7 out of 10 Verizon customers who buy Microsoft-powered phones end up returning them for a different device.
Despite their earlier dominance in desktop computers and cellphones, Microsoft and Nokia are both struggling to stay relevant in the smartphone age, so far with little success. Late to offer a competitive alternative to the iPhone, and by then also facing pressure from Google's Android operating system, Microsoft’s share of the worldwide smartphone market has dropped to a paltry 3.3 percent, from 11 percent in 2008, according to the Gartner Group. Nokia, a brand once synonymous with cutting-edge gadgets, has likewise lost its hold on consumers.
Microsoft and Nokia are now trying to convince the world that uniting two companies that missed the mark in mobile can somehow yield a company capable of chipping away at Apple and Google’s dominance. Two wrongs really can make a right, their executives insist.
Yet the main reason people decide against purchasing a Microsoft Windows Phone -- the dearth of apps -- is unlikely to change immediately following the deal, analysts say.
“The app ecosystem is the least likely to benefit from this merger,” said Chris Silva, an analyst with the Altimeter Group. “With good-enough marketing, you can probably get people on board, but the app ecosystem is what’s going to keep them there.”
Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform offers just a fraction as many apps as its rivals: There are 160,000 Windows Phone apps, while Apple offers iPhone owners over 850,000 and Android more than 700,000.
“I’d like to say the combination of the two will give developers more confidence to put more resources into developing [apps] for Windows Phone,” added Silva. “But at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game.”
So far, that numbers game hasn’t worked in Microsoft’s favor. The tech giant is confronting the Catch-22 it has grappled with unsuccessfully for several years: People will only buy Microsoft's phones if the phones have access to apps. And app developers will only build those apps if enough people buy Microsoft’s phones.
In the most recent quarter, Microsoft shipped 8.7 million phones running its Windows Phone software -- a third as many phones as Apple, and a twentieth the number of phones shipped with Android, according to IDC. An AT&T sales associate observed that in his experience, the Lumia has so far sold best among first-time smartphone buyers and older individuals, both of whom seemed less concerned with having apps.
By Microsoft’s logic, the acquisition of Nokia will “accelerate phone share” by allowing the Redmond, Wash., giant to refine its marketing message and innovate more quickly. In combination, those efforts should drive sales, which should in turn motivate app developers, according to Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer.
“The key is to drive volumes. Driving volumes will activate the software and the hardware ecosystem,” Ballmer told The Verge in an interview. “We do see an ability to speed our agility in hardware and software innovation. We do think that making the brand and the product line simpler and easier to acquire and being able to invest with greater agility should do a lot to help us continue to improve our market-share and position, which certainly will help our apps."
Marketing might not be Windows Phone’s biggest problem. Though it doesn’t enjoy the name recognition of the iPhone or Galaxy S4, sales associates at AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile said their customers are familiar with the Windows Phone brand, and frequently come in asking to see Lumia phones. A 2011 survey of mobile phone users who owned a smartphone or planned to purchase one found that 44 percent were considering devices running Windows Phone 7.
The larger issue may be that Microsoft and Nokia still think of their phones as phones. The phones' owners now expect them to be pocket-sized computers. While the two tech giants have focused on building feature-filled smartphones that can hold their own against the best from Samsung, Motorola, Apple and others, the people who'd buy those phones now take all those bells and whistles for granted. Intuitive design and high-quality cameras have become a given. The phone that wins isn't so much a phone as it is a convenient portal to services that offer instant gratification of every conceivable lifestyle demand, whether it's editing photos, streaming movies, finding dates or hailing taxis. All those capabilities rely on apps. Though Microsoft has bought itself a smartphone maker, the all-important developers -- and their apps -- aren't included.
The issue people have with the phones has little to do with their design or how they're marketed, two areas Microsoft has promised to prioritize following its Nokia deal. Instead, buyers will often try the Lumia smartphones, then abandon them, wondering why they can’t access Instagram, play Candy Crush or download thousands of other apps readily accessible on Android and Apple phones.
“[Customers] say it has no apps and so it’s useless,” said a sales associate at Verizon's Sixth Avenue store in Manhattan, echoing an explanation given by employees at AT&T and T-Mobile stores around New York City.
She estimated that 7 out of 10 Verizon customers who buy Microsoft-powered phones end up returning them for a different device.
Despite their earlier dominance in desktop computers and cellphones, Microsoft and Nokia are both struggling to stay relevant in the smartphone age, so far with little success. Late to offer a competitive alternative to the iPhone, and by then also facing pressure from Google's Android operating system, Microsoft’s share of the worldwide smartphone market has dropped to a paltry 3.3 percent, from 11 percent in 2008, according to the Gartner Group. Nokia, a brand once synonymous with cutting-edge gadgets, has likewise lost its hold on consumers.
Microsoft and Nokia are now trying to convince the world that uniting two companies that missed the mark in mobile can somehow yield a company capable of chipping away at Apple and Google’s dominance. Two wrongs really can make a right, their executives insist.
Yet the main reason people decide against purchasing a Microsoft Windows Phone -- the dearth of apps -- is unlikely to change immediately following the deal, analysts say.
“The app ecosystem is the least likely to benefit from this merger,” said Chris Silva, an analyst with the Altimeter Group. “With good-enough marketing, you can probably get people on board, but the app ecosystem is what’s going to keep them there.”
Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform offers just a fraction as many apps as its rivals: There are 160,000 Windows Phone apps, while Apple offers iPhone owners over 850,000 and Android more than 700,000.
“I’d like to say the combination of the two will give developers more confidence to put more resources into developing [apps] for Windows Phone,” added Silva. “But at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game.”
So far, that numbers game hasn’t worked in Microsoft’s favor. The tech giant is confronting the Catch-22 it has grappled with unsuccessfully for several years: People will only buy Microsoft's phones if the phones have access to apps. And app developers will only build those apps if enough people buy Microsoft’s phones.
In the most recent quarter, Microsoft shipped 8.7 million phones running its Windows Phone software -- a third as many phones as Apple, and a twentieth the number of phones shipped with Android, according to IDC. An AT&T sales associate observed that in his experience, the Lumia has so far sold best among first-time smartphone buyers and older individuals, both of whom seemed less concerned with having apps.
By Microsoft’s logic, the acquisition of Nokia will “accelerate phone share” by allowing the Redmond, Wash., giant to refine its marketing message and innovate more quickly. In combination, those efforts should drive sales, which should in turn motivate app developers, according to Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer.
“The key is to drive volumes. Driving volumes will activate the software and the hardware ecosystem,” Ballmer told The Verge in an interview. “We do see an ability to speed our agility in hardware and software innovation. We do think that making the brand and the product line simpler and easier to acquire and being able to invest with greater agility should do a lot to help us continue to improve our market-share and position, which certainly will help our apps."
Marketing might not be Windows Phone’s biggest problem. Though it doesn’t enjoy the name recognition of the iPhone or Galaxy S4, sales associates at AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile said their customers are familiar with the Windows Phone brand, and frequently come in asking to see Lumia phones. A 2011 survey of mobile phone users who owned a smartphone or planned to purchase one found that 44 percent were considering devices running Windows Phone 7.
The larger issue may be that Microsoft and Nokia still think of their phones as phones. The phones' owners now expect them to be pocket-sized computers. While the two tech giants have focused on building feature-filled smartphones that can hold their own against the best from Samsung, Motorola, Apple and others, the people who'd buy those phones now take all those bells and whistles for granted. Intuitive design and high-quality cameras have become a given. The phone that wins isn't so much a phone as it is a convenient portal to services that offer instant gratification of every conceivable lifestyle demand, whether it's editing photos, streaming movies, finding dates or hailing taxis. All those capabilities rely on apps. Though Microsoft has bought itself a smartphone maker, the all-important developers -- and their apps -- aren't included.
August 28, 2013
Google Self-Driving Cars Should Record Driver Moves Despite Privacy Fears, U.S. Official Says
SAN DIEGO -- Top U.S. safety official Deborah Hersman wants to see Google’s self-driving cars do more than switch lanes and brake for red lights. She said she also hopes the vehicles record what they do.
Before Google’s self-driving cars are admitted en masse onto the nation’s roads, the vehicles should not only be safe, but be equipped with mandatory data recorders that would log any crash or mishap, said Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
“When you have a driverless car, you have to demonstrate on the front end that you have the data that shows it’s safe. But we would also say, you need to make sure you have good data recording capabilities, so when there is an event, you can understand what happened,” Hersman said in an interview at the Governors Highway Safety Association’s annual meeting. “There’s got to be good data demonstrated and good data captured.”
Though such black boxes have been mandatory on aircraft for years, privacy advocates and drivers have expressed fears that adding electronic recording devices to personal cars would violate individual privacy by monitoring everything from drivers’ whereabouts to seat belt use. Most new cars already record such data, which can be shared with third parties, including insurance companies and law enforcement.
During her tenure as chairman of the NTSB, Hersman has repeatedly seen the benefits of collecting more data, rather than less, in crashes. The board investigates significant accidents on roads, rails, water and in the skies. Having a digital trail of a driverless car’s final moments would be a major boon for investigators in reconstructing what goes awry.
With self-driving cars, “data capture is going to help you understand if there is a vehicle problem, or if it’s a human factors issue,” Hersman explained. “There’s very little we can do to understand what happened or didn’t happen if there’s no survivor.”
Google has indicated that its driverless cars currently log information on their performance, including speed, location and obstacles detected by sensors. The data is used to refine and monitor the technology.
Already, most new passenger vehicles have recording capabilities of some kind, with regulators pushing for more widespread use. Ninety-six percent of passenger cars and light-duty vehicles from 2013 model year have electronic data recorders, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last December, the agency proposed making those black boxes mandatory in all new vehicles in order to collect data on the seconds before a crash. NHTSA’s proposal sought to capture data on the driver’s speed, braking, seat belt usage, and air bags, among other information.
Drivers aren’t convinced they want their cars gathering data on where they go or how they get there.
Despite the improvements to safety and fuel efficiency that self-driving cars promise, many argue the privacy risks posed by potential data collection should be weighed against the benefits of the autonomous cars. A poll released in June by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers found that around three-quarters of respondents feared driverless car-manufacturers would use their vehicles' software to record personal data, while 70 percent had concerns their data would be accessible by the government.
Some worry more about what the self-driving cars might pick up about others on the road. When Google pushed for permission to test its autonomous vehicle technology on California roads in 2012, the Consumer Watchdog group, an advocacy organization, petitioned the state’s regulators to “ban all data collection by autonomous cars.”
Before Google’s self-driving cars are admitted en masse onto the nation’s roads, the vehicles should not only be safe, but be equipped with mandatory data recorders that would log any crash or mishap, said Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
“When you have a driverless car, you have to demonstrate on the front end that you have the data that shows it’s safe. But we would also say, you need to make sure you have good data recording capabilities, so when there is an event, you can understand what happened,” Hersman said in an interview at the Governors Highway Safety Association’s annual meeting. “There’s got to be good data demonstrated and good data captured.”
Though such black boxes have been mandatory on aircraft for years, privacy advocates and drivers have expressed fears that adding electronic recording devices to personal cars would violate individual privacy by monitoring everything from drivers’ whereabouts to seat belt use. Most new cars already record such data, which can be shared with third parties, including insurance companies and law enforcement.
During her tenure as chairman of the NTSB, Hersman has repeatedly seen the benefits of collecting more data, rather than less, in crashes. The board investigates significant accidents on roads, rails, water and in the skies. Having a digital trail of a driverless car’s final moments would be a major boon for investigators in reconstructing what goes awry.
With self-driving cars, “data capture is going to help you understand if there is a vehicle problem, or if it’s a human factors issue,” Hersman explained. “There’s very little we can do to understand what happened or didn’t happen if there’s no survivor.”
Google has indicated that its driverless cars currently log information on their performance, including speed, location and obstacles detected by sensors. The data is used to refine and monitor the technology.
Already, most new passenger vehicles have recording capabilities of some kind, with regulators pushing for more widespread use. Ninety-six percent of passenger cars and light-duty vehicles from 2013 model year have electronic data recorders, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last December, the agency proposed making those black boxes mandatory in all new vehicles in order to collect data on the seconds before a crash. NHTSA’s proposal sought to capture data on the driver’s speed, braking, seat belt usage, and air bags, among other information.
Drivers aren’t convinced they want their cars gathering data on where they go or how they get there.
Despite the improvements to safety and fuel efficiency that self-driving cars promise, many argue the privacy risks posed by potential data collection should be weighed against the benefits of the autonomous cars. A poll released in June by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers found that around three-quarters of respondents feared driverless car-manufacturers would use their vehicles' software to record personal data, while 70 percent had concerns their data would be accessible by the government.
Some worry more about what the self-driving cars might pick up about others on the road. When Google pushed for permission to test its autonomous vehicle technology on California roads in 2012, the Consumer Watchdog group, an advocacy organization, petitioned the state’s regulators to “ban all data collection by autonomous cars.”
August 27, 2013
To Fix Distracted Driving, Experts Say Target The People, Not The Tech
While car companies and tech firms have touted an ever-expanding line of devices that aim to curb texting at the wheel, experts argued Monday that eliminating distracted driving requires adjusting the driver, not the technology in his or her hands.
Rather than just convincing companies to disable their apps while a vehicle is moving or block access to certain tools in the car, lasting progress will come from educating drivers and convincing them to put safety ahead of immediate access to information, researchers said during a panel at the Governors Highway Safety Association conference. The association, a nonprofit that represents the country’s highway safety offices, focused this year's annual meeting on the risks and benefits of technology on the road.
"You can’t really talk about distraction and technology without considering the social context in which it happens because the social influences have always pushed bad behavior, even if you have good technology," said Nic Ward, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Montana State University. “Rather than focus on how technology can get around or force a behavior, I’d like to move further downstream and find ways for people to make the right decision beforehand.”
Ward suggested one solution might be to shift social norms to deemphasize instant information gratification and move away from the expectation that people should always be on and constantly connected. Joe Farrow, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, agreed, saying that drivers should think of driving as they do flying: There will be a set period of travel time when there are no calls made, texts exchanged or emails sent.
"On the airplane, I can't talk to someone for an hour and fifteen minutes," Farrow said in an interview. "When you get in the car, all this should go away."
Technological solutions, such as limiting texting via car infotainment systems, often do little to correct bad driving habits, added David Stayer, a professor in the University of Utah's Department of Psychology. Stayer noted that drivers will often find ways around blocks their systems put in place, using their phone even if their in-car system prohibits it.
Even as experts see promise in talking directly to consumers, history suggests that would be only part of the solution. Farrow noted that current views on texting are analogous to attitudes toward seat belts in the 1980s. Making seat belt usage mainstream relied on a combination of regulation, education and enforcement. Curbing cell phone usage is likely to prove no different, the researchers agreed.
And far from discouraging drivers to tap into the Internet, the auto and tech industries have so far been working to make information even more accessible at the wheel. Eager to tap into the billions of hours a year Americans spend in traffic, Silicon Valley is gearing up for a battle over the dashboard: Drivers can now update Facebook via their Mercedes and will be able to chit-chat with Siri via their dash -- all part of a greater push by tech companies to colonize a new screen.
But Ward asked whether some tech companies might face a moral imperative to prevent people from accessing their offerings while at the wheel.
“If we accept that distraction is an issue for traffic safety, do these companies have a moral obligation to curtail their marketing and drive for more users in contexts that we know are risky?” Ward said. “You could imagine a social media site could make a decision that they want lots of users, but don't want users to engage in their services while it's dangerous, so they won't provide services while a vehicle is in motion.”
That, however, is unlikely, he conceded.
“We could choose not to text while driving. Companies or app companies could decide not to make it available while driving, but we don’t because our culture values immediacy and access at all times," he said. "That’s more profound in our decision-making than not killing the person next to us on the road.”
Rather than just convincing companies to disable their apps while a vehicle is moving or block access to certain tools in the car, lasting progress will come from educating drivers and convincing them to put safety ahead of immediate access to information, researchers said during a panel at the Governors Highway Safety Association conference. The association, a nonprofit that represents the country’s highway safety offices, focused this year's annual meeting on the risks and benefits of technology on the road.
"You can’t really talk about distraction and technology without considering the social context in which it happens because the social influences have always pushed bad behavior, even if you have good technology," said Nic Ward, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Montana State University. “Rather than focus on how technology can get around or force a behavior, I’d like to move further downstream and find ways for people to make the right decision beforehand.”
Ward suggested one solution might be to shift social norms to deemphasize instant information gratification and move away from the expectation that people should always be on and constantly connected. Joe Farrow, commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, agreed, saying that drivers should think of driving as they do flying: There will be a set period of travel time when there are no calls made, texts exchanged or emails sent.
"On the airplane, I can't talk to someone for an hour and fifteen minutes," Farrow said in an interview. "When you get in the car, all this should go away."
Technological solutions, such as limiting texting via car infotainment systems, often do little to correct bad driving habits, added David Stayer, a professor in the University of Utah's Department of Psychology. Stayer noted that drivers will often find ways around blocks their systems put in place, using their phone even if their in-car system prohibits it.
Even as experts see promise in talking directly to consumers, history suggests that would be only part of the solution. Farrow noted that current views on texting are analogous to attitudes toward seat belts in the 1980s. Making seat belt usage mainstream relied on a combination of regulation, education and enforcement. Curbing cell phone usage is likely to prove no different, the researchers agreed.
And far from discouraging drivers to tap into the Internet, the auto and tech industries have so far been working to make information even more accessible at the wheel. Eager to tap into the billions of hours a year Americans spend in traffic, Silicon Valley is gearing up for a battle over the dashboard: Drivers can now update Facebook via their Mercedes and will be able to chit-chat with Siri via their dash -- all part of a greater push by tech companies to colonize a new screen.
But Ward asked whether some tech companies might face a moral imperative to prevent people from accessing their offerings while at the wheel.
“If we accept that distraction is an issue for traffic safety, do these companies have a moral obligation to curtail their marketing and drive for more users in contexts that we know are risky?” Ward said. “You could imagine a social media site could make a decision that they want lots of users, but don't want users to engage in their services while it's dangerous, so they won't provide services while a vehicle is in motion.”
That, however, is unlikely, he conceded.
“We could choose not to text while driving. Companies or app companies could decide not to make it available while driving, but we don’t because our culture values immediacy and access at all times," he said. "That’s more profound in our decision-making than not killing the person next to us on the road.”
Why It's So Hard To Crack Down On Distracted Driving
SAN DIEGO -- During any given daylight hour, there are 660,000 American drivers using gadgets at the wheel. But while the devices themselves have become steadily more advanced, catching the drivers who use them illegally still relies on something decidedly traditional: eyes.
Commissioner Joe Farrow of the California Highway Patrol offered a glimpse in an interview Monday at the challenges officers face in enforcing anti-texting laws, even as he and others noted that doing so was critical to efforts to eliminate distracted driving.
In California, among other states, spotting a driver tapping on a cellphone isn’t enough to issue a ticket: Law enforcement officers must get visual confirmation that the driver is exchanging a digital message on his or her phone -- all while they’re driving beside the suspected offender in a marked patrol car, Farrow explained.
“I have to pull up alongside of you, watch you, see you and testify in court that I saw you with your phone, texting or reading messages in the car,” Farrow said following the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Administration, a nonprofit organization that represents the nation’s highway safety offices. “We do write a significant number of citations, but it’s a bit more difficult than people think because we have to be able to testify in court that you were doing that, rather than jut holding the device.”
California’s anti-texting law, which went into effect in 2009, prohibits drivers from writing, sending or reading “text-based communication” on any “electronic wireless communications device,” which makes it illegal to text, compose an email, share a photo on Instagram or “like” someone’s Facebook status while at the wheel.
Yet the law is narrow enough that it’s not technically illegal to look up a contact on one’s cellphone or pick a song on iTunes, meaning officers must see what a driver is doing on a smartphone before they can issue a citation. If they can’t see that the driver is messaging, their citation isn’t likely to hold up in court.
“Some people argue, ‘I wasn’t texting, I was just holding [the phone] in my hand,’” Farrow said. “I have to be able to convince a judge that I did see you [texting] within a reasonable doubt you were doing it.”
The fact that some people will keep texting even with a police car driving alongside them offers some idea of just how distracting mobile devices can be. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, 10 percent of all fatal crashes in 2011 were caused by driver distraction. Studies have found that talking on the phone while driving can increase the risk of a crash by four times, while the National Safety Council estimates that texting at the wheel ups the risk of an incident by eight to 23 times.
An officer from the Phoenix Police Department said Monday after the meeting that he faced similar challenges in enforcing anti-texting laws, noting that drivers will often dodge tickets by telling judges they were, say, placing a call, but not texting. Although he’s written hundreds of citations over the past several years, just five or so have stuck, he said.
At least in California, drivers may soon find their excuses fail to hold up under scrutiny. In March, a driver contested a ticket he’d been issued for distracted driving by arguing he’d been using his phone’s mapping app, but not messaging. A court ruled that regardless of whether the phone was being used as a “telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock or a device for sending and receiving text messages and emails,” if the driver was handling the phone, he was in violation of the state statute requiring drivers to use hands-free devices.
Farrow remains optimistic that coupling enforcement with safety education programs will help reduce distracted driving, and that setting aside the smartphone will become as second-nature as putting on a seat belt.
"I believe that people know that they shouldn’t be texting and driving," he said. "There's this transformation occurring, just like in the 80s when seat belts became mandatory."
Commissioner Joe Farrow of the California Highway Patrol offered a glimpse in an interview Monday at the challenges officers face in enforcing anti-texting laws, even as he and others noted that doing so was critical to efforts to eliminate distracted driving.
In California, among other states, spotting a driver tapping on a cellphone isn’t enough to issue a ticket: Law enforcement officers must get visual confirmation that the driver is exchanging a digital message on his or her phone -- all while they’re driving beside the suspected offender in a marked patrol car, Farrow explained.
“I have to pull up alongside of you, watch you, see you and testify in court that I saw you with your phone, texting or reading messages in the car,” Farrow said following the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Administration, a nonprofit organization that represents the nation’s highway safety offices. “We do write a significant number of citations, but it’s a bit more difficult than people think because we have to be able to testify in court that you were doing that, rather than jut holding the device.”
California’s anti-texting law, which went into effect in 2009, prohibits drivers from writing, sending or reading “text-based communication” on any “electronic wireless communications device,” which makes it illegal to text, compose an email, share a photo on Instagram or “like” someone’s Facebook status while at the wheel.
Yet the law is narrow enough that it’s not technically illegal to look up a contact on one’s cellphone or pick a song on iTunes, meaning officers must see what a driver is doing on a smartphone before they can issue a citation. If they can’t see that the driver is messaging, their citation isn’t likely to hold up in court.
“Some people argue, ‘I wasn’t texting, I was just holding [the phone] in my hand,’” Farrow said. “I have to be able to convince a judge that I did see you [texting] within a reasonable doubt you were doing it.”
The fact that some people will keep texting even with a police car driving alongside them offers some idea of just how distracting mobile devices can be. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, 10 percent of all fatal crashes in 2011 were caused by driver distraction. Studies have found that talking on the phone while driving can increase the risk of a crash by four times, while the National Safety Council estimates that texting at the wheel ups the risk of an incident by eight to 23 times.
An officer from the Phoenix Police Department said Monday after the meeting that he faced similar challenges in enforcing anti-texting laws, noting that drivers will often dodge tickets by telling judges they were, say, placing a call, but not texting. Although he’s written hundreds of citations over the past several years, just five or so have stuck, he said.
At least in California, drivers may soon find their excuses fail to hold up under scrutiny. In March, a driver contested a ticket he’d been issued for distracted driving by arguing he’d been using his phone’s mapping app, but not messaging. A court ruled that regardless of whether the phone was being used as a “telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock or a device for sending and receiving text messages and emails,” if the driver was handling the phone, he was in violation of the state statute requiring drivers to use hands-free devices.
Farrow remains optimistic that coupling enforcement with safety education programs will help reduce distracted driving, and that setting aside the smartphone will become as second-nature as putting on a seat belt.
"I believe that people know that they shouldn’t be texting and driving," he said. "There's this transformation occurring, just like in the 80s when seat belts became mandatory."
August 16, 2013
Can Vogue Save Glass From The Naked-Geek-In-Shower Syndrome?
The most iconic photo of a Glass-wearer to-date is a picture of a 48-year-old man in the shower, naked save for a pair of Google's high-tech specs.
It's a hard photo to forget, and one that didn't seem to help Glass' image problem ("I really didn't appreciate the shower photo," Google's CEO informed the tech blogger who shared it). For the non-Silicon Valley crowd, the snapshot only confirmed that Google's wearable computer was probably just some newfangled novelty for sci-fi nerds.
But then Glass showed up in Vogue.
Next month's Vogue -- the vaunted September issue, no less -- carries a 12-page spread showing models prominently wearing color-coordinated pairs of Glass. Titled "The Final Frontier," the shoot showcases a "futuristic vision of fashion" that's "tailored for the brave and the bold." Think "Metropolis" meets "Gattica," set in a technicolor Martian landscape.
Though neither Vogue nor Google would confirm who first proposed featuring Glass in the glossy, the fashion shoot marks the latest boost to Google's mission to portray Glass wearers as fashionable futurists, not geeks. Success in doing so would go a long way toward helping Glass become a mainstream hit when it finally launches.
Every photo in Vogue's September spread features Glass as the ultimate fashion accessory for the Space Age stylista. Architect Robert Bruno's UFO-shaped house made of rusted steel serves as the backdrop for models decked out in minimalist Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Balenciaga and Google. In other words, it couldn't be less like a guy photographing himself in the shower. According to Chris Dale, a Google spokesman, the artistic direction was entirely up to Vogue. The tech giant had someone on hand at the fashion shoot to ensure the devices were charged and to provide technical support, but "that's about it," Dale noted in an email.
Although Glass isn't yet available to the public, Google has been making a concerted effort to convince people it's cool -- or, at the very least, socially acceptable -- to wear the funny-looking device. The company has made a point of planting Glass with people outside the tech crowd. Designer Diane von Furstenberg and a cadre of runway models were among the first public figures to give Glass a go, and Google's Glass Explorer program invited "bold, creative individuals" to apply to be among the first allowed to buy a beta version of Glass.
The Vogue spread marks the highest-profile instance yet of Glass being showcased as an aesthetic object. Google has told us Glass is functional. Vogue now shows us how it can be fashionable.
"Having Glass in the Vogue issue is fantastic as it really shows the beauty and simplicity of the device's design," Dale said. "Everyone on the Glass team is over the moon with the issue."
But featuring Glass in Vogue does more than make it look lovely. It makes it look even more elite, high-end and upper class than the device (with its $1,500 pricetag) already is. Pictured in a high-fashion magazine alongside a $1,545 mohair sweater, $2,300 turtleneck and $4,490 teal coat is a step toward positioning the wearable device as a status symbol.
Apple pioneered the idea of gadget as fashion accessory, transforming smartphones and MP3 players from something you had to use into something you had to have. Though Glass might still look strange to some, Google may be embracing that same model.
Some who leaf through the Vogue spread might come away thinking that Glass is the new black -- the perfect companion to that Celine bag or Michael Kors gloves. But to others, it risks seeming even more science fiction or theoretical.
As my HuffPostTech colleague Alexis Kleinman mused as she flipped through the pages, "It just looks even more out of reach than it already is."
It's a hard photo to forget, and one that didn't seem to help Glass' image problem ("I really didn't appreciate the shower photo," Google's CEO informed the tech blogger who shared it). For the non-Silicon Valley crowd, the snapshot only confirmed that Google's wearable computer was probably just some newfangled novelty for sci-fi nerds.
But then Glass showed up in Vogue.
Next month's Vogue -- the vaunted September issue, no less -- carries a 12-page spread showing models prominently wearing color-coordinated pairs of Glass. Titled "The Final Frontier," the shoot showcases a "futuristic vision of fashion" that's "tailored for the brave and the bold." Think "Metropolis" meets "Gattica," set in a technicolor Martian landscape.
Though neither Vogue nor Google would confirm who first proposed featuring Glass in the glossy, the fashion shoot marks the latest boost to Google's mission to portray Glass wearers as fashionable futurists, not geeks. Success in doing so would go a long way toward helping Glass become a mainstream hit when it finally launches.
Every photo in Vogue's September spread features Glass as the ultimate fashion accessory for the Space Age stylista. Architect Robert Bruno's UFO-shaped house made of rusted steel serves as the backdrop for models decked out in minimalist Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Balenciaga and Google. In other words, it couldn't be less like a guy photographing himself in the shower. According to Chris Dale, a Google spokesman, the artistic direction was entirely up to Vogue. The tech giant had someone on hand at the fashion shoot to ensure the devices were charged and to provide technical support, but "that's about it," Dale noted in an email.
Although Glass isn't yet available to the public, Google has been making a concerted effort to convince people it's cool -- or, at the very least, socially acceptable -- to wear the funny-looking device. The company has made a point of planting Glass with people outside the tech crowd. Designer Diane von Furstenberg and a cadre of runway models were among the first public figures to give Glass a go, and Google's Glass Explorer program invited "bold, creative individuals" to apply to be among the first allowed to buy a beta version of Glass.
The Vogue spread marks the highest-profile instance yet of Glass being showcased as an aesthetic object. Google has told us Glass is functional. Vogue now shows us how it can be fashionable.
"Having Glass in the Vogue issue is fantastic as it really shows the beauty and simplicity of the device's design," Dale said. "Everyone on the Glass team is over the moon with the issue."
But featuring Glass in Vogue does more than make it look lovely. It makes it look even more elite, high-end and upper class than the device (with its $1,500 pricetag) already is. Pictured in a high-fashion magazine alongside a $1,545 mohair sweater, $2,300 turtleneck and $4,490 teal coat is a step toward positioning the wearable device as a status symbol.
Apple pioneered the idea of gadget as fashion accessory, transforming smartphones and MP3 players from something you had to use into something you had to have. Though Glass might still look strange to some, Google may be embracing that same model.
Some who leaf through the Vogue spread might come away thinking that Glass is the new black -- the perfect companion to that Celine bag or Michael Kors gloves. But to others, it risks seeming even more science fiction or theoretical.
As my HuffPostTech colleague Alexis Kleinman mused as she flipped through the pages, "It just looks even more out of reach than it already is."
August 15, 2013
A Day With The Drone Entrepreneurs Who Want To Strike It Rich Watching Your Every Move
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This is Peter DeNucci’s first year at the Unmanned Systems exhibition, the world’s largest conference for the drone and robotics industry, and the former US Airways pilot is beaming like a kid who’s just met Mickey. He's researched drones, he's even studied drones, but nothing compares to the feeling of actually being around all these drones -- solar-powered drones, styrofoam drones, self-assembling drones, drones that fly in swarms, drones that can stay up for days and drones that can spot plastic buried in the ground.
“It’s like reading about Disney, and then you get there,” DeNucci said, looking with longing at a $350,000 Scion helicopter he hopes one day he’ll be able to afford. “There’s so much cool stuff out there that I didn’t even know it was realistically possible to do."
While the American public has focused their outrage on the drones flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan, the people here in military uniforms and dark suits are already charting the timeline for sending unmanned planes to circle U.S. cities. Pause long enough at any booth, and you'll get a laundry list of potential uses for domestic drones: They'll give traffic reports, spray crops, save swimmers, deliver packages, film Hollywood hits, track animals and catch criminals, people predict.
The exhibition's attendees exude the confident delight of miners who've hightailed it to California just as the gold rush is starting. They can see ahead to the day -- only a matter of time now, they seem certain -- when the FAA will allow unmanned aircraft to buzz in U.S. skies, ushering a new wave of businesses that will rely on drones almost as they've come to depend on PCs. The drone, as they see it, isn't just set to transform the economy: It's the new key to the American Dream.
DeNucci hopes that before long, he'll have a drone up there, too. This year, at 53, the former pilot and current safety consultant enrolled in Unmanned Vehicle University to pursue a master’s degree in Unmanned Systems Engineering, a $13,000, year-long course he'll complete mostly online. He's betting the extra training will give him the qualifications he needs to start a company that uses unmanned aerial vehicles -- or UAVs, as they’re known among this crowd -- to inspect power lines. At the Unmanned Vehicle University's booth at the exhibition hall, the school’s founder passes out fliers detailing 199 other potential businesses uses for drones, from gravel pit inventory to crowd control.
“All we’ve heard about drones are military applications and killing people. That’s not what this is about,” said DeNucci, who wears a small American flag pinned to the lapel of his navy suit. “This is about infrastructure being improved, lowering costs and helping humanity in so many ways.”
State governments share DeNucci's optimism: Sprinkled among the 800 stands showing off planes, sensors, joysticks and state-of-the-art screens are over a dozen state commerce bureaus vying to pitch themselves as the perfect home for unmanned-anythings. Before the end of the year, the FAA will pick six states to host the first UAV test flight centers. Where companies see that as an important step toward domestic drone use, local governments see jobs, taxes and big business.
Pick New Mexico, a rep for the state explains, and UAVs could fly over an area the size of Connecticut that offers desert at one end and mountains at another -- just the right typography to emulate Afghanistan, he points out. Ohio passes out sugar cookies in the shape of the state, while Marty Hohenberger of the Dayton Development Coalition explains how the UAV market is poised to double in size. “I think it’s the future,” Hohenberger said. “We think it is going to explode.”
Even Florida, DeNucci’s home state and the first state to pass a bill outlawing warrantless drone surveillance, has a booth touting the advances of testing UAVs in the Sunshine State.
Wandering the show floor is someone with a more sober view of drones: Jay Stanley, the senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union and a prominent member of what UAV-makers refer to as “the privacy lobby.” Stanley is trying to track down a sensor he heard was capable of seeing human shapes through walls. The closest he can find is a system that can make out figures through window blinds.
Despite the privacy risks posed by powerful flying cameras, Stanley actually sees how letting drones fly in U.S. skies could be a major asset to American citizens, particularly political groups or journalists. Stanley is grappling with how lawmakers could craft drone policy that guarantees the protections of the Fourth Amendment, so the government couldn't use drones to conduct pervasive surveillance on innocent Americans, but doesn't infringe on the First Amendment. Citizens, he argues, should be able to use drones to police their politicians, or expose their government's bad acts.
“We want to see individuals with the ability to watch the government,” Stanley said. “But not the government watching individuals, unless they have reason to suspect wrongdoing.”
The government is already worried about who’s watching. A salesman at a booth for drone surveillance software said that this year, like every year for the last four years, Defense Department staffers stopped by exhibitors' booths warning them to be vigilant against people carrying cameras.
“They said we have to be careful of people taking pictures and how much we disclose,” he notes.
But the robots taking pictures? They're just fine.
“It’s like reading about Disney, and then you get there,” DeNucci said, looking with longing at a $350,000 Scion helicopter he hopes one day he’ll be able to afford. “There’s so much cool stuff out there that I didn’t even know it was realistically possible to do."
While the American public has focused their outrage on the drones flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan, the people here in military uniforms and dark suits are already charting the timeline for sending unmanned planes to circle U.S. cities. Pause long enough at any booth, and you'll get a laundry list of potential uses for domestic drones: They'll give traffic reports, spray crops, save swimmers, deliver packages, film Hollywood hits, track animals and catch criminals, people predict.
The exhibition's attendees exude the confident delight of miners who've hightailed it to California just as the gold rush is starting. They can see ahead to the day -- only a matter of time now, they seem certain -- when the FAA will allow unmanned aircraft to buzz in U.S. skies, ushering a new wave of businesses that will rely on drones almost as they've come to depend on PCs. The drone, as they see it, isn't just set to transform the economy: It's the new key to the American Dream.
DeNucci hopes that before long, he'll have a drone up there, too. This year, at 53, the former pilot and current safety consultant enrolled in Unmanned Vehicle University to pursue a master’s degree in Unmanned Systems Engineering, a $13,000, year-long course he'll complete mostly online. He's betting the extra training will give him the qualifications he needs to start a company that uses unmanned aerial vehicles -- or UAVs, as they’re known among this crowd -- to inspect power lines. At the Unmanned Vehicle University's booth at the exhibition hall, the school’s founder passes out fliers detailing 199 other potential businesses uses for drones, from gravel pit inventory to crowd control.
“All we’ve heard about drones are military applications and killing people. That’s not what this is about,” said DeNucci, who wears a small American flag pinned to the lapel of his navy suit. “This is about infrastructure being improved, lowering costs and helping humanity in so many ways.”
State governments share DeNucci's optimism: Sprinkled among the 800 stands showing off planes, sensors, joysticks and state-of-the-art screens are over a dozen state commerce bureaus vying to pitch themselves as the perfect home for unmanned-anythings. Before the end of the year, the FAA will pick six states to host the first UAV test flight centers. Where companies see that as an important step toward domestic drone use, local governments see jobs, taxes and big business.
Pick New Mexico, a rep for the state explains, and UAVs could fly over an area the size of Connecticut that offers desert at one end and mountains at another -- just the right typography to emulate Afghanistan, he points out. Ohio passes out sugar cookies in the shape of the state, while Marty Hohenberger of the Dayton Development Coalition explains how the UAV market is poised to double in size. “I think it’s the future,” Hohenberger said. “We think it is going to explode.”
Even Florida, DeNucci’s home state and the first state to pass a bill outlawing warrantless drone surveillance, has a booth touting the advances of testing UAVs in the Sunshine State.
Wandering the show floor is someone with a more sober view of drones: Jay Stanley, the senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union and a prominent member of what UAV-makers refer to as “the privacy lobby.” Stanley is trying to track down a sensor he heard was capable of seeing human shapes through walls. The closest he can find is a system that can make out figures through window blinds.
Despite the privacy risks posed by powerful flying cameras, Stanley actually sees how letting drones fly in U.S. skies could be a major asset to American citizens, particularly political groups or journalists. Stanley is grappling with how lawmakers could craft drone policy that guarantees the protections of the Fourth Amendment, so the government couldn't use drones to conduct pervasive surveillance on innocent Americans, but doesn't infringe on the First Amendment. Citizens, he argues, should be able to use drones to police their politicians, or expose their government's bad acts.
“We want to see individuals with the ability to watch the government,” Stanley said. “But not the government watching individuals, unless they have reason to suspect wrongdoing.”
The government is already worried about who’s watching. A salesman at a booth for drone surveillance software said that this year, like every year for the last four years, Defense Department staffers stopped by exhibitors' booths warning them to be vigilant against people carrying cameras.
“They said we have to be careful of people taking pictures and how much we disclose,” he notes.
But the robots taking pictures? They're just fine.
August 8, 2013
Werner Herzog's New Documentary Probes Dangers Of Texting While Driving
One woman was texting "I'm on my way." Another man was typing out "I love you." And another can't even recall what he was writing.
Those three messages, typed by drivers at the wheel, cost five people their lives and an 8-year-old boy the use of his body from the diaphragm down.
The drivers' stories, and others', are the subject of a new, 35-minute documentary directed by acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog focusing on the perils of texting while driving. Herzog's “From One Second to the Next" profiles the victims of distracted driving and even features conversations with the drivers themselves.
The wrenching film expands on a series of short videos Herzog directed for a public awareness campaign, "It Can Wait." The campaign was sponsored by AT&T in an effort to curb the practice of texting while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 3,331 people were killed by distracted driving in 2011, and that "at any given daylight moment across America," 660,000 drivers will be using mobile devices while at the wheel.
Herzog, whose previous films include "Grizzly Man," "Encounters at the End of the World" and "Aguirre: Wrath of God," among many others, told the Associated Press that although he doesn't text himself, he was drawn to the project because the topic "has to do with catastrophic events invading a family."
"In one second, entire lives are either wiped out or changed forever. That kind of emotional resonance is something that I knew I could cover," Herzog told the AP. "I'm not a participant of texting and driving -- or texting at all -- but I see there's something going on in civilization which is coming with great vehemence at us."
The film premiere of "From One Second to the Next" will be held in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 8, and the documentary, embedded above, will be distributed to over 40,000 high schools across the country.
"While I was driving, I decided that texting while driving was more important to me than those two men were to their families," recalls one driver, who side-swiped an oncoming car while he was typing on his phone, sending it careening into oncoming traffic. "Knowing every day that you killed two people is one of the hardest things that you can live with."
Those three messages, typed by drivers at the wheel, cost five people their lives and an 8-year-old boy the use of his body from the diaphragm down.
The drivers' stories, and others', are the subject of a new, 35-minute documentary directed by acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog focusing on the perils of texting while driving. Herzog's “From One Second to the Next" profiles the victims of distracted driving and even features conversations with the drivers themselves.
The wrenching film expands on a series of short videos Herzog directed for a public awareness campaign, "It Can Wait." The campaign was sponsored by AT&T in an effort to curb the practice of texting while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 3,331 people were killed by distracted driving in 2011, and that "at any given daylight moment across America," 660,000 drivers will be using mobile devices while at the wheel.
Herzog, whose previous films include "Grizzly Man," "Encounters at the End of the World" and "Aguirre: Wrath of God," among many others, told the Associated Press that although he doesn't text himself, he was drawn to the project because the topic "has to do with catastrophic events invading a family."
"In one second, entire lives are either wiped out or changed forever. That kind of emotional resonance is something that I knew I could cover," Herzog told the AP. "I'm not a participant of texting and driving -- or texting at all -- but I see there's something going on in civilization which is coming with great vehemence at us."
The film premiere of "From One Second to the Next" will be held in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 8, and the documentary, embedded above, will be distributed to over 40,000 high schools across the country.
"While I was driving, I decided that texting while driving was more important to me than those two men were to their families," recalls one driver, who side-swiped an oncoming car while he was typing on his phone, sending it careening into oncoming traffic. "Knowing every day that you killed two people is one of the hardest things that you can live with."
