Translate

Monday, March 26, 2012

Haptic GPS-Equipped Steering Wheel Buzzes When It’s Time to Turn

Wow, we've come a long ways from the horseless carriage, haven't we?!  It's a bit amazing that people are THAT distracted:-)  I was almost hit head on about a year ago.  An SUV pulled out of a line of cars, and immediately hit the shoulder and rode it real well at about 60mph!  The angels were with them and myself and family!  I often wondered if the driver was texting and looked up just in time...
  The safest way of getting through life is to let Jesus take the steering wheel.  He will never take you in the wrong direction, but will constantly keep you on course, away from temptation, away from Satan's distractions that cause you pain and regret.  Psalm 32:8 says, "The Lord says, "I will make you wise and show you where to go.  I will guide you and watch over you."

From TheBlaze:
We live in an age of distracted driving and while GPS devices may be safer than gazing at a map while also trying to focus on the road, they’re still yet another thing to look at. Yes, there are audio cues, but who really enjoys being bossed around by an electronic voice as it continually says “recalculating” after you’ve willingly disobeyed its directions?
AT&T Labs is looking to solve both of these problems using haptic technology — vibration or motion used to communicate. Technology Review describes a prototype steering wheel created with 20 actuators that would give directions through different vibrating patterns. You only would have to know what the pattern means. For example, a clockwise pattern of vibrations means “turn right” and counterclockwise means “turn left.”
AT&T Labs Create Prototype Steering Wheel With Haptic GPS Technology to Cut Back on Distracted Driving
(Photo: Flickr/BenClark)
The technology has already proved successful at cutting down on distracted driving. Technology Review has more:
A study of the gadget in driving simulators, by AT&T Labs researchers and collaborators at Carnegie Mellon University, found that it provided clear benefits: participants’ eyes stayed on the road longer. When younger drivers — with an average age of 25 — used the haptic steering wheel along with the usual visual and auditory methods of receiving navigation instructions, their inattentiveness (defined as the proportion of time their eyes were off the road) dropped 3.1 percent.
That study did not find any benefit for older drivers, but a different one did. When haptics were added to auditory-only instructions, the inattentiveness of older drivers (above age 65) dropped 4 percent.
Overall, “by adding the haptic feedback we can lead to more attentive driving,” says SeungJun Kim, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon who participated in the study.
While there is not a timeline for when or if this prototype would be implemented in vehicles, it is indicative of the push to make safer technology as it only becomes more and more prevalent in vehicles. Just last year, the National Transportation Safety Board called for a sweeping ban of electronic devices in vehicles — even hands-free sets — to cut down on distracted driving and associated accidents.

God's best 2 U,       Joy J

No comments:

Post a Comment