Future heads-up for drivers

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2010-01-13

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It's hard to write about technologies related to driving any more because the boundaries between our driving world and the rest of our lives is blurring rapidly.

Here's one rather surprising example. Mention Taser and you'll probably immediately conjure up an image of police subduing unruly and violent individuals. But now Taser has launched a product they call The Protector, which uses integrated GPS to allow parents to pull off some major kid-management feats.

For example: The Protector enables parents to route texts, emails, photos to the parents' phone first for screening. It can also monitor a child's location, block texting while driving, and even track driving habits? Scary, huh kids? It's debuting this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Then there's automotive telematics. Ford is taking the lead with its SYNC sysem, which includes handsfree phone, speech recognition control of entertainment systems and, soon, a partnership with INRIX, a traffic information company, that will enable Ford to deliver real-time traffic information to its SYNC customers - and that'll likely be all Ford vehicle owners before too long.

Meantime, Google Mobile Engineering is working on its "Near Me Now" app for iphones and Androids. It is accessed by going to google's mobile search page and allowing their mobile phone to access location data. Then it can find you nearby points of interest, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. It's designed to let phone users find out more about what's around them and make it easier to conduct searches.

Mapping company Tele Atlas has a new product it says is the first gradient and curvature enhancement product to use community input along with other sources to develop "eco-routing" maps. It will take into account curves, hills, and other roadway features to calculate the most economical and efficient route for you.

INRIX also has an application that works of iPhone or iPod touch to calculate optimized routes taking into account real time traffic and factors such as time of day, traffic events, favorite kind of driving (relaxed or tackle the elements to make better time).

The bewildering array of new technologies all have one major limitation -- you, the driver who has to decide about safety, distractions, why you're driving in the first place and, of course, the meaning of life!

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