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Rich26189 writes:
"In a somewhat pre-emptive move Google is lobbying against state legislation that would ban drivers from using Google Glass while driving. I, for one, would like to see such legislation passed. There is enough distracted driving due to hand-held cell phones and Google Glass would just be just one more task for the brain to cope with.
This from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/us-googl e-glass-lobbying-idUSBREA1O0P920140225"
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Lobbying Against Having Google Glass Banned While Driving
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:44AM
If someone gets into an accident and they were watching porn on their headset, then they need to be charged with distracted driving. But the idea of outright banning the device is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. After all, in and of itself, it isn't illegal to read a map while you are driving.
A good number of people are good enough drivers to not become distracted by GG when driving in good weather on a familiar road. However the laws are not written to serve best cases. The laws are written for worst cases: a novice driver, pouring rain, midnight, unfamiliar mountain road.
One possibility would be to use self-assessment, like those speed signs with yellow background, installed near turns. They are calculated for trucks; in a car you can usually go 10 mph faster. If you tow a trailer, you'd do well going 10 mph slower.
IMO, legislatures will not bother with delegating the responsibility to drivers, for one simple reason: there is no clear social good in allowing GG in the car. The purpose of the yellow speed sign is clear: to tell you how bad the upcoming turn is going to be. It would be not desirable to make it a mandatory white sign because different vehicles can take the turn at different speed, and there is some social good in allowing cars to go as fast as it is safe. The GG has nothing to do with a car, except the mapping display. But GG cannot be locked into that mode - and other laws already forbid video entertainment to the driver.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday March 02 2014, @03:56AM
Assuming you meant to say On the driver instead of In the car, I'd have to agree.
I don't think anyone has demonstrated a believable use case where Glass is more useful than a smartphone in a car mount showing maps. With all android phones offering free verbal turn by turn navigation, you really don't need a HUD except to do things you probably shouldn't be doing in the driver seat.
Yeah, I know, HUDs are cool and all that, but verbal turn by turn is better.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:10AM
Definitely on the driver. Passengers can use whatever they want... and the existing law does not apply to them. The driver's duty is only to drive the car. By law he is allowed to use the map, as that may be necessary for driving, but other *unnecessary* distractions are not welcome, to varying extent. Radio is a minor distraction; texting is a major one; watching video is really bad. GG is capable of all of them, and there is no easy way to lock it into the "driving" mode. If that were to be possible, I'd gladly accept GG on a driver as a replacement (or enhancement) for the map, and for the rear view mirror, and for the backup camera... maybe even a synthesized view from the top would be possible, leaving you with no blind spots. Assisted parking is yet another function; deer detector (or just a forward-facing IR camera) could be handy at night. But for that to work the GG has to have a "driver's mode" that is securely locked while you are behind the wheel. Is it practically possible to detect where you are in the car, if more than one seat is occupied?
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:06AM
Nothing to do with a car except the mapping display? The mapping display is useful enough information, and I'm sure that there are tons of other useful things that Google Glass can be made to display to a driver to aid, rather than hinder the task of driving. Cannot be locked into that mode? Software can be written to do that, and to prove it has been locked into that mode during a certain period of time. I really have to wonder why so many people, including many self-described nerds and geeks at that, hate Google Glass so much. True, Google seems to be going off the deep end with their marketing of the device, but I wonder why people seem so blinded by that that no one tries to see the potential other uses for Glass. There was a story on the other site a few months ago about possible uses for Google Glass for surgeons performing operations, and there was nothing but negativity in most of the comments, never mind that it could be used to display information the surgeon would need more conveniently than alternative means. "The street finds its own uses for things," as William Gibson famously wrote, and Google for its part has placed no serious technological hurdles in the way for the street to find its own uses for Glass. They have done no churlish things such as putting a locked bootloader, or refused to publish the source code for anything needed to customise it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:15AM
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=376&cid=938 8 [soylentnews.org]
I'm open to technical use of GG, but I am concerned about the "social" use because these days that word doesn't mean what it used to mean 100 years ago. Today "social" means "open to surveillance" and "doing surveillance for others." A GG as a device is fine. A GG as a spy network is not fine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:35AM
Then for god's sake why doesn't Google just burn that software into the silicon and the whole issue goes away?
Instead they spend a fortune lobbying for their special exemption and to hell with who might be killed in the mean time.
This all goes away if Glass won't operate at above 3mph except for navigation. If you are a passenger, pull out your phone and use that instead.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:00PM
3mph? You must be a slow walker
(Score: 1) by zsau on Monday March 03 2014, @04:30AM
Riding in a train? Glass is not appropriate for a car driver, any more than using a phone is. I know in America you find it much harder to ban things when driving than we do in Australia---despite almost the same car-oriented conditions---but even if Glass won't operate at over 3mph it still shouldn't be permitted to car drivers because it could be buggy, and making it acceptable to use the thing in the drivers seat is itself a bad precedent, and there are plenty of valid use cases for a Glass at over 3 miles.
This all goes away if you treat driving a car as a privilege, not a right. It's dangerous and needs to be thought of as dangerous.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday March 03 2014, @07:14AM
Driving is already a privilege, and not a right.
On a train why would you need glass? You could just use your phone. Or your tablet. Why would you want to peek with one eye through a tiny semi reflective mirror when you could get a clear view on a tablet?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by zsau on Monday March 03 2014, @08:58AM
The law saying that something is a privilege not a right doesn't make it so, it's what the goverment and society do that does. Everyone gets a driver's licence. Sometimes the government takes it away as a punishment, and then the offender just drives without a licence. How else can they get around?
I have no idea why someone would want to use Glass on a train; I have no idea why someone would want to use Glass ever.
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Sunday March 02 2014, @09:25AM
there is no clear social good in allowing GG in the car.
By that logic there is no clear social good in allowing telephone use in the car either.
I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a generational issue - the fuddy-duddies who grew up with telephones but not the internet will say that sort of thing as rationalization to try to ban it. But the generations that have always known the net will turn it around because they have been texting since before they were teens and they will see it as such an obvious social good that it isn't even worth debating.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @06:04PM
I agree phones shouldn't be used by the driver
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:21PM
By that logic there is no clear social good in allowing telephone use in the car either.
You are correct - there is none, unless you are calling 911. The society does not care that you are talking to your GF. The society cares that you do not flatten Little Johnny.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:32PM
Of course society cares that you are talking to your girlfriend. For example, when she called you to get some medicine for her sick kid on your way home. Easy and efficient communication is a foundational social good -- that's why no state, an AFAIK, no country, has banned drivers from using cell phones. The kind of text messaging that google glass enables (eyes on the road, eyes at same focal point as the road, messages only displayed on command) is significantly less dangerous than cell phone use.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:48PM
True; but the right to use a cell phone is highly conditional (you have to have a speakerphone or BT setup, you aren't supposed to hold the phone, you aren't supposed to dial out...) It's a compromise, as many things are in this world. GG may also get a compromise if Google does their part. So far Google prefers to force their way in by trying to purchase laws.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:57PM
That's only true in a limited number of jurisdictions (10 states) and most of the research indicates that all the hands-free stuff makes no difference in the rate of accidents anyway. Plus, I've never heard of not being permitted to dial out.
What is "their part?" TFA says laws are being proposed and google is responding to the proposals, they did not act first.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:18PM
Perhaps you live in one of those states that are a bit more free. In CA any use of handheld phones is illegal [nolo.com]. My Bluetooth speakerphone thingy (BlueAnt S4 [myblueant.com]) supports voice commands for all phone operations, including dialing a number.
TFA says laws are being proposed
When you hear passive voice, become suspicious. Nothing happens on its own. It would be too much to believe that the laws that are essential to Google just formed themselves out of thin air, entirely randomly, and that Google has nothing to do with that.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Monday March 03 2014, @12:08AM
It doesn't matter where I live, the point is that your blanket statement is actually a minority opinion. At the very least there is significant doubt.
I always like when the person on the other side of a debate is reduced to conspiracy theories, it is a face-saving admission of having been wrong. If you actually RTFA you'd see that in most of the states where these laws are being proposed, google hasn't even gotten involved. Unless of course the people proposing the laws are lying about not having heard from google. Hey, they didn't deny that aliens had asked them to write the laws, so that's on the table too. BTW, no passive voice in TFA either.