Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:00:00 PST Joyce Hung http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120207/11315417688/dailydirt-who-drives-best-men-women-robots.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120207/11315417688/dailydirt-who-drives-best-men-women-robots.shtml

A New York City traffic study found that male drivers were responsible for 80% of car accidents in which pedestrians were severely injured or killed. Blame it on testosterone, which increases aggression and risk-taking. [url]

A University of Michigan analysis of 6.5 million car accidents in the U.S. between 1998-2007 found that female drivers were responsible for 68.1% of all crashes. Apparently, women have trouble navigating intersections, as they were most often hit on the driver's or passenger side while trying to turn left or right. [url]

A more recent UK study showed that women are actually better at parking than men, dispelling the myth that men have better spatial awareness than women. According to the professional driving instructor who created the study, men learn and perform better during driving lessons, but it's possible that women retain what they learn better than men. [url]

Let the car park itself. Many automakers, including Ford, Toyota, and BMW, are offering self-parking systems in their vehicles now. While they can guide cars into parking spaces with minimal driver involvement, they aren't always reliable. [url]

To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what's driving around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120207/11315417688 Fri, 4 Apr 2008 05:21:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080403/234719746.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080403/234719746.shtml brouhaha that erupted earlier this week after Creative Labs took down forum posts from a driver modder, the company has given in and restored the posts, recognizing that it needed to do so for PR reasons. However, the statement that it released to The Register (at the link) basically says that everyone misunderstood Creative's position. Creative claims it was only worried about other company's IP being infringed, which could potentially put everyone in legal hot water. That could be true, but it still handled the whole thing rather awkwardly.

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]]> not-happily-though http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080403/234719746 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:55:54 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080330/133233697.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080330/133233697.shtml removed the various threads in their forums discussing these drivers (thanks to Joe for sending in the link). Basically, this user, Daniel_K was making Creative products work better, and Creative has forced him to stop, claiming that it's violating their intellectual property rights. From a legal standpoint, Creative is probably absolutely right. But from a business perspective, the move seems suicidal. Just read a few of the comments in the long thread following the announcement from Creative. Many people were buying Creative products because of Daniel's mods, and will now look elsewhere. This seems like yet another case of IP laws being used to hold back innovation, rather than encourage it.

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]]> how-dare-you-help-people! http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080330/133233697