Transportation Secretary Expects To Use Technology To Block All Mobile Phone Usage In Cars [Updated]

from the unintended-consequences... dept

We’ve noted in the past that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has long been an advocate of wider bans on various technologies in cars. Just last month he said he hoped to have a complete ban on talking to any kind of device in your car, including mobile phones, telematics systems like OnStar, and GPS systems. His latest argument (as sent in by quite a few of you) is to suggest that perhaps the US government will mandate technology that blocks a mobile phone from working while the car is moving. We’ve talked about this technology before (though I’m having trouble finding earlier posts on it). It would simply recognize if the phone is moving at a certain rate of speed and then block the phone from being used. LaHood seems to like the idea:

“There’s a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones and we’re looking at that,” said LaHood on MSNBC…. “I think it will be done,” said LaHood. “I think the technology is there and I think you’re going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones. We need to do a lot more if were going to save lives.”

Of course, it’s unclear why passengers shouldn’t be able to use mobile phones while in a car (or bus or train) as well. There are also different ways that this can work, whether with scramblers or with software installed on the phone but, in either case, you could see it banning phone calls in perfectly safe situations (on a train or a bus?). Once again, this seems like overkill. Furthermore, it will almost certainly have unintended consequences. We’ve already pointed to some recent research that showed that driving-while-texting bans increased accidents, as drivers kept on texting, but hid their phones lower, taking their eyes even further off the road.

No one denies that distracted driving is quite dangerous. But we shouldn’t be rushing into simply banning stuff or mandating blocks without thinking through the actual implications of that.

Update: LaHood is now claiming that his remarks were misrepresented. However, it’s not clear that’s the case. He restates the first part of what he said on MSNBC and doesn’t say anything about the second part — when he was pushed on whether or not the tech would become mandated, and he said “I think it will be done.” In his response, he seems to ignore that part of what he said…

Filed Under: distracted driving, driving, ray lahood, technology

UK Police Told To Text Instead Of Using Radios In Order To Save Money

from the but-no-texting-while-driving dept

Apparently, the wireless radio system that police use in the UK is quite expensive. This isn’t all that surprising, since such networks need much greater reliability that traditional mobile networks, but with UK police forces having a capped deal where prices go up even higher after a certain amount is used, apparently police are instructing cops to make use of text messaging as an alternative to keep their radio usage down. While I definitely understand why the police network would be more expensive, and can see some benefits to police texting when appropriate, it does seem a bit bizarre to warn police to be cost conscious in their communicating with fellow police.

Filed Under: police, radios, texting, uk

Security Consultants Claim New Terrorist Bombs May Mean No More In-Flight WiFi

from the security-theater dept

It what may be one of the more ridiculous reactions to the latest (failed) attempts at putting bombs on airplanes, some security consultants are suggesting the ridiculously confused idea that law enforcement may use this as a reason to no longer allow WiFi or mobile phone connectivity on airplanes. The idea behind this is that by adding connectivity, you can now provide remote access to a bomb, and set it off:

In-flight Wi-Fi “gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft”, Alford says. Even if ordinary cellphone connections are blocked, it would allow a voice-over-internet connection to reach a handset.

“If it were to be possible to transmit directly from the ground to a plane over the sea, that would be scary,” says Alford’s colleague, company founder Sidney Alford. “Or if a passenger could use a cellphone to transmit to the hold of the aeroplane he is in, he could become a very effective suicide bomber.”

But… if you actually think about it for more than a few seconds, this makes almost no sense. First of all, that final sentence makes no sense at all. A suicide bomber on an airplane can already do this. They don’t even have to use a cellular network, but any one of plenty of remote wireless options to set up a network between themselves and a bomb stowed away somewhere. Furthermore, they could already use cellular networks (if they’re flying over land where such networks exist) — just not legally. But somehow I doubt a terrorist intent on blowing up an airplane cares about following the FCC rules on using mobile phones on airplanes. As for the terrorist on the ground using WiFi to remotely connect to a bomb… again that’s an unlikely scenario. While it’s possible that someone could configure such a bomb to automatically log itself on to an in-flight WiFi system, it would still need to figure out how to get through the sign-on and payment setup. Possible? Perhaps. Likely? Not really. It would seem like there are much more reasonable options — again, such as just using the existing cellular networks. Hopefully this is the idle speculation of these “consultants,” rather than anything that any law enforcement agency is taking seriously. But, then again, these are the same law enforcement agencies that make me remove my shoes every time I want to fly.

Filed Under: security, security theater, terrorism, wifi

Verizon Wireless Fined $25 Million For Bogus Fees… But May Have Still Made Out Profitably

from the doing-the-math dept

A few weeks back, Verizon finally admitted what the press had reported for years (and which Verizon Wireless had denied for years): that it had erroneously charged 15 million customers $1.99/month fees for supposedly accessing data on their phones, even though many had specifically declined to allow data services on their phones. At the time, Verizon Wireless said it would pay back “up to $90 million.” The FCC noted that it wasn’t satisfied with this response, and now it’s come out that Verizon Wireless will also pay a $25 million fine to the federal government over these actions. That’s separate from paying back customers, but the amount Verizon Wireless will have to pay seems to be shrinking. The original report was “up to” $90 million, but now people are saying “a minimum” of $50 million in refunds. So, it’s still possible it’ll pay $90 million in refunds, but it seems unlikely.

Of course, as Broadband Reports points out, something in the math doesn’t make sense. This apparently went on for 2 to 3 years and impacted 15 million customers. While not every customer was charged the fee every month, many claim they did see it pretty much every month. So, start doing the math. Even if we assume that, say, one third of the users saw it every month for just one year and the rest saw it only once, we’re already talking $90 million. But if it’s true that many of them saw it for multiple years, and even if you throw in the $25 million fine, it sounds like Verizon Wireless could come out ahead in the end… Oh, and in case you were wondering, Karl Bode confirmed that no one at the FCC audited Verizon Wireless’s estimates for how many people were charged this fee, so it’s going on faith that Verizon Wireless — who for years denied this fee existed — is telling the truth about how many times it was charged.

Filed Under: fees, fine
Companies: fcc, verizon wireless

A Publicity Stunt Or Viral Ad — Or Just A Band Connecting With Fans?

from the is-it-an-ad-or-is-it-memorex? dept

About a week ago, a band named Atomic Tom apparently had all of its instruments stolen, but as the story goes, they still had their iPhones and the will to continue. So they filmed themselves performing one of their songs on a NYC subway — playing their iPhones, instead of their usual instruments. The band got some attention for this stunt, and along with it, questions like: “Did they really have their instruments stolen? Was this performance really impromptu? Did Apple pay them to advertise for the iPhone?” You can watch the video for yourself here:

The video certainly seems polished enough to warrant questions about how much planning must have gone into making it. But does it really matter? Isn’t the best advertising the kind of advertising that you don’t care if it’s advertising? Even if this performance is a well-orchestrated (no pun intended) publicity stunt, the band is still offering up this entertainment for free to attract new listeners (and presumably to help pay for new instruments, someday in the future). That’s just a smart business move.

Filed Under: atomic tom, connecting with fans, iphones, publicity stunt

Qualcomm Kills Mobile Broadcast TV Offering After So Much Money Wasted

from the could-have-saved-some-of-that... dept

Nearly five years ago, we predicted that Qualcomm was wasting a ton of money with its MediaFlo effort. The company had bought up a bunch of spectrum to create a special broadcast TV offering for mobile phones. It didn’t take a genius to predict why that wouldn’t make much sense. First of all, using spectrum for straight broadcast video ignores that content is increasingly multi-directional, interactive and on-demand. In an age where more and more people were using their DVRs to time shift, their iPods to place shift and mobile phones to communicate on the go, the idea of watching broadcast television on your mobile phone just seemed to be a solution stuck in a prediction from decades ago, rather than one that actually looked at what the technology allowed.

I have to admit that after writing a few negative pieces on MediaFlo, I did get a nasty email from someone at Qualcomm, who insisted that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and the demand for such a broadcast TV system, just for mobile devices, was “off the charts.” Apparently, it was off the charts in the wrong direction. After spending so much money, Qualcomm recently announced that it’s shutting down the effort (which is now called Flo TV). Next time, Qualcomm, if you’re looking to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, you can just give it to me, and I’ll save you the trouble…

Filed Under: broadcast tv, flo, mobile
Companies: qualcomm

Transportation Secretary Wants To Ban All Driver Talking (Except To Other Passengers)

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Just after new evidence has come out showing that various driving-while-texting bans have had the opposite effect, by causing people to just keep on texting, but do so by holding their phone lower so cops can’t see it (but also so they are paying even less attention to the road), Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood now wants to make our roads even more dangerous by trying to ban pretty much all driver talking in a car, with the exception (so far) of talking to other passengers. He wants to ban all mobile phone talking by drivers, even if it’s handsfree, and he wants to extend that to vehicle information systems like OnStar or GPS systems.

Again, we’ve discussed repeatedly that we agree such things can be quite dangerous, though you can argue if talking to OnStar or to someone on the phone is really that much more dangerous than talking to a passenger. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that these sorts of laws don’t actually help. They don’t stop people from doing these actions, and seem to only get more people doing them in even more dangerous ways. Continuing down this path, that already doesn’t work, is a huge mistake, and you would think that someone in a position like LaHood would actually pay attention to the evidence that this isn’t working, and wouldn’t suggest making the problem worse.

Of course, if this ban does go into effect, and the reports of accidents continue to rise, how long will it be until LaHood also bans talking to passengers in your car?

Filed Under: driving distractions, hands-free, mobile phones, ray lahood

Verizon Wireless Math Strikes Again: Pay Much More For Less!

from the pay-more,-get-less dept

You may recall, from a few years ago, the concept of “Verizon Math,” where the company had tremendous trouble understanding the difference between dollars and cents once you added decimals into the equation, repeatedly telling someone that .05 cents was the same as .05 dollars. While this isn’t quite as insane, Techdirt reader Pangolin shares with us his experience in trying to see if there was a better deal on his Verizon MiFi that would let him use more than the capped $60/5GB plan at a reasonable rate. Since he was going to be using the MiFi more frequently, and might have to download large files for work, he was worried that he’d be going over the cap, and the $0.05 dollars per MB overage fee seemed high. He figured there must be a “pro” or “business” plan that might make more sense.

After searching and being unable to find it, he began an online chat with a Verizon rep (included in full after the jump below) where he discovered that the upgraded plan was for twice the data… but for more than three times the costs: 10GB for $199. And overage rates? On that plan, they’re knocked up to $0.25/MB. As Pangolin notes, why would anyone pay for that, when they could just buy two or even three of the regular MiFi plans, and get a ton more data transfer and significantly lower overage fees even if they did go over. Verizon’s answer? “Sorry.”

For what it’s worth, as Pangolin notes, there’s no info online about a higher capped plan, and I contacted Verizon Wireless PR to ask them if such a plan existed. I got back a non-answer, pointing to the webpage showing the 5GB cap. So I asked again. And got no answer. So I asked again. And got no answer. On the fourth try, I was finally told that such a plan does not exist. Yet, if you look around many others have been offered the same plan, and various websites have reported on it as well. So, it sounds like Verizon does offer this oddly priced plan that makes no sense… but just doesn’t want to admit it. It makes you wonder why they even bother at all.

In what world does it make sense to charge significantly more for less on an upgraded plan? Full transcript of the chat after the jump…

Filed Under: mifi, pricing, wireless
Companies: verizon wireless

The History Of The (Fake) 'Free Public WiFi' You Always See At Airports

from the an-accidental-XP-virus dept

If you travel a fair bit, as I do, you’ve noticed at almost every airport that there’s an “ad hoc” (i.e., computer-to-computer rather than computer-to-WiFi) option called “Free Public WiFi.” It seems to be everywhere. I’ve never connected to it, because I know enough not to connect to an ad hoc offering, but I was always amazed at the fact that I see it in pretty much every airport I’ve been to. I had wondered if it was a honeypot scam for a while, but I couldn’t believe that scammers would be able to set up such honeypots in so many airports worldwide and no one would catch them and take it down. So how could there be such “Free Public WiFi” (which obviously was not what it claimed to be) in so many places?

The answer? Well, it’s all Microsoft’s fault.

Apparently, there was a bit of a bug (one of many…) in Windows XP in terms of how it handles certain situations, and it effectively created a “virus” in that unwitting travelers around the globe are all broadcasting “Free Public WiFi” from their computers without realizing it, after they tried to connect to such a network:

When a computer running an older version of XP can’t find any of its “favorite” wireless networks, it will automatically create an ad hoc network with the same name as the last one it connected to — in this case, “Free Public WiFi.” Other computers within range of that new ad hoc network can see it, luring other users to connect. And who can resist the word “free?”

Not a lot of people, judging from the spread of Free Public WiFi. Computers with the XP bug that try to connect to the Internet will remember the name, create their own ad hoc networks and entice other users wherever they go.

And so it continues to spread. No one’s quite sure where it started, but somewhere way back when, someone set up such an ad hoc network in an airport (perhaps as a joke or a honeypot), and it got picked up by others… and then it just continued spreading. Eventually, it should die out as Windows XP machines finally go extinct, but for now, enjoy (but don’t bother connecting) the “Free Public WiFi” found in so many airports…

Filed Under: ad hoc, airports, free public wifi, wifi, windows xp
Companies: microsoft

The Boy Who Mistook An iPhone For His Mother

from the wouldn't-worry-about-it-too-much dept

As a somewhat recent father, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about babies and technology — and specifically the sorts of gadgets we carry around. Living in the age of smartphones, it’s all too easy to simply reach for the phone while doing something with the baby, and in the back of my head I’ve wondered if that’s such a good thing, and now try to put the phone away when I’m with the baby. It seems that some others are discovering new issues with kids and technology as well, with a short piece at Slate describing a father’s confusion when his one-year old son started referring to any iPhone as “mama.” The author, Eric Pape, says that he worries the kid actually thinks the phone is his mother — nothing that he has regularly held the phone up to his son’s ear when his wife calls, or shown the kid pictures of his mother that were taken on the iPhone. Of course, this seems like a bit of an overreaction. I doubt the kid thinks the phone is his mother, as it seems pretty likely that he just thinks iPhones are called “mama,” due to association with the word and the phone. Kids are pretty resilient and good at figuring this stuff out, and it won’t be long until he does figure out that his mother is called “mama” and a smartphone has an entirely different name. That said, I do still wonder how best to teach kids how to embrace technology without being consumed by technology… or if that’s just something kids figure out on their own…

Filed Under: babies, iphone