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TECHNOLOGY A23
Friday 29 January 2016
Study: automatic Cable-industry disruptor back with new Internet service
braking cuts rear
end crashing risk TALI ARBEL Chet Kanojia, founder and CEO of Aereo, Inc., listens during a are paying billions of dol-
AP Technology Writer tour of the company’s technology floor in New York. Cable’s lars for spectrum, but Starry
DEE-ANN DURBIN NEW YORK (AP) — Cable’s pricey Internet packages may get some competition from says the airwaves it’s using,
AP Auto Writer pricey Internet packages Kanojia, whose first attempt to shake up the cable industry was called millimeter waves,
DETROIT (AP) — Vehicles may get some competi- quashed by the Supreme Court. is cheaper and available
equipped with automatic tion from the founder of to lease and won’t have
braking or front-collision Aereo, whose first attempt (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) problems with congestion
warning are less likely to to shake up the cable in- the way cellphone net-
cause a rear-end crash, dustry was quashed by the most cable customers get. ment. works do.
according to a study re- Supreme Court. Comcast, the cable com- Starry will be a kind of fixed But will it work?
leased Thursday by the in- Starry will be a wireless pany in Boston, currently wireless, an Internet service “It’s a good theory. I’m
surance indu33stry. service that, unlike cell- offers Internet service there that works well in some ru- sure it works in the lab, but
The Insurance Institute for phones, promises to be for as low as $35 a month, ral, flat areas. Kanojia says when you get out in the
Highway Safety says au- speedier than cable and but that rises to about $70 this technology is cheaper, real world, all sorts of crazy
tomatic braking — which designed for single loca- in two years. And as speeds per home, to build out than things that nobody thinks of
can bring the car to a stop tions such as homes and go up, prices rise. In addi- wired Internet. The compa- happen when you get out
if it senses an imminent col- small businesses. The ser- tion, many people spend ny is adapting it to city life there,” said Harold Feld,
lision — can reduce rear- vice is expected to launch far more than that, be- by using different kinds of senior vice president of
end crashes by 40 percent. in Boston this summer, with cause the cable company spectrum, or airwaves, that consumer advocate group
Front collision warning — plans to expand to other pushes you to add TV and it says haven’t been used Public Knowledge.
which warns the driver but U.S. cities and even inter- phone service, too. like this commercially be- For example, Starry is put-
doesn’t brake — cuts the nationally, though no time Comcast declined com- fore. Cellphone companies ting antennas on top of
risk of a rear-end crash by frame was given. buildings to beam the sig-
23 percent. In announcing the project nal. Feld said wind gusts
The institute measured the in New York this week, its on top of buildings could
systems’ effectiveness by founder, Chet Kanojia, de- knock antennas out of
looking at police records cried the lack of competi- alignment.
for 7,490 rear-end crash- tion in U.S. broadband. Kanojia says customers
es in 27 states. All of the The U.S. government has can install Starry them-
crashes happened be- been calling for more com- selves. It requires a small
tween 2010 and 2014. They petition in Internet service. window unit and a router
only considered crashes At the speed level it de- inside the home. The com-
caused by Acura, Honda, fines as “broadband,” only pany’s router, called Starry
Subaru, Mercedes and about one-third of homes Station, will be available in
Volvo vehicles that of- have a choice of Internet March and retail for $350.
fered optional automatic providers. The majority of It’ll be included with the
braking or forward-collision American homes get their Starry Internet service, but
warning. Then they com- Internet from a cable com- you could technically use
pared the performance pany. But it’s not yet clear another router. As a fancy
of the vehicles that were whether people will actu- router, Starry Station can
equipped with the option- ally save money with Starry. be used with any Internet
al systems and those that Although Kanojia wouldn’t service.
weren’t. say how much the service Aereo, Kanojia’s previ-
The institute said that if all will cost, he suggested that ous startup, sought to of-
vehicles were equipped his company is targeting fer over-the-air television
with systems that worked a price of less than $80 a channels through the Inter-
as well as the ones studied, month for speeds faster net for a lower monthly fee
there would have been than similarly priced cable than cable. Broadcasters
700,000 fewer rear-end offerings. Starry says its net- successfully sued on copy-
crashes in 2013 alone. work is capable of speeds right grounds, as Aereo
“As this technology be- of up to 1 gigabit for down- wasn’t paying broadcast-
comes more widespread, loads and uploads, which is ers as cable companies
we can expect to see no- comparable to newer de- typically do. Kanojia said
ticeably fewer rear-end ployments such as Google that he does not expect le-
crashes,” said David Zuby, Fiber, and much faster than gal problems with Starry.q
the institute’s chief re-
search officer. Facebook to expand beyond ‘like’ button ‘pretty soon’
Forty percent of vehicles
sold in the U.S. currently SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — more concrete timetable clude symbols for “angry,” quently and hang out on
offer automatic braking, It won’t be long before while discussing the new ‘’sad,” ‘’wow,” ‘’haha,” the social network for even
while 61 percent offer for- Facebook’s 1.6 billion users feature with analysts in a ‘’yay” and “love.” longer periods than they al-
ward-collision warning, the have more ways to quickly conference call Wednes- “We want people to be ready do.
institute says. They can be express their feelings on the day following Facebook’s able to share all of the Facebook has been testing
expensive options, how- world’s largest social net- latest quarterly earnings re- things that are meaningful the different reactions in
ever. Subaru offers it on the work. port. to them, not just the things Chile, the Philippines, Portu-
Impreza sedan, for exam- After four months of testing The additional options will that are happy and that gal, Ireland, Spain, Japan
ple, but it’s part of a $2,895 outside the U.S., Facebook expand Facebook beyond people are going to like and Colombia.
safety package. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the renowned thumbs-up when they see it,” Zucker- Zuckerberg said Face-
But the technology will that “pretty soon” six new symbol that people click berg said Wednesday. book’s engineers still need
soon be more widely emotions will be added to on to show they like a com- Facebook is hoping the to make a few more
available.q the social network through- ment, photo or video post- additional choices will en- “tweaks” before the new
out the world. ed on the social network. courage people to share options are offered in other
Zuckerberg didn’t give a The new reactions will in- their thoughts more fre- parts of the world.q
