Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 6 OctOber 2017
Technology crammed into cars worsens driver distraction

By JOAN LOWY The guidelines also recom-
Associated Press mend automakers prevent
WASHINGTON (AP) — The drivers from texting while
infotainment technology driving, but three-quarters
that automakers are cram- of the vehicles tested per-
ming into the dashboard mit drivers to text while the
of new vehicles is making car is moving. Texting was
drivers take their eyes off the second-most distract-
the road and hands off the ing task performed by test
wheel for dangerously long drivers.
periods of time, an AAA Drivers looked away from
study says. the road less when using
The study released Thurs- voice commands, but that
day is the latest by Univer- safety benefit was offset by
sity of Utah professor David the increased amount of
Strayer, who has been ex- time drivers spent interact-
amining the impact of info- ing with the systems.
tainment systems on safety AAA said drivers should use
for AAA’s Foundation for infotainment technologies
Traffic Safety since 2013. In this image from video, Jake Nelson, AAA’s director for traffic safety advocacy and research “only for legitimate emer-
Past studies also identified drives one of the test vehicles used in the study in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017. gencies or urgent, driving-
problems, but Strayer said Associated Press related purposes.” It also
the “explosion of tech- That complexity increases drivers testing all 30 of the drivers an average of 40 urged automakers to block
nology” has made things the overall amount of time 2017 model year cars and seconds to complete the the ability to program navi-
worse. drivers spend trying to use light trucks took their eyes task. At 25 mph (40 kph), a gation systems or send texts
Automakers now include the systems. off the road and hands car can travel the length while driving. Automakers
more options to allow driv- The auto industry says the off the wheel while us- of four football fields during should also design infotain-
ers to use social media, new systems are better al- ing infotainment systems. the time it takes to enter ment systems so that they
email and text. The tech- ternatives for drivers than The test drivers used voice a destination. Previous re- require no more attention
nology is also becom- mobile phones and navi- commands, touch screens search has shown that driv- to use than listening to the
ing more complicated to gation devices that were and other interactive tech- ers who remove their eyes radio or an audiobook, it
use. Cars used to have a not designed to be used nologies to make calls, from the road for just two said.Nearly 70 percent of
few buttons and knobs. while driving. send texts, tune the radio seconds double their risk for U.S. adults say they want
Some vehicles now have The vehicle-integrated sys- or program navigation all a crash.Under pressure from the new technologies in
as many as 50 buttons on tems “are designed to be while driving.Clearly au- the industry, the National their vehicles, but only 24
the steering wheel and used in the driving environ- tomakers haven’t worked Highway Traffic Safety Ad- percent feel that the tech-
dashboard that are multi- ment and require driver hard enough to make the ministration in 2012 issued nology already works per-
functional. There are touch attention that is compa- systems quick and easy to voluntary safety guidelines fectly, according to an
screens, voice commands, rable to tuning the radio or use, Nelson said. Research- to automakers for dash- opinion survey conduct-
writing pads, heads-up dis- adjusting climate controls, ers rated 23 of the 30 vehi- board technology instead ed for AAA.“Drivers want
plays on windshields and which have always been cles “very high” or “high” in of enforceable safety stan- technology that is safe and
mirrors and 3-D computer- considered baseline ac- terms of the attention they dards. The guidelines rec- easy to use,” said Marshall
generated images. ceptable behaviors while demanded from drivers. ommend that automakers Doney, AAA’s president
“It’s adding more and driving,” said Wade New- Seven were rated “moder- lock out the ability to pro- and CEO, “but many of the
more layers of complex- ton, a spokesman for the ate.” None required a low gram navigation systems features added to infotain-
ity and information at driv- Alliance of Automobile amount of attention to use. while a car is moving. How- ment systems today have
ers’ fingertips without often Manufacturers. Programming a destination ever, the ability to program resulted in overly complex
considering whether it’s a But Jake Nelson, AAA’s di- into in-vehicle GPS naviga- navigation while driving and sometimes frustrat-
good idea to put it at their rector for traffic safety ad- tion systems was the most was available in 12 vehicles ing user experiences for
fingertips,” Strayer said. vocacy and research, said distracting activity, taking in the study. drivers.”q
Yahoo: 3 billion accounts

breached in 2013. Yes, 3 billion

By MATT O’BRIEN said Sam Curry, chief secu- sition by Verizon in June,
BOSTON (AP) — Yahoo has rity officer for Boston-based Yahoo says, it obtained
tripled down on what was firm Cybereason, though new intelligence while in-
already the largest data there’s likely to be more vestigating the breach with
breach in history, saying accounts than actual help from outside forensic
it affected all 3 billion ac- users.“Whether it’s 1 billion experts. It says the stolen
counts on its service, not or 3 billion is largely immate- customer information did
the 1 billion it revealed late rial. Assume it affects you,” not include passwords in
last year.The company an- Curry said. “Privacy is re- clear text, payment card
nounced Tuesday that it ally the victim here.”Yahoo data or bank account infor-
has sent emails providing first disclosed the breach in mation.Yahoo had already
notice to additional user December . The stolen in- required users to change In this Dec. 15, 2016, file photo, the Yahoo logo appears on a
accounts affected by the formation included names, their passwords and invali- smartphone in Frankfurt, Germany. Associated Press
August 2013 data theft. email addresses, phone date security questions so
The breach now affects numbers, birthdates and they couldn’t be used to embarrassment for Verizon, subsidiary Oath, which will
a number that represents security questions and an- hack into accounts. which has just started run- consist of Yahoo and AOL
nearly “half the world,” swers.Following its acqui- The disclosure is also a huge ning TV ads for its new services. q