Some Day, Voice Control May Cut Drivers' Gizmo Distractions

As motorists use a proliferating number of personal electronic
devices while driving, scientists are looking for ways to reduce
the distraction factor. One possibility is voice-control technology
that may some day permit drivers to use the devices hands-free.

As reported by NBC News: As personal electronic devices have proliferated in cars, and with the corresponding increase in crashes resulting from motorists trying to drive while using those gadgets, automakers have touted voice control as the solution that will permit drivers to safely text, tweet and update their Facebook pages to inform the world of the amazing fact that they are in the act of driving to work.

The problem with the notion of voice control as a panacea for distraction is that it assumes that attempting to command electronic devices by voice is not distracting. “It is a great concept, and used in the right way it can work well,” explained Bruce Mehler, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is aware that poorly designed voice interfaces are distracting, so the agency has announced that it will issue rules for automobile voice-command systems in 2014. Until now, no one has determined what kind of system is less distracting and what is more distracting.

MIT researchers are working with Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. to find the answer to the issue.  Their first goal, according to CSRC senior principal engineer Jim Foley, is to establish the metrics that will measure the workload involved in the operation of a voice-command system.

This project’s overall goal is to produce some concrete information on what works and what doesn't to help guide the federal rules when they come out.

To do this, the team has equipped a car with cameras to monitor drivers’ eyes as they watch the road. Test subjects are also wired up with a heart-rate monitor and an instrument that measures galvanic skin response (like a lie detector) to assess their stress levels. Researchers will study the motorists while they perform tasks such as changing radio stations. The scientists will monitor the drivers while they are using physical controls and voice control.

The researchers also have a test in which they read off a list of numbers and the driver has to repeat a specific number from the list. Repeating the latest number produces a low strain on the brain. However, asking a driver to repeat the number that precedes the latest number cranks up the load on the brain to “moderate”; when the driver is asked to recall the number that precedes that number, that results in a high cognitive workload.

This procedure allows researchers to measure the effects of hard work by the brain on driving skills, so when they find voice interface designs that apply a similar load, as demonstrated by the test subjects’ heart rates and galvanic skin response, they can predict the deterioration in driving ability that will result.

In a simple reaction time test that takes the average driver about two-thirds of a second to respond under normal conditions, the same driver takes nearly a full second to respond when that motorist is called on to repeat the number before the most recent number read to him. At 60 mph, a car travels 29 feet during that additional third of a second, which underscores the need for quick response times.

Scientists Build Working Carbon Nanotube Computer

This wafer contains tiny computers using carbon
nanotubes, a material that could lead to smaller, more
energy-efficient processors. Photo: Norbert von der Groeben

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald: US engineers have built the first computer made entirely of microscopic carbon "nanotubes" – a big step in the quest for faster, ever-smaller electronic devices.

While performing only basic functions at speeds likened to a 1950s computer, the tiny machine was hailed as a breakthrough in the search for an alternative to silicon transistors, which control the electricity flow in computer microchips.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are rolled-up, single-layer sheets of carbon atoms – tens of thousands can fit into the width of a single human hair.  They are pliable and have the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any known material.  Silicon is a good semiconductor but cannot be reduced to such a thin layer.

Scientists believe the structure of CNTs may make them better at carrying currents – thus yielding transistors that are faster, more energy efficient and smaller than silicon – but actually building nanotube chips has proved difficult.

Max Shulaker of Stanford University shows off the carbon
nanotube computer. Photo: Norbert von der Groeben

"People have been talking about a new era of carbon nanotube electronics moving beyond silicon," said Stanford engineering professor Subhasish Mitra, who led the research.

"But there have been few demonstrations of complete digital systems using this exciting technology. Here is the proof."

The computer, built in a laboratory at Stanford University's School of Engineering, was just a few square millimetres in size and able to perform basic counting and number-sorting functions using 178 transistors each holding between 10 and 200 nanotubes.

It runs at 1 kilohertz – a processing capacity millions of times weaker than today's computers.

The 178-transistor limit was due to the team using a university chip-making facility rather than an industrial process, meaning the computer could in theory be made much bigger and faster, a statement on the study said, published in the journal Nature.

The machine ran a basic operating system that allowed it to multitask and swap between the two processes, it added.

Mitra and his team had been able to deal with two inherent shortcomings of CNT transistors: the tubes do not always grow in perfectly straight lines, which means that mispositioned ones can cause a short circuit, while others changed form and could not be switched on and off.

The team devised a method to burn up and eliminate the uncontrolled CNTs in a transistor and to bypass mispositioned ones.

Though it could take years, the Stanford approach hinted at the possibility of industrial-scale production of CNT semiconductors, said Naresh Shanbhag, director of a computer chip design consortium.

"These are initial necessary steps in taking carbon nanotubes from the chemistry lab to a real environment," added Supratik Guha, director of physical sciences for software giant IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Centre.

Commenting on the achievement in Nature, Franz Kreupl of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen's Department of Hybrid Electronic Systems said the computer represented a significant advance in electronic engineering.

But the transistors will have to become smaller than the current 8 micrometres thick (a millionth of a metre) for the technique to be feasible, he said, and the processor quicker.

New Chip to bring 5G Bluetooth/Wi-Fi Combo to Connected Cars

As reported by Venture Beat: There’s nothing like surfing the web and driving. So Broadcom is bringing the connected car to life through a new wireless combo chip that combines high-end Wi-Fi with Bluetooth Smart (also called Bluetooth Low Energy or BLE). That could bring the advantages of better “infotainment” and communications — from good traffic information to smartphone synchronization — to the automobile.

The communications chip giant wants to enable cheaper and more efficient gear that connects a smartphone to your car’s electronics for hands-free calls and then connects the vehicle to the Internet via Wi-Fi networking or 5G cellular.

Broadcom says the Bluetooth will help transfer data from wearable tech (think Google Glass) and body sensors such as biometric indicators about driver fatigue, blood alcohol content, and glucose levels. By connecting to Bluetooth and the Internet, the car will be able to tap info on road hazards, traffic accidents, and even monitor your speed. Broadcom said its new combo wireless chip is now available in samples.

The chip includes 802.11ac/5G Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth Smart. That combines the connectivity of Wi-Fi for high-speed Internet, 5G cellular data for broader range internet access, and Bluetooth Smart for short-range in-car communications. The car can tap LTE data transfer or connect to Wi-Fi via a Hot Spot connection.

Across all three of those networks, you should be able to access the Internet while on the road, according to Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom. Passengers and drivers will be able to sync and stream mobile content. One use many parents may want: Kids can watch streamed movies in the backseat.

“Car connectivity is the new battleground for product differentiation and the next frontier for Broadcom,” said Rahul Patel, Broadcom’s vice president of wireless connectivity, in a statement. “Broadcom is delivering our proven expertise and leadership in wireless connectivity to the automotive market. By providing the same technology and roadmap associated with the fast-moving mobile ecosystem, the possibilities enabled by our new wireless automotive chips are endless.”

Analysts expect the use of in-car Wi-Fi applications to grow eight-fold by 2019, the company said. Broadcom envisions apps such as a smartphone that you use to remotely adjust your seat, temperature, and entertainment settings.

Big Data Analysis: In Lieu of Census Data - Wealth in Africa Mapped Using Mobile Phone Data

The way people buy airtime is a powerful tool for revealing
the socio-economic status of developing countries, say demographers

As reported by Medium: When it comes to understanding the social, demographic and economic conditions of a country, the obvious place to turn is its most recent census, a national survey carried out to collect just this kind of information. At least, that’s possible in most developed countries.

In developing countries, census information is much less reliable. In Côte d’Ivoire on the west coast of Africa, for example, the National Statistics Office carried out censuses in 2002 and 2008 but the civil war that broke out during that period makes the results highly unreliable.

Today, Thoralf Gutierrez at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium and a couple of pals say there is a better way to understand the social and economic make-up of a developing country. Given the widespread use of mobile phones in these areas, why not use the data-sets that record usage habits, they ask.

These guys say, in particular, that the way individuals buy airtime credit is a good indication of their wealth. And since mobile phone data-sets record the buying habits of a significant proportion of the population, they can reveal the distribution and variation of wealth around a country too.

And that’s exactly what they've done. Gutierrez and co used a data-set of the mobile phone habits of significant fraction of the population of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) which they obtained from one of the country’s large mobile phone operators.

This data-set contains the caller ID and receiver ID for all calls and text messages made in 2012. It identifies the cell tower used and gives each call a time-stamp. Crucially, the data-set also contains the time-stamp and amount of every airtime credit purchase made by every customer.

The analysis is straightforward. Gutierrez and co start by analyzing the airtime credit purchases and working out by how much each customer varied the amount they purchased. This revealed several different types of customer: some who made a few big purchases and others who made many small purchases, for example.

“Our hypothesis is that this difference in behavior predicts household income,” they say. “Someone who is poor will have to buy airtime credit in small amounts while someone who is rich can make larger purchases.”

They then mapped the average purchases across the country. This map clearly shows the areas where people tend to spend more on airtime credit and are therefore wealthier. One example is Abidjan, the country’s biggest city and the largest seaport in West Africa.

Another is the border roads to Mali and Burkina Faso in the north and to Ghana in the south-east. These are economic corridors that are likely to generate wealth. The South Coast is also wealthier, probably because of tourism.

The map also throws up some surprising results. “The Liberian border in the South-West is unexpectedly wealthy,” say Gutierrez and co. That’s strange because the population density in this area is low and there is little industry that can account for any extra wealth. Indeed, the area is known for its insecurity and land conflicts.

But Gutierrez and co say there is another explanation. The wealth probably arises from illegal activities on the border, such as drug, arms and human trafficking. Interestingly, that’s not data that an official census would be likely to pick up.

The mobile phone records also reveal areas of inequality which host both rich and poor people. Most urban areas fall into this category however one city, Korhogo, in the north of the country appears to have little inequality for reasons that are not clear.

The Liberian border area mentioned before does not have any diversity either—all the people living there buy airtime in large amounts. Exactly why this should be is unclear too.

Gutierrez and co have also studied the social network associated with this data-set. They create a network in which each node is a customer and draw a link between two customers if they communicate at least once per month.

An interesting feature of this network is that people with similar wealth seem to talk to each other. “People tend to be friends with people that have the same purchase average as themselves,” conclude the team.

One problem with this analysis is that there is no ground truth data to compare it against. That’s a shortcoming that Gutierrez and co are only too aware of but, given the unreliability of the official census data, there is little they can do to change that.

What is clear, however, is that the study of airtime credit purchase is a powerful tool for understanding the socio-economic status of countries that do not have the resources to conduct large surveys themselves.

The next steps are many—to try the same technique in other developing countries, to compare the results with reliable ground truth data and to extend the analysis to the developed world, to name just a few.

It’ll be interesting to see where this new science of mobile phone-ology leads next.

Connected Vehicle Technology Gaining Momentum

A watershed moment may be approaching for the connected vehicle market.
The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) is about
to start on the path towards mandating connected vehicle technology

As reported by GPS World: During the GPS World connected vehicle webinar, held September 19, I noticed differences in how the audience characterized the 'connected vehicle'. 

The connected vehicle enables information to be exchanged with other vehicles, devices and/or road infrastructure to provide safety, mobility and consumer functionality. 

The devices that are used with the connected vehicle can be nomadic (phone, tablet, personal navigation devices), vehicle embedded and aftermarket devices. Communication options are currently cellular, Wi-Fi or DSRC/WAVE.

Regulation Pushing Connected Vehicle Forward.

 In a recent statement, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) asserts that

connected vehicle technology “can transform the nation’s surface transportation safety, mobility and environmental performance.” NHTSA is expected to start rulemaking on the connected vehicle later this year, which could result in a connected car industry mandate in the U.S. While it could take five or more years for final rules and several more years for rules to take effect, it would be a transformative event. “In six years, I expect to see vehicles widely using the technology,” said Scott McCormick of the Connected Vehicle Trade Association. “Vehicle manufacturers are eager for connectivity in vehicles, but need to understand the regulations that will be in play. This hasn’t been idle time, as vehicle makers are ahead of the game and have already embedded some connected vehicle technology into vehicles that can later be activated.”

The commercial fleet market has been the first adopter of connected vehicle technology as efficiencies provide cost savings, but the automotive market is poised to catch up. “Fleets now have access to actionable intelligence from the field,” said Andrew Maliszewski of Micronet, as well as an industry consultant. “Business decisions are now being made from data, including fuel levels, driver behaviors, vehicle performance, weather and traffic conditions, and even real-time trailer connect/disconnect events.”

Ownership of Data is Tricky.  Some of the data that is produced inside a vehicle will be of great value to marketers. It will reveal personal information, including your driving habits, where you go, and how you react to in-vehicle marketing. David Jumpa of Airbiquity asserts, “There is uncertainty on who will own the data, but the sensory data, such as how you brake and accelerate, would be owned by the vehicle OEM.” When polled, many listeners of the webinar opined that content and app providers, and not vehicle OEMs or data infrastructure companies, will own personal data generated.

Making Money, or Not. The technology of the connected vehicle market hasn’t been easy, but it has been much simpler than finding the revenue models that will support companies in this market. “In the past, the vehicle market would use a tier-one manufacturer to deliver the entertainment solution, including maps and routing,” said Scott Sedlik of Inrix. “That isn’t the case now, and multiple suppliers work together and are also having to carry the risk that the vehicle OEMs had solely carried.” Some of the content and app providers are making money; others are figuring out the right business model. One of the questions that remain is whether the OEMs will pay for in-vehicle services and content. This is a pivot point of business, Sedlik adds.

Mobile App Marketing Cost at High. For brands that proactively market their apps, the cost of acquiring a loyal user increased in July to $1.80 according to Fiksu’s Cost per Loyal User Index. This is a jump of 30 cents from June, falling just a penny short of the December 2011 price of $1.81. Fiksu attributes the cost rise to brands leveraging Facebook’s mobile app ads, which target consumers based on app and games access on smartphones.

Mobile Map Usage. More than 60 percent of iOS users accessed Apple Maps at least once during the previous 30 days, reports Mobidia. That isn't too surprising given that it comes installed on the phone. However, 20 percent of iOS users accessed Google Maps during the same period — impressive, since the user has to go to the effort of installing the software. Google Maps usage is heavy, although not as heavy as Apple Maps use.  55 percent of iOS users that use Google Maps, use it weekly; 80 percent of Apple Maps users use it weekly. Not bad, Google.  Google, which recently acquired Waze has embraced the 'crowdsourced mapping' and near-real-time road conditions approach to digital map data; a trend that appears to be spreading among other map vendors as well.

Radio Dot System to Provide In-Building Wireless Carrier Coverage

As reported by PC World: Ericsson says it has a small solution to the big problem of weak mobile service in enterprises.

On Wednesday, the world’s largest cellular network vendor introduced a radio that can fit in the palm of your hand and hook up to a full-size base station via conventional LAN cables. The so-called 'Radio Dot System', due to ship late next year, will let carriers fill large and medium-sized buildings with strong voice and data signals while keeping their equipment and management costs low, Ericsson said.

While traditional cellular networks are built around large outdoor “macro” cells, most mobile use happens indoors. To accommodate all that voice and data demand, mobile operators have long installed DAS (distributed antenna systems) throughout buildings and more recently have used small indoor cells, which are miniature versions of the macro cells on towers outside.

However, buying and installing the specialized DAS equipment is expensive, and managing and coordinating a collection of small individual cells around a building is complicated, Ericsson CTO Ulf Ewaldsson said. Among other things, small cells sharing the same spectrum with macro base stations have to turn down their power if they are in danger of interfering with the bigger cell, he said.

Ericsson plans to solve those problems by putting the core components of a macro cell into a building and spreading the radio parts of the cell throughout the rooms as Radio Dots. The Dots are disk-shaped units that weigh just 300 grams. The core unit, called the baseband, will be able to manage as many as 96 Radio Dots as one large cell. Another radio platform, called an IRU (indoor radio unit) will sit in between the dots and the baseband and house some other radio components. The system can be used for both 3G WCDMA and 4G LTE.

“We’re splitting the radios in a new way,” Ewaldsson said. “We put as little as possible in a radio dot that can do the radio transmission and the antenna piece on a wall.”

As demand for coverage or capacity in the building grows, carriers will have many options for scaling up the system because all the dots are logically managed as one base station, Ewaldsson said. Also, the full-size macro baseband that the dots share will have a complete set of features, instead of the subset that’s included in small cells, and can be more easily updated, he said.

Ericsson claims a Radio Dot System could cut installation time by 70 percent and capital cost by 60 percent compared with a DAS. For one thing, the links between elements will use the same type of Category 5, 6, and 7 copper cables used for conventional LANs, which are less expensive than the fiber-optic wiring typically used with a DAS, Ewaldsson said.

Enterprises may look to the Radio Dots when it comes time to replace a DAS, Ovum analyst Daryl Schoolar said. The system may also be an attractive DAS alternative because it could economically be deployed in just part of a building, rather than requiring the scale that a DAS needs, he said. But there are also other ripe opportunities for boosting indoor coverage, he said.

“It really could cover a lot of areas out there today,” Schoolar said. “The prime real estate for the small cell is really going to be indoors ... because so much stuff goes on indoors.”

However, the very BYOD trend that is bringing employees’ own mobile devices into the workplace could make Radio Dots less attractive in some cases.

“What Ericsson is showing is a very operator specific solution, but if you have a deployment area where workers are spread out among four different mobile operators, the value of that solution is diminished,” Schoolar said. “Also it locks a business into a specific operator, and that business may want more flexibility.”

With a DAS, by contrast, it’s typically easier to bring multiple carriers into the system, said Peter Jarich of Current Analysis. A Radio Dot System would be easier to install as an overlay, but in new construction, including a DAS is not as big a burden, Jarich said.

At least two major carriers are interested in Radio Dots. AT&T is participating with Ericsson in Wednesday’s announcement, and Verizon Wireless also plans to test the system. “We have seen it, we like it and we look forward to testing and trialing it,” Verizon spokesman Tom Pica said via email.

Geomagnetism to Help Map Buildings GPS Doesn't Reach

Instead of using Wi-Fi signals to triangulate a device’s
location, IndoorAtlas tracks variations in the Earth’s
magnetic field to pinpoint location within a building.

As reported by GigaOM: IndoorAtlas has entered the increasingly crowded indoor mapping and navigation space, definitely has a trick up its sleeve that sets it apart from other location-based technology companies. Instead of using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signals to triangulate a device’s location within a building, it’s using the Earth’s geomagnetic field.

Our smartphones share one thing in common with many animals: they have internal compasses that can orient themselves to the Earth’s magnetic field. And just as animals can detect local variations in that magnetic field to find their way around, our phones’ digital compasses can do the same. Structures and even furniture within buildings such as metal shelves naturally produce those geomagnetic anomalies, and by logging those anomalies on a map, they can be used to pinpoint a device — and its owner’s — exact location indoors.

Indoor navigation remains one of the last frontiers of digital cartography because buildings block the GPS signals we depend on to determine location. A raft of companies have sprung to try and fill that radio silence with Wi-Fi signals, the idea being that most public buildings are rife with Wi-Fi networks. By measuring the signal strength and direction of known access points, a phone can plot its location within a few meters. Many of the big internet and networking companies have developed or bought scooped indoor Wi-Fi location technologies to start mapping buildings, and Apple is using similar techniques with iBeacon, which uses Bluetooth Low Energy as proximity-based location tool.

Instead of relying on external networks, though, Indoor Atlas has created a mapping platform that lets would-be cartographers and developers use their smartphone compasses to record the geomagnetic characteristics of any given locale. That data is then plotted onto a pre-generated digital map, which can then be used to create indoor location-based apps. They could take the form of, say, a mall way-finding app, or it could become an extension of a turn-by-turn navigation provider’s directions service – telling users where they need to go after they've parked their cars.

IndoorAtlas didn’t reveal exactly how precise its technology is, but it claimed it could place a user within a specific aisle and section of a grocery store. So it may not be able to tell if you’re standing right in front of the Weetabix, but it can definitely send you a notification – or a coupon – when you get close. The company said the technology is now available to developers on its website.