A Black Box to Track Your Vehicle's Mileage: Better Than a Gas Tax?

As reported by the LA Times: If ever there's a time for the government to track how many miles individual Americans drive, now isn't it.

Evan Halper reported Monday that state and federal officials are mulling a new approach to raising money for highway and road construction and repairs: by installing a "black box" of sorts in vehicles to measure and report the miles traveled. The owner of the vehicle would then pay a mileage-based tax into a fund for transportation infrastructure.

The idea is to find a replacement for the tax on gasoline, which faces a growing shortfall. The federal government collects 18.44 cents on each gallon of conventional fuel sold, about 83% of which goes toward road projects. (The tax per gallon of diesel fuel is 24.44 cents, almost 90% of which is dedicated to highways.) With people driving more fuel-efficient cars, however, the gas tax isn't generating enough money to maintain the buying power of the Highway Trust Fund, let alone keep up with the country's infrastructure needs.

One obvious option would be to increase the tax, which hasn't changed since 1993. But such a move seems like a nonstarter in this Congress, despite the bipartisan interest in improving the country's infrastructure.

Besides, if the goal is to make users of the roads pay for their upkeep, the gas tax isn't a well-calibrated way to do so. That's because highly efficient cars pay less per mile traveled than inefficient ones. Granted, there's an inverse relationship between a vehicle's weight and its fuel efficiency, and a direct relationship between a car or truck's weight and how much it wears down a road. But why should a hybrid version of a Ford Fusion contribute half as much per mile traveled to the Highway Trust Fund as the conventional version, which weighs no more than the hybrid?

Which brings us back to the black box idea. It's technologically possible to install a device in cars that could automatically tell the government how many miles it traveled. That data could then be used to calculate how much the driver would pay into the Highway Trust Fund.

Such an approach would not, by itself, be a perfect measure of the wear and tear a vehicle inflicted on the roads. That's because a giant recreational vehicle would be charged the same amount per mile as a featherweight Fiat 500. That problem could be fixed in a straightforward way, though, by tying the charge per mile to a vehicle's weight and other characteristics.

There are at least two larger problems with mileage-tracking devices, however. First, the public is acutely sensitive these days to government data collection, thanks to the trust-destroying revelations about the National Security Agency's prodigious surveillance activities. If the boxes measured miles by tracking a vehicle's travel via GPS, the boxes could conceivably be used by law enforcement agencies to watch someone's movements in real time, or use the information retrospectively in a search for criminal suspects. With that in mind, how eager might you be to have one of these boxes under your hood?

Second, the whole user-based approach to highway funding ignores the broad public interest in having a great system of roads and bridges. The economy depends on the efficient movement of goods from producers to consumers. Even if you never spend a minute behind the wheel of a car, you still rely on trucks to deliver food to your local grocer, packages to your door, cash to and from retailers, and so on.

In fact, every American has an equal interest in that aspect of the economy. Rich or poor, young or old, we all rely on commerce and the movement of goods. So it makes sense to pay for infrastructure in part through a levy that's broad and unavoidable.

That said, if the privacy issues can be overcome, putting black boxes in cars might be appealing as part of a next-generation funding mechanism for roads that replaces gas taxes.

GPS Forensics

As reported by the Sun Sentinel: Paul Alber can see places that most cops can't — into the past, for example.

The town of Palm Beach officer isn't a psychic, although some bad guys might swear he is. After all, he figures out where they went and how they got there.

Alber, 45, is a pioneer in a fledgling field of investigation called GPS forensics. He can extract information from GPS devices — Global Positioning Systems — and use those specific locations to punch holes in even the most extravagant cover stories.

"It's satisfying to know you've caught them in a lie," Alber says.

A former fish and wildlife officer and seven-year veteran of the Palm Beach squad, Alber said his skills are mostly self-taught. In the mid-90s, when the tracking devices first started becoming popular, he toyed with them to mark fishing and diving spots he'd visited for fun. It got him thinking.

"I noticed a lot of the data you could get out of the GPS could be really useful for law enforcement work," said Alber, who is married and has two children in their teens. "And I kind of built on it from that."

Because it can be priceless in prosecuting cases, Alber won't share details of exactly what he can dig out of the GPS units. Also off-limits is just how he pulls out information.

But investigations into crimes ranging from illegal fishing to human smuggling to boat crashes have relied on his abilities to pry electronic details from navigation devices. Although he also can track land vehicles, the majority of his work involves boats and water, mainly because he works around so much water.

Among those that have tapped into Alber's expertise: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as state agencies in Arizona and Tennessee.

He's made some big scores using GPS devices to peer into the past.

In 2010, federal agents reached out to Alber after they stopped a suspicious fishing boat 25 miles off the coast of Boynton Beach. They found 33 people packed inside the 40-foot vessel.

A woman who claimed to be a U.S. citizen named Sandra Anderson, the boat's owner, told agents she was coming back from the Bahamas when she spotted a sinking ship, according to court documents.

She explained that she rescued 31 people from the foundering ship and helped them onto her boat.

But Alber took a look inside the boat's GPS and traced the path it had taken, starting in Bimini and heading north, then veering west toward the U.S.

"That kind of put the final nails in the coffin," Alber said.

Anderson turned out to be a Bahamian woman named Judith Moody who had seven aliases. She and the boat captain, Jesus Saavedra, had promised the 31 migrants — seven of whom had previously been deported from the U.S. — entry to the country for $5,000 a head. The two pleaded guilty to smuggling and were given prison sentences — eight-and-a-half years for Moody and three for Saavedra.

Alber took home an award from the U.S. Attorney for that bit of work, and he said he's proud of it because it took potentially dangerous people out of the country.

"They were coming here with a lot of potential to do harm and so to stop that, that's what the job's about," Alber said.

He does his navigational sluething outside regular patrol work for the police department, occasionally with compensation from whichever agency requests his help. His wife of 20 years, Pam Alber, said she's all for his kind of moonlighting.

"I think it's great," she said. "It's something he enjoys doing."

And she doesn't worry about being on the receiving end of his sleuthing: "Neither of us are doing anything we have to worry about."

Alber's boss is on board, too.

"When I get called for him to give his expertise on GPS, I get excited for him," said his supervisor, Capt. Gino Silvestri. "He's very good at it."

Alber was good at it almost from the start. In 2001, he was working a case where a boat plowed into a small fishing boat, leaving a child with major head injuries. Alber and other divers searching for evidence kept coming up empty-handed, so he took a look at the fishing boat's GPS.

When a diver went under again at a spot Alber pinpointed, he practically landed on top of a fishing pole on the ocean floor.

Now, he teaches his skills to other officers through a new class hosted by the organization that trains and accredits marine law enforcement agencies.

There seems to be no shortage of need for those skills. Anytime the journey matters, Alber is likely to get a call.

Don't Be an Easy Target for Construction Equipment Theft

As reported by For Construction Pros: When the economy took a dive in 2008, many equipment owners worried they would see an increase in theft as it became more difficult for many to acquire equipment through honest means. It turned out, however, that theft did not actually increase with the down economy. Instead, it grew as economic recovery gained momentum. Today, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) estimates almost $1 billion worth of construction equipment is stolen each year, and much of it is rented. What can you do to protect your investment?

There’s been an enormous spike in theft of rental equipment over the past two years and the reason is simple: there’s more equipment out on the job-site and that equipment is vulnerable.

Traditional equipment theft, she explains, typically happens over weekends when equipment is called off rent but left to sit until it can be picked up the following week.

“Thieves make off with the equipment on Friday night, and the equipment isn't missed until Monday morning,” DeMilio says. During that time, a machine can be moved great distances, making it more difficult for law enforcement to find and retrieve it.

“The number one thing rental companies can do to minimize their theft risk is to pick up their equipment as soon as possible after it’s called off rent,” DeMilio says. “Leaving it on the job-site over the weekend is an invitation to thieves.”

Equipment is vulnerable

Ryan Shepherd, general manager of the National Equipment Register (NER), said one of the reasons why construction equipment is easily stolen is because there isn't a title or registration associated with it, and as a result, no paper trail to follow ownership.

Various manufacturers have their own unique identification or product identification number but, overall, there’s no conformity within the industry.

In addition, unlike automobiles, which have their own unique key for starting, construction equipment is typically one key fits all. While this makes theft easier on thieves, it isn't likely to change since having an individual key for each machine on a job-site isn't practical when various operators are hopping on and off equipment all day long.

Protect your investment

If your budget allows, consider installing equipment tracking systems (telematics) on high-value equipment. In addition to monitoring its location, many telematics systems allow you to establish authorized hours of operation and/or an operating perimeter (geofence) for the machine. If the equipment is started up during non-authorized hours or leaves the geofence area, an alert is issued, warning you of the event. Some applications will automatically immobilize the equipment to prevent its use.

A simpler, less expensive approach would be to install a tracking device on each piece of equipment. Discretely located on the machine, these devices are virtually invisible and “wake up” only if/when the unit is stolen. Once a piece of equipment is reported missing, law enforcement sends out a signal to the device, which then automatically returns information about its location.

Another way to mitigate your risk of equipment theft is by registering your equipment. With no other national equipment registration program in place, NER views itself as the DOT/DMV of equipment, Shepherd says. “We’ve become the main source for law enforcement when trying to identify construction and agriculture equipment,” he says. “Registering equipment helps law enforcement identify equipment after a theft, increasing the odds and speed of recovery.”

Prevention is key

In addition to tracking devices and registration, there are several simple and proactive things you can do to minimize your risk:

• Pick up equipment as soon as possible after it’s called off rent. Don’t let it sit on a job-site for the weekend, especially if it’s a three-day holiday.
• Know your customers. Take your time and examine the accounts you’re opening.
• Ensure your customer’s credit card goes through. If it doesn't, consider this a red flag.
• Don’t accept cash.
• Know your competitors and share information about suspicious customers and bad accounts.
• Press charges when there are internal issues. Theft is sometimes an inside job. If you know the culprit, don’t let him or her off the hook.

Even the best prevention measures don’t always work, so take steps to make it as easy to recover equipment and materials as possible. Where feasible, stamp an ID number in both an obvious and a hidden area. Consider painting equipment in unique or easily identifiable colors with the corporate logo clearly visible.

Develop a list of equipment serial/product identification numbers. If possible, maintain a file of color photos and notes with other identifying information.

Driver is Ticketed for Wearing Google Glass

As reported by the Detroit Free Press: A California woman pulled over for allegedly speeding was cited for wearing Google Glass behind the wheel.

Cecelia Abadie of Temecula, Calif., posted the ticket to her Google+ page with the caption "A cop just stopped me and gave me a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving!" Her post has received over 500 comments.

Abadie adds she was cited in San Diego for "driving with monitor visible to driver." The California Highway Patrol confirmed to The Los Angeles Times that the citation was issued for violating California Vehicle Code 27602:

This may be the first ticket issued for Google Glass.

A person shall not drive a motor vehicle if a television receiver, a video monitor, or a television or video screen, or any other similar means of visually displaying a television broadcast or video signal that produces entertainment or business applications, is operating and is located in the motor vehicle at a point forward of the back of the driver's seat, or is operating and the monitor, screen, or display is visible to the driver while driving the motor vehicle.CHP spokesman Jake Sanchez tells the Times officers aren't specifically looking out for Google Glass, but anything that could distract drivers.

In a response to a comment added to her post, Abadie says the device was not in use while she was behind the wheel. "Glass was not on and I honestly don't use it much while driving but I do wear."

Mozilla Starts Crowdsourcing Data to Help Devices Find Your Location Without GPS

As reported by Engadget: Mozilla's got a full plate between browsers, Firefox OS and a mess of other projects, but that hasn't stopped it from starting a new initiative. The software community has set up the experimental Mozilla Location Service to collect crowdsourced geolocation data from public WiFi networks and cellular towers. According to the outfit, devices with weak or non-existent GPS capabilities will be able to determine where they're at with the help of the service. Anyone interested in contributing will need to download the MozStumbler app for Android, walk around and upload data. Mozilla's aware you'd be handing over personal location info by using the application, so it's vowed to improve privacy all around. There's no word of an iOS counterpart just yet, so contributors will be limited to Mountain View's OS for the time being.

Bluetooth Gets Smart

Most modern day mobile devices incorporate the new
Bluetooth 'Smart' communications capability.

As reported by the Denver Post: You may know Bluetooth as the wireless technology you use to connect your phone with your wireless headset or your car's hands-free speaker systems. But in the near future, you may use the wireless technology to do a lot more than that.

Dubbed Bluetooth Smart (or Bluetooth low energy), the new version of the technology is already being used in fitness devices, including Fitbit's Force and Nike's latest FuelBand, to help track users' physical activity. The technology is at the heart of AirDrop, a feature included in the latest version of Apple's iOS operating system that allows iPhone and iPad users to transfer photos and other files to nearby users of other Apple handhelds. And an upcoming deadbolt lock from Kwikset uses the technology to allow owners to unlock their doors with a simple touch, rather than a key.

Fitbit's wrist band physical activity tracker, as well as many
other similar bands (such as the Nike 'Fuel') incorporate
Smart Bluetooth in order to send updates to applications on
smartphones.

The technology will soon be available in a range of health monitoring devices, such as a blood glucose sensor developed by Johnson & Johnson. It also may be used soon to allow users to make wireless payments at their local coffee shop or for retailers to identify frequent customers and send them targeted ads. And Bluetooth proponents think it will be a key part of the “smart home” of the future, helping consumers control everything from their TVs to their thermostats.

The new technology “changes the perception of Bluetooth and what it can be used for,” said Mark Hung, an analyst who covers wireless technologies for Gartner, an industry research group.

Smart Bluetooth is also being used for medical device
integration with smartphones - such as glucose monitors.

In some ways, the new version of Bluetooth is a “back to the future” moment for the technology.

When Bluetooth was first being developed nearly 20 years ago, technology experts thought it would be used for a lot more than headsets. In fact, Bluetooth was initially pitched as a technology for “personal area networks.” These were envisioned as a collection of devices worn by or positioned near an individual who could interact with them through a phone or a Palm Pilot-style personal digital assistant.

But that vision never materialized. While Bluetooth is commonly used to connect wireless keyboards and mice to PCs, and has started to be used more frequently to connect phones to portable speaker systems, it's mostly been used just for hands-free devices.

That's starting to change thanks to the updated technology, which is part of what's more broadly called Bluetooth 4.0.

The key innovation with Bluetooth Smart is that it uses very little energy. The new technology allows devices to run for weeks without needing a recharge and to send bursts of data while consuming very little power.

That makes it a good fit for health and fitness devices. Bluetooth Smart serves as a conduit that takes data collected from sensors either in the phone or in the fitness accessories and transfers it to apps on the phone where the data can be processed. The first examples of these are the fitness bands. But soon to come are soccer balls and basketballs that have sensors and Bluetooth Smart radios built into them to help athletes track how they are shooting, kicking or dribbling and suggest ways to improve.

Part of what's driving Bluetooth Smart into new uses is that it's gained wide support among computer platforms. Apple integrated the technology into iOS two years ago. Microsoft built support for it into Windows 8, which the company released last year. And this summer, Google added support for Bluetooth Smart to Android.

In addition to health and fitness uses, Bluetooth Smart is also starting to be used as an invisible beacon. When an iPhone makes an AirDrop file transfer, it uses Bluetooth Smart to find other nearby devices and to create secure one-to-one connection. Similarly, the Bluetooth signal can be used to identify an individual phone user for the purpose of making a payment or sending a marketing message.

Zigbee hopes to be the 'home' standard for communication
but Bluetooth appears to have an edge in the market.

While other technologies can and are being used for wireless payments — most notably NFC, or near field communication, radios — the advantage of Bluetooth is that it's already in nearly every phone. By contrast, NFC is less widely supported and isn't used in Apple devices at all.

Bluetooth Smart could also have a future in the smart home. It's already being used in some remote controls, allowing users to change channels or turn on equipment even when its hidden in cabinets, something they can't do with old-style infrared remotes. And the Kwikset lock could trigger a wave of broader use of Bluetooth in home automation devices.

I haven't been a huge fan of Bluetooth in the past. In some cases I haven't been able to get devices to connect using Bluetooth. In other cases, I've had to repeatedly re-pair formerly connected devices.

Suke Jawanda, the chief marketing officer at the Bluetooth industry's trade group, said that the widespread support for Bluetooth 4.0 at the operating system level should solve some of those problems.

I hope so, because of the new uses for Bluetooth sound pretty cool.

Telematics and Smartphone Lessons in Product Differentiation

Where is the best location to integrate a vehicle user
interface - in the car or in an associated smartphone?

As reported by Telematics Update: Andrew Thompson looks at what happens to product differentiation once OEMs begin to let go of their proprietary platforms and start going the way of smartphones.

It’s one of the biggest pickles in mobile telecommunications.

A device manufacturer’s proprietary platform gives a product a distinct feel, but only at the cost of forcing app developers to wrestle with a dizzying number of platform-specific modules and, in turn, a higher price for the consumer.

In mobile, this problem has been all but solved. Apple and Blackberry have their own branded platforms, and everyone else – for the most part – uses Android, with a smattering of Windows Mobile.

But what is now taken for granted by phone designers, is only beginning to be realized by vehicle OEMs.

Car manufacturers are already looking at telematics that can
be accessed by an associated user's phone - using specialized
apps for Android and iOS devices.

“Right now, if you’re an app developer, you’re doing one app for GM and another for Ford,” says T.C. Wingrove, senior manager of global electronics innovation at Visteon. “And even within GM, you’re doing one for Chevrolet and another for Cadillac.”

As of this year, Linux-based platforms – the closest the automotive industry comes to having a unified platform – only accounted for roughly 2% of the market, according to IHS. That’s expected to grow to about 30% in 2018, by which time proprietary systems begin to fade into the background – or so it is hoped.

So if OEMs give up the keys to their platforms, how will they distinguish the in-vehicle infotainment of their products?

Differentiating the product
“There’s not a single correct answer,” Wingrove says. And the problem is that so few automakers have adopted a uniform platform that, at this point, there is little more then conjecture.

Still, a consensus is beginning to emerge that innovation needs to pick up and that the best way to realize that is by standardizing some of the many components at the base of car makers’ elaborate infotainment systems. “The ones who will innovate the best will be the ones who can collaborate the best,” Wingrove says.

In other words, companies that can bring together the players in an increasingly complex supply chain and sacrifice their proprietary platforms in order to further actual innovation, instead of furthering mere branding illusions, will come out ahead.

How much should be integrated into the user's phone - and how
secure will this approach be?

In mobile, this has resulted in products that in many ways resemble their competitors. Still, the different brands manage to distinguish themselves. “Just like in the phone OS, where they make 80% to 90% of the platform identical and then the top 10% is the special stuff on their phones only, they could do that with the HMIs,” says Mark Boyadjis, senior analyst, IHS Automotive.

Still, not everyone agrees.

“The current automobile market has become too competitive with very few well-delineated areas of product differentiation,”says Frank Hirschenberger, senior director of product innovation at Agero. “Connected vehicles are viewed as one of the primary areas where OEMs can still substantially differentiate their product and also provide services for the life cycle of the vehicle. The acceptance of open source is typically reserved for non-differentiating functions, as opposed to differentiating features.”

HMI, services and performance
Boyadjis expects innovation to come in three areas: human-machine interface (HMI), services and performance of the actual product.

“Be it a Samsung, HTC, LG, Huawei or other brand of smartphone, they will all have Android, but have very different implementations at play,” he says. “These differences are the icing on the cake, which help sales of one phone separate from another. This would also happen in vehicles if a common platform emerged.”

For example, a proprietary voice recognition system similar to Samsung’s S Voice or vehicle-specific social linking tools like those found in some of HTC’s phones serve to differentiate phones that both operate in the familiar Android platform. And similar differentiators might be seen in cars.

“Innovation will come from the features, services, performances at the application level,” says Phillipe Gicquel, president of GENIVI, one of the industry’s biggest proponents of Linux-based systems. “Using GENIVI standards changes the supplier ecosystem because OEMs can more easily make their own choices for each software module, like navigation engine, voice recognition and so on.”

Voice recognition integration into the vehicle won't be much
of a significant differentiatior alone.

One of the biggest differentiators will be the services themselves, according to experts, and this is where the phone analogy begins to falter. Unlike phones, in which apps are universally available across all supported devices, there would still be a variety of different apps available for different vehicles.

“While a common app store is shared within all Android phones, this would be different in the vehicle,” Boyadjis says. “Many apps and services would be shared, but because some of them will be vehicle-centric applications, reading data from sensors and other connectivity platforms in the car, the total services and applications offered will be a point of differentiation for OEMs."

Then, of course, there’s the basic performance of the product itself – the parts and processes involved in making the HMI, apps and everything in between run at an optimum level. “Different processors, memory and other hardware-based solutions will differentiate across vehicle brands,” Boyadjis says. “The problem with this differentiation is it’s easy to replicate, and thus is no longer a differentiation.”

There’s another way to look at it, though, which is that the difference in performance will itself take the forefront in differentiation. Samsung may have used the branded S Voice feature, but it was the sheer firepower under the hood that made the Galaxy series a runaway success.

A similar process of differentiation might be seen in vehicles. In this case, the leaders of innovation would become the chipmakers and engineers, not the OEMs.