The Car as your Friend

Technocrat

The Car as your Friend

zogger

Sat May 17 21:14:31 -0700 2008

Mechanics

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A lot of new cars have some amount of voice activated gadgets connected with them, the GPS navigation and the cellphone system, and perhaps the tunes player. But what if the car really acted like another passenger riding shotgun with you, would it help or hurt? And what are the implications of all the data that advanced computer equipped and partially controlled cars collect, once it gets into the hands of the insurance company, the government, and advertisers?

.."In tests of volunteers driving automobile simulators in the lab, researchers put their subjects into stressful situations and tested out potential responses from the voice. For example, some drivers received a reproachful warning: "You're not driving very well and you need to pay more attention."

"Well, you won't be shocked to learn that people got angry and actually drove worse," laughed Nass as he told the story. As the voice ratcheted up its rhetoric ("You really need to be more careful!"), the driving deteriorated further. Finally, when the voice began insisting that the drivers pull over to the side of the road, they responded by getting into accidents.

ed.z.: HAHAHA! OK, this has a lot of potential! Say you want a ...Klingon as your co-driver, this could be fun! "That Lexus just splashed mud on us and has sullied our honor! I suggest we use the chaingun with HE shells!"... "we appear to be entering an unoccupied driving zone at the edges of the frontier, nothing on the screens, yet it has a Federation posted speed limit of only 70 MPH! Cowards!" hehehehe or how about celebrity voices and viewpoints, imagine George Carlin as you are driving in rush hour traffic? (that would be NSFW really quickly). Next guy! what would you like for a sidekick when driving?

The Car as your Friend

JoshH

Sat May 17 23:21:55 -0700 2008
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Seems like this study should have took a page from star wars, its quite obvious we like our copilots to either chirp irrelevantly, or growl incoherently, and even that gets on your nerves fast just with perceived criticism. No one likes a backseat driver, digital or not.

Sidenote: I always surprise myself after typing a post here, No spelling errors! ...oh wait. (For some reason firefox does not check the fancy editor by default.)

The Car as your Friend

Harold Sharp

Sun May 18 06:24:46 -0700 2008
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The last thing I want is a car that nags me while I'm trying to drive. This reminds of me of the last brilliant idea some Japanese company had, 10 or 20 years ago, that replaced the annoying buzzers with an idiotic voice saying"the door is ajar". It not only is startling, because people didn't expect it, but became even more annoying than the buzzers in a very short time.

The Car as your Friend

Harry the Bastard

Tue May 20 19:37:35 -0700 2008
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The Aussie version would say "Shut the F....g door" when required ... Would say, "Shit a brick, you only just missed that last prick ..." or "watch out for the bloody Silly Woman Driver" ... etc. It really is not what is said, but the way you say it!