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Watch TV On Your Satnav
Barence writes "Satnav firm Mio is launching a device with an integrated TV tuner. The Mio Spirit range includes a digital television tuner that is intended to be used 'during breaks in the journey or at their final destination.' However, safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel. When the system is first turned on a warning message is displayed, telling the user not to watch television while driving. If this is ignored, a secondary warning message kicks in if the GPS chip detects the vehicle is moving at more than 5mph. But that's it!"
Similar devices are all over the place in South Korea. There isn't much scarier than weaving through traffic while your cab driver's watching the big game.
Life is like Unix and you are the superuser. With that comes the power to 'rm -rf' the system.. intentionally or not.
--iamnotayam
Get shitty drivers and give them mobile phones to talk on so they become even shittier drivers. Now get those bastards to watch TV while talking and texting on their mobile phones and we'll have the shittiest drivers on the road. Hopefully, these bastards will kill themselves without killing others, making the road safer for everyone else.
Oh well, back to reality.
Brian: "Look at all these Hummers. What kind of jerk would drive one of these?
Hummer Jerk: "Dude, this car kicks ass. And I can watch Madagaskar while I'm drivin'!" (looks to onboard tv)
Lion: "What kind of music do you like, Gloria?"
Hippo: "Hippo-Hop! Yeah baby!" (music kicks in)
Hummer Jerk: "Hahaha, those animals are so fucking funny, they wanna make me merge without looking! YEAH! RUMSFELD!"
http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l89/blackh3/?action=view¤t=fg-hummer.flv
My guess would be because they're fucking morons.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Even the current GPS units/DVD players can easily be defeated. In most cases, all you need to do is ground one of the pins in the connector, and it always thinks you are parked.
I've heard some people who want a GPS/DVD player with the GPS functions disabled take the even more nefarious route of just buying a DVD player :-)
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
More distractions for drivers will eventually mean more cyclists being killed on the road. Looking on the bright side, this could accelerate the eventual transition towards having computers assume control of vehicles on the streets.
Exactly what I was thinking - there's a use case where you know your route but only want to carry one device and so entertain the other passengers by using it as the TV rather than using the SatNav (which you may need later) as a navigation device.
Yeah, people watching TV while driving is a problem, but there are far more prevalent problems that'll cause just as many accidents: people doing 100Mph+ on Motorways with warnings of queuing ahead, people not indicating, people on mobile phones, etc.
wreckless driving, and it shouldn't be tolerated. Shouldn't anyone watching TV while driving lose their license?
Presumably all the people who find this acceptable would have no problem if the surgeon putting them back together after they crash watches TV whilst doing the surgery.
"... safety campaigners fear there's little to stop the television being used at the wheel."
When the original version of The Andromeda Strain aired on TV circa 1971, I packed a 12" B&W Zenith portable with a 12 V DC car cigarette lighter adapter into a friend's car and we set out watching it. He made it 2 blocks before hitting a curb. I tried and made it 1 block before doing the same. We then parked and watched the rest.
So they're right to be alarmed. They're just several decades late. But then, we knew it was stupid to try it. I suspect far more people these days wouldn't realize that unless the TV told them, and then many would still ignore it. I'd wish for natural selection to take its course with them, except it might do so head on with someone not deserving of the same fate.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Isn't one of the drawbacks of an ATSC digital signal that it's difficult to maintain a lock on it while you're in motion? They're advertising it as something to do once you arrive in your destination, so its not like people haven't been warned about the realities of the situation
Because if only we could prevent this one particular stupid thing people can do while driving we will eliminate all driving-related injuries and deaths.
Every little bit helps.
But I can't help wondering why the multi-tasking geek always trots out this excuse for inaction.
It's a patently false dilemma.
We can do other things while we do this one thing.
Whatever happened to sitting in the back shutting the fuck up and feeling miserable? I miss those days.
http://bash.org/?195969