Bans on Texting While Driving Dont Work - Assignment Example

Article Bans on Texting While Driving Don’t Work: No Surprise A survey conducted by the Highway Loss data Institute, a non-profit organization that conducts scientific studies on vehicle crashes statistics, on four states reveals that laws banning texting while driving are not effective, according to a news article featured in the website of PC World. This finding was reached after collision statistics show that collision incidences have not dropped but instead risen in three out of the four states surveyed. The author opines that the underpinning rationale for this may be that texting is only one of the sources of distraction of American drivers. Moreover, it is inherently difficult to enforce laws banning texting. The author suggests that rather than texting banning laws the authorities should look to better technology the likes of Google’s expanded voice actions for Android, the Dragon Dictation app for iPhone and the MyFord Touch, which conveniently allow drivers to use their mobile phones without touching them (Newman 2010). Since only four states out of the many states that have already imposed texting-while-driving banning laws have been subjected to the survey, the statement that such laws are ineffective is not really conclusive. However, it is not too far-fetched to presume that texting-while-driving banning laws are really hard to implement. The offensive act takes place inside a vehicle in these cases and chances are law enforcement authorities would actually have a difficult time espying who is and who is not using his or her cell phone while driving. Nonetheless, it has been established that texting while driving is a road hazard that can jeopardize the health and safety of people on the road. Thus, despite the difficulty of implementing such a law, the government should continue with zealously enforcing it. At the same time, a more effective and relentless campaign against the dangerous habit must be conducted in all media. Works Cited Newman, Jared. Bans on Texting While Driving Don’t Work: No Surprise. PC World. 2010 September 29. http://www.pcworld.com/article/206458/bans_on_texting_while_driving_dont_work_no_surprise.html?tk=hp_new. Article Title: StartTalking Lets You Text with Just Your Voice AdelaVoice, a venture-funded company located in Massachusetts, is announcing the launching of StartTalking, a software solution that promises to solve the hazard of texting while driving. Once installed on an Android mobile phone, StartTalking can be made useful when a person needs to use his phones but has to keep his hands and eyes on other things – like when he or she is driving. StartTalking runs quietly in the background ready to execute the voice commands of the user which can be initiated by uttering certain “prompts” like the words ‘computer’ and ‘operator.’ It allows the user to send messages, listen to received messages and other existing messages in the inbox, clear messages, read the time, and send status messages to both Facebook and Twitter – all through voice commands and even while the phone is far from the line of sight of the user. StartTalking comes at a most opportune time – when Massachusetts is implementing a law that fines persons who text while driving. I am not certain of the efficacy of this new technology with respect to preventing vehicle collisions and other road accidents engendered by the use of mobile phones while driving. It does offer the opportunity to multitask, which is really great, but it is nevertheless a way of taking off the mind of drivers off the task of driving. Activating the StartTalking requires the driver of a vehicle to prompt it with specific command as well as listen to it while it reads or runs back the messages to the user for confirmation and other follow-up commands. All these require a certain amount of concentration, implying that the driver divides his concentration between the task of driving and manipulating the smartphone. Secondly, the adoption of this system necessarily implies that the states repeal their respective laws banning texting while driving. This and the fact that AdelaVoice is expected to launch a large media campaign to promote StartTalking would encourage drivers to text, even those who previously did not adopt the habit. Works Cited Lowenson, Josh. StartTalking Lets You Text with Just Your Voice. CNET News. 2010 September 29. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20018096-248.html?tag=mncol;title. Article Title: FBI Drive for Encryption Backdoor is Déjà vu for Security Experts The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for the second time, is campaigning for the passage of a law that would mandate backdoors for encrypted communication systems allowing the agency to conduct surveillance in the name of national security. In the 1990s, a similar drive was launched by the agency for encrypted emails, IMs and phone calls, which it eventually failed to win. Today, the agency wants online service providers and software makers to have a contingent system for unlocking, for government surveillance purposes, all of their encryption systems. Some arguments, however, oppose the passing of such a measure: it can be made subject to abuse, not only by the authorities but also by hackers; it contradicts a 1996 National Research Council report findings that the advantages of encryption technologies to society offsets the disadvantages they present to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. I am not in favor of this FBI proposal. The government must not renege on its constitutionally-based obligation to guarantee the privacy of citizens. The government has a wide gamut of resources at its disposal to ensure national security and there is no need for it to impinge on the right of privacy of its citizen, one of the very few things that the latter has as a defence against bad elements out to victimize him. In addition, the freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution were crafted not only to ensure against abuse from others but also from the government itself. Allowing the FBI to find a way out of encryption systems to spy on the people in the name of national security is divesting the citizen of one of the remaining few tools he has in his personal arsenal to secure his personal safety in a globalized world where advances in technology make it almost impossible to remain private and anonymous. Moreover, if the FBI can use backdoors to encryption systems, there is also a great possibility that hackers and other lawless elements can use the same system to victimize people. Works Cited Singel, Ryan. FBI Drive for Encryption Backdoor is Déjà vu for Security Experts. Threat Level: Privacy, Crime and Security Online. 2010 September 27. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/fbi-backdoors/. Article Title: Smartphone Apps Drive Quiet Revolution in Banking Smartphone applications and mobile money management are revolutionizing the banking industry in the United Kingdom according to this news article, which recently appeared in the ComputerWeelkly.com website. Monitise, a UK-based mobile banking firm cites a research commissioned by them showing that smartphone users check their bank accounts 18-20 times a month as compared to six times for online banking users and less than once a month for call center users. Smartphone applications and state-of-the-art software, called the Mobile Money Manager Technology platform developed by Monitise for banks, allow bank customers to access their bank accounts and make transactions like bill payments and transfer money using mobile phones anytime and anywhere. Convenience is the byword of every new high-technology invention and mobile money banking certainly offers that. If this technology is already available locally, I would certainly embrace it and make use of it. I just can imagine, with great relish, being able to check or conduct bank transactions at any time wherever I am with just my phone. This is handier and more practical than using online banking and certainly, it would significantly diminish bank queues. However, the article did not elaborate on the most important feature that most people require when dealing with their bank accounts - the security features of that system. This should have been clearly detailed and emphasized by the article considering that mobile phones, because of their nature, may be more open to malicious attacks and wireless tapping. Neither did the article clearly detail exactly how the bank transactions are to be done although I surmise that this done through texting otherwise it would qualify as phone banking. And then there is the possibility of the phone being lost or snatched: could smartphones and smartphone applications leave any tracks or traces of bank transactions? Works Cited Williams, Jenny. Smartphone Apps Drive Quiet Revolution in Banking. ComputerWeekly.com. 2010 September 27. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/09/27/243042/Smartphone-apps-drive-quiet-revolution-in-banking.htm. Article Title: Mobile Broadband Wireless Technology Critical to Government and Homeland Security Powerwave Technologies, Inc., a global telecommunications corporation, recently hosted a Day of Innovation in Technology in Washington, D.C., where it conducted a special technology panel. Governor Tom Ridge, ex-Secretary of Homeland Security and presently with Powerwave’s Board, emphasized the role of mobile broadband to the US: as a competitive edge, and; as national security tool. Others include: F. Whitten Peters, ex-Secretary of the USAF, on the usefulness of the “cognitive radio systems with the active antenna in relationship to the filters” to the military; Ret. General John Jumper, on the advantages of the filtering and cancellation technologies to global security and airborne military networks; Prof. Paulraj of Stanford, on the future of antenna interference management; Prof. Ted Rappaport of the University of Texas, on the upcoming FCC rules on a broadband technology that can penetrate inside buildings more effective than WiMax or 3G, and; Khurram Sheikh, Chief Product and Development Officer, on the future of mobile broadband – the “Inside Out” networking. This speakers primarily talked about current state-of-the-art technology and its potential impact on national security agencies like the Department of Defense and the US Armed Forces. As can be gleaned from the different discussions of the panel members, the new technology can elevate the US military to greater heights. This is well and good. I hope, however, that the government can channel this new technology to uses, other than militarily, that can impact on the average American citizen. Ensuring that the US is still at the top militarily even if its economy is in shambles could be strategically sound but it would be sounder still if other facets of the American life can made more meaningful because of these new technologies. Works Cited Press Release. Mobile Broadband Wireless Technology Critical to Government and Homeland Security. The Wall Street Journal: Market Watch. 2010 September 29. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mobile-broadband-wireless-technology-critical-to-government-homeland-security-2010-09-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp. Read More