Thursday, October 22, 2015

The Solution to Driver Fatigue

Syncing up their smartphone's address book
proved a little daunting for some of the grayhairs.
When we last bought a new car, all the controls could be figured out without consulting the manual. The advanced features were airbags and a CD player. Now there are volumes to read and classes to attend. We are not averse to technological change: recent close calls have revealed the importance of innovations like blind-spot monitoring and back-up cameras.

The Google driverless car (CNN photo)
However, the electronics seems to have been bolted on top of and not fully integrated with the automobile framework.

Until we get to the next generation of "smart" automobiles (some of which will be autonomous), driving will be complicated and messy, much as wireless phones were before the iPhone. The Apple Car and the Google car can't come soon enough.

[Note: every car we've owned we've held longer than 10 years and 100,000 miles. Due to rapidly changing technology, however, the next one will be a 3-4 year lease.]

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