The Department of Transportation is encouraging automakers to install technology that will shut down the Internet in a car when it's moving. It's part of the plan to cut down on distracted driving that is now responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,100 people in 2010.
The Department of Transportation wants carmakers to disable connections to the Internet from smartphones, iPods and tablets. It also wants to prevent people from dialing a phone number that requires an area code and from entering an address into a GPS, unless the car is stopped.
The tricky part of this request is, how it would affect other people in the car? Will your kids be able to access the Internet from the backseat? The DOT can't make it illegal or order states to pass laws, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates the automakers.
Will there be more mobile connected devices than there will be people by the end of the year? That's a prediction from a group called Cisco. That would include iPods, smartphones, laptops and tablet computers. Cisco predicts there will be fewer people than smartphones by 2016.
Having a lot of friends on Facebook could make some people feel depressed. A survey this week showed that people who already have self esteem issues feel depressed when they read status updates from friends who show exotic vacation photos and posts bragging about their career or kids. Doctors said if those kinds of posts get you down, the more Facebook friends you have, the more posts you'll see. They went so far as to suggest the magic number of Facebook friends is 354. Of course, there's also the idea that our brains can only keep up with 150 friends.
Keeping you plugged in, I'm Jamey Tucker.
