Transportation Department Looks To Regulate Navigation Apps

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/16/transportation-department-looks-to-regulate-navigation-apps/

by sunilkumarc • 12 years ago

13 8 12 years ago

One way to help the government establish tight controls over what kinds of programs you can run on any of your computers is to implement a single point of control and a single point of failure for the internet through ISP's. That way any programs anywhere that don't follow the agency's lead have to do their work without internet connectivity, or proportionally throttled speeds.

Then when these devices come closer and closer to who we are and what we think, the government will have the proverbial "internet delete button" for ideas and programs that should not be running through human minds or their devices.

The government wants backdoor and root access into the computer in everyone's pocket. This is for the best because the government is deeply concerned about the health and wellness of every single citizen.

How about we turn it around, and give the people guaranteed rights and root access into all of the smartphones of the senators, politicians, and lobbyists doing secret deals and bribes so that the civilization can help reign in rampant corruption that is destroying this country? I get a feeling this alternative "society wellness program" would get quietly blocked. Since when did the government become responsible for health and wellness? I thought government was only responsible for a few things that the free market could not do for themselves?

Whack-a-mole legislation on the internet isn't working, people just route around the damaged parts, what we need is a centralized government internet white list. A constantly updated list of things anyone can do, or any particular person can do, rather than a list of things that are illegal.

sj4nz2• 12 years ago

If they mandate that handheld navigation apps freeze out certain controls when the device is in motion (as in a car, boat, etc.) in an attempt to make things "safer" it will destroy the usefulness of any device.

Not everyone operating a hand-held device is the driver of the vehicle and forcing you to come to a full-stop in order to input an address is already the main reason why I'll never pay for a vehicle's built-in navigation system ever again.

bane2• 12 years ago

And with today's phones you can usually just say the address to the phone.

sj4nz2• 12 years ago

I don't have a phone smart enough to do this, and my experience with voice-inputs for most things usually forces you to pull over and type it in by hand anyway after several minutes of screaming.

swalsh• 12 years ago

I can't tell you how many times my wife has said "pull over, and stop driving so i can input the address". It's really annoying.

nmrm• 12 years ago

Could someone read through the website/bill [1] and verify this story even comes close to accurately portraying the bill?

As far as I could find, the text of the bill doesn't even mention the issue of navigation apps. Nor does the website. At the very, very most it mentions egnaging with state governments about driver safety issues. Which might possibly maybe include talking with people this issue, and definitely is not "regulation".

The NYT article mentions the agency has released general guidelines. That's a hell of a long way from "regulation", though... and it's completely unrelated to the bill or any legislative action afaict.

As far as I can tell this article -- at best -- massively hugely ridiculously sensationalizes.

[1] http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/DOT_surface_reau....

rwhitman• 12 years ago

I really wish there was a way to plug my iPhone into my car screen (2007 Prius) in a way that I could leverage Google Maps or Apple Maps on the primary screen instead of the phone screen. The GPS in this car is convoluted and broken, the Garmin I have is outdated and slow and the maps on iPhone both Apple and Google Maps are substantially more powerful and accurate.

We really need some new technology where we can plug in the power of our smartphones into the car with a larger screen without having to use the clunky interfaces the auto manufacturer or aftermarket systems give you, or rely on holding or mounting the device itself..

Transportation Department Looks To Regulate Navigation Apps

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