A recent study suggesting that Siri and other voice-to-text services are just as dangerous to use while driving as traditional text messing is seriously flawed, according to one of Siri’s co-creators. The study, conducted recently by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, found that drivers who were texting took about twice as long to react as drivers concentrating only on the road. The delayed reaction times were roughly the same for drivers using Siri, but the service’s co-inventor Adam Cheyer argues that the study “seems to have misunderstood how Siri was designed to be used.” In an interview with Xconomy, Cheyer said that the Institute’s study was misguided because the researchers conducting it asked drivers to use Siri in an

Siri creator says texting-while-driving study was flawed, Siri is safe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on Wednesday said there was “some risk” that software being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp for the Air Force version of the new fighter plane would be delayed beyond late 2017. Air Force Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, the Pentagon's program executive officer for the F-35 program, said work on the software known as Block 3F was the biggest risk currently facing the $396 billion F-35 program, the Pentagon's largest weapons program. …

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Pentagon sees some risk of delay in F-35 software

A new study from the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University found that using a voice-to-text feature such as Siri to send messages while driving is just as dangerous as texting. Researchers found that both methods significantly delayed a driver’s response time. The study involved 43 participants who were required to drive along a test track while concentrating only on driving, and then repeat the task once while texting and again time using a voice-to-text feature on a smartphone. “In each case, drivers took about twice as long to react as they did when they weren’t texting,” head researcher Christine Yager said to Reuters. “Eye contact to the roadway also decreased, no matter which texting method was used.” The researcher found that response times

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Siri is just as dangerous to use while driving as texting

By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Using voice to send text messages while driving is just as dangerous as texting with fingers, with driver response times significantly delayed no matter which method was used, a study released on Tuesday showed. The study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University was the first to compare voice-to-text and traditional texting on a handheld device in an actual driving environment. “In each case, drivers took about twice as long to react as they did when they weren't texting,” Christine Yager, who headed the study, told Reuters. …

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Voice-to-text just as dangerous to drivers as texting: study

First thought: “Ha!” Second thought: “Oh, wait — competition is an excellent thing.” While it’s highly probable that AT&T is looking to both overshadow Google’s launch party and maintain a foothold in one of its most prized states, the outfit’s terse announcement of an impending 1Gbps fiber network should honestly be seen as nothing but excellent news for residents of Austin. Merely hours after Google and the city of Austin jointly made clear that Google Fiber would be hitting up local homes in mid-2014, Ma Bell has made public its “intent” to built a 1 Gigabit fiber network in the same area.

AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the “same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.” Of course, it’s seriously unlikely AT&T will offer up basic fiber connections for free in the way that Google’s doing, but on a macro level, we certainly hope this type of one-upping continues in more towns across the country. And, more specifically, that AT&T continues to roll out fiber networks on its own accord in various locales; with FiOS expansion indefinitely paused, we sure need someone to step up and keep the dream alive.

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Source: AT&T

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AT&T announces plans for 1Gbps fiber service in Austin, Texas; Google gets immediate competition