Tag: wearable gadgets

Gadgets lead to new form of dangerous driving

The first traffic ticket has now been issued to an individual who was wearing Google Glass.

Someone has now become the first to be charged for distracted driving while wearing the augmented reality gadgets known as Google Glass.

This represents the first time that a California driver has been ticketed while distracted by wearable devices.

The driver received the ticket in San Diego County, and has now been cited for driving while distracted by wearable gadgets – in this case, Google Glass. The driver was Cecilia Abadie, who was 44 years old, at the time. She received the ticket after having been initially pulled over for speeding. That said, while the driver was pulled over, the officer noticed that she was wearing the device and upgraded the ticket for driving while distracted by a mobile computer.

This use of the gadgets is currently considered to be completely illegal, in California, while behind the wheel.

Gadgets - Traffic TicketAccording to the California Highway Patrol (CHP), it is not legal for a motorist to operate a motor vehicle while using a video monitor, TV, video screen, television receiver, or other means of displaying a television or video broadcast in a visual way, for a business or entertainment application, if it is visible to the driver, even if it is in the back seat, facing forward. This would imply that wearing these augmented reality gadgets could be defined as breaking the law as – depending on what is being displayed – it could be showing something of an entertainment or business purpose.

At the same time, according to Google, its gadgets are designed to assist their wearers to better communicate and experience the real world, not to distract them from important tasks – such as driver – in which full attention is required. There are a growing number of people who are hoping that Abadie will take her case to court and fight it, so that there will be a precedent in favor of future wearers of the augmented reality glasses.

Abadie has explained that if she does fight the ticket in court, the outcome may depend on whether the judge is a technophile, who understands the gadgets, or if he or she is someone who simply thinks that they are devices that look odd.

Mobile payments future is becoming clearer

The last few weeks are proving to be a defining period for this type of transaction.

Over the last few weeks, the combination of the groundbreaking mobile payments announcements made from Money2020 in Las Vegas and from the GSMA’s NFC & Mobile Money Summit in New York have allowed a much clearer vision of the future of this technology to be formed.

The leaders of the industry giants are now revealing the next steps that their companies will take.

This has given the world the opportunity to see a much clearer vision of the future of mobile payments technology, with increasingly pervasive tech as well as a considerable cooperation from the industry. As was pointed out by the co-founder and CEO of Ensygnia (a visual pay technology), Richard H Harris, m-commerce venders and retailers alike will now be working to give consumers a better shopping experience overall.

This includes the development of mobile payments for everything from smartphones to wearable gadgets.

Mobile Payments FutureIt also involves the creation of new ways for people to order their products and services and to employ mobile payments through the establishment of identity and by “tokenizing the things we use for identity,” said Harris.

The Visa global head of digital for developed markets, Sam Shrauger, explained that he sees the tech within the retail environment becoming more omnipresent. He stated that by being able to work together, it will become possible to establish a “strong ecosystem” that will be both secure and safe because it gives consumers the opportunity to – for instance – walk into a restaurant and have their meal already prepared and sitting on the table for them. He explained that mobile payments and commerce are “all about taking friction out of every aspect of the shopping, buying, paying, post-transaction experience.”

The Groupon owned Breadcrumb restaurant point of sale system founder, Seth Harris, agreed with Shrauger’s statement that cooperation of this nature will broaden, as companies are well aware of how difficult it is to progress in this way when they are attempting to do so on their own. “I think we’re going to see a lot more cooperation among a lot of the big companies than people really realise. It’s only through us all working together that I think we’re going to get there fast.”

PayPal’s vice president of global solutions management, Carey Kolaja, pointed out that there has already been notable progress in mobile payments and loyalty systems over the last year and a half; that more distance has been travelled in that time than it has in the last decade.