Researchers Find A Way To Shut Down Phones While Driving

Remember the ads on TVs asking not to use cell phones while behind the wheels and you might have seen cops getting in to stop you talking and texting on phones too. As talking and driving has been one of the most seen causes of road accidents, nobody really cares. But now researchers have found a way to stop you from doing all such stuffs.



While using phones during driving is not accepted by law some mobile carriers in the United States Sprint and T-Mobile have tried their best to employ this technology through an app to lock down the phones, but has failed to recognise whether the user is the driver or the passenger and even locks down the phones even if the user is on a public transportation. Though the app contains some function override ways, still it's not accurate as it is expected to be.

Now a team of researchers led by Chen Stevens, Macro Gruteser and Richard Martin have come up with a new system that could differentiate between the driver and passenger using only the Bluetooth connection and the speakers of the vehicle. In this algorithm the Speakers would be emitting some frequency signals which would be caught by the phones and the time of the signal to reach the device would be the factor to determine whether it's the passenger using the phone or the driver and accordingly act to stop certain services like text messaging and voice calls, etc.

This technology has been reported for accuracy up to 95 percent and an accuracy of 80 percent is maintained when the phone is placed in a cup holder. This, of course, comes with some limitations too that the vehicle has a Bluetooth receiver and has all speakers in working condition.

Lots of technologies are being invented everyday just to keep the humans safe while driving but it's all up to the user to implement them and be responsible while behind the wheels to be safe and keep others safe.

Source: CNET