Smartphone Car Problems

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US regulators want to limit what people can do with their phones whilst driving. Sounds good to us! The US’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have published their first safety guidleines regarding driver distraction which specifically target things that you connect to your car such as music players or better yet, smartphones.

The guidelines, which are part of a second phase of NHTSA proposals are for the cars console. These were back in 2013 and they suggested that you got to touch a button to call someone rather than dialling a number. Which sounds really safe to us!

At the heart of it it is all about making things ‘dumber’ and ‘easier’ to use while behind the wheel to reduce the amount of distractions that we have while driving. The NHTSA suggest a thing called “Driver Mode” which are like Apple’s CarPlay and the Android Auto. Where a selection of apps or tasks are easily attainable through easy to use big button interface. For example Drivers could see maps that are on their smartphone in short chunks of texts that can be easily read from a quick single eye glance from the road, but with more reliance on voice activated commands than physical touch.

Sounds good right. But the NHTSA’s “Drive Mode” system, wants to go one step futher and prevent certain features being used whilst driving. Which makes sense as you shouldn’t be manually entering text whilst driving or adjusting maps to see where you are. The NHTSA suggests that it would be better with their “Driver Mode” to do things through “Driver Mode” where the user wouldn’t have to turn it on and it is automatically switched on once you enter the car and it the car is in motion.

 

However all this sounds really cool and safe and would go a long way to prevent accidents, these guidelines are exactly that guidelines. Car makers don’t have to implement the technology into their cars. Not only that some tech doesn’t play well with others like Google Maps doesn’t work with CarPlay so a driver has to mount thier phone on the dash.

While it is important to  make our drives safer, it still requires users to use self will not to get distracted and it does seem quite nanny state like to control what we can and can’t do with the stuff we own when in certain situations.

Will there be ways to prevent us from having more and more accidents, only time will tell, but this seems like a cool way to do it.

 

To hear the guys chatting about this please click here!

Electric Car Charing Ports for all!

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Electric cars are becoming more and more popular the past several years especially with the introduction of the Tesla. Now there are several huge car firms that are prepping for the future of car travel and are creating high powered charging networks across Europe. 400 Charging Sites to be exact.

The firms are BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen Group, including Audi and Porsche.

The charging stations (sounds like a massive dock for your car!) provides really quick charging for your electronic cars, along many major roads across Europe. (However we think 400 is a little small for such a large area of land) Tesla’s can’t use these charge points as their cars use different electronic systems, so if you have a Tesla, you’re out of luck. Sorry!

Reason being as the network will use combined charging system standard technology, while Drivers of electric cars can plug in and charge at speeds of 350kw which is a lot lot faster than you can get today!

To hear the guys chatting about this please click here!

Twitter Muting

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Twitter has shook a trolls life up!

This week Twitter has introduced a way to block/filter certain words or phrases from appearing on your timeline! It’s a brand new way from the social company to tackle trolls and abusive content on their site.

Muting a conversation that you are apart of is also a feature that muting allows. For example if you have engaged in a conversation for a while and have since dropped out of said conversation, by muting the thread you will no longer receive notifications regarding that thread (they will still be on the notifications tab on your Twitter profile, you just won’t have your phone constantly bleeping all day) Or if you have had a tweet go viral you can mute that also and stop getting notifications for that one tweet.

Another way that muting helps Twitter’s customers is the ability to avoid spoilers from sports events or film/tv shows from showing up in your notifications, however, they will still appear in your timeline – sorry!

Yet Twitter said in a post on their blog:

“This is a feature we’ve heard many of you ask for, and we’re going to keep listening to make it better and more comprehensive over time,”

So there may be some hope for you Walking Dead fans at least!

The main reason for the ability to mute certain words or phrases appearing in your notifications is a fight by the company against harrasment, racism and bullying on their platform. So alongside this muting feature Twitter have improved the way their users can report hate speech, with internal tools and training of staff to allow them to effectively and quickly deal with the content that’s reported to them.

While this feature goes along way to battle the bullies, Twitter said in a statement regarding the update

“We don’t expect these announcements to suddenly remove abusive conduct from Twitter. No single action by us would do that. Instead we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn”

To listen to the guys discussing this feature please click here! 

Fleetlights

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Fleetlights is a new initiative from Direct Line aimed at giving light to some of the darkest and most dangerous places in England.

What Fleetlights basically is, is a fleet of drones with lights attached to them which follow you around via an app on your phone. The best use for this would be in places like Petworth which is home to one of the
most dangerous roads in the UK. Due to the lack of streetlights people cannot see where they are going or walking so with the use of Fleetlights they are able to get home safely.

Direct Line are preparing for a future version of insurance companies where they’re becoming much more preventative of accidents rather than dealing with accidents after they have happened and Fleetlights looks like an incredible way to start! A user can even set a group of drone’s to light their path rather than just illuminating above them via a way pointed path set by the user.

To listen to the guys discussing ‘Fleetlights’ please click here!

Please see the video below for more information regarding the Fleetlights technology!

 

To listen to the guys discussing Fleetlights please click here!

Amazon’s Luxurious 1 Hour Delivery!

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Wines from Spirited wines and health and beauty products from John Bell and Croyden will be available to you within an hour (in selected London Postcodes) from Amazon! By joining forces with these companies Amazon will be expanding it’s product offering by approximately 47 percent. 

If you are a Prime Now customer you can browse Amazon like normal or you can visit special John Bell & Croyden or Spirited Wines stores which will add the things you wish to buy to a separate shopping basket. You do however have to spend a minimum of £20 before the 1hr delivery becomes available. If you cannot wait and have to have your goods super quick 1 hour delivery slots will cost you £6.99 but if you can wait a little longer 2 hour delivery slots will not cost a single penny!

That’s not all either! Amazin are now going to offer one hour delivery (priced at the same as luxury goods) from Morrisons to selected London or Hertfordshire postcodes! Amazons link with Morrisons began back in June however this latest agreement between the retail giants expands the ranges that are available to customers.

Click here to listen to the guys talking about Amazon’s super quick delivery!

Pax 2 vaporizer review

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The future of smoking (?)

Read more

Basic Universal Income

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Firstly what is a Basic Universal Income?

BASIC UNIVERSAL INCOME: Basically everyone in a country will receive state funded “wages” with everyone receiving the same amount of money each month in addition to any other form of income received from other avenues.

Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and the hyperloop amongst other really cool things, thinks we’ll eventually need a basic universal income because of “automation.” Automation being the theory that eventually all of our jobs will be taken up by Robots, leading to a loss of jobs for humans. How would human’s live without jobs? This is where Elon’s theory of Basic Universal Income (by way of Robots and job loss) comes into play.

There are a lot of benefits to a basic universal income. Speaking to CNBC Elon states that we will have a lot more time to do more “complex things and more interesting things” One of the most notable benefits being a lot more leisure time! (Plus it allows us to show you more ways to kill time!) But Elon did send out a small warning to anyone thinking that we are about to lose our jobs to those pesky robots, he states that we have got to “Figure out how we integrate with a world and a future with vast A.I….. there has to be some improved symbiosis with digital super intelligence,” He’s not wrong! We’ve seen Terminator! 

However on the flip side there is an incredible amount of benefits to the idea of basic universal income, everyone would essentially receive enough income to survive without working and we’d all live happier lives due to the less stress that we would be under. Plus the threat of homelessness and poverty levels would decrease causing an increase in the health of a countries economy.

So maybe robots taking our jobs aren’t such a bad thing after all……..

Click here to here the guys talking about basic universal income on the show!

RIP VINE :(

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What was once the epicenter for the short viral video creators you know and love today (King Bach, DeStorm, Hannah Stocking, Page Kennedy) Vine (before they all went to Facebook) was loved by millions of millennials around the world, creating usually relatable video meme’s or short funny videos that became meme’s in their own right has died.

Granted a lot of the creators had jumped ship to Facebook/Snapchat/Instagram due to more monetary values and the alure of Vine became less and less and less and less creators used Vine and thus did their audience.

Only four years ago before the app had even launched Vine, a mobile and web platform where users could post videos of up to 6 seconds which was put on an endless loop was purchased by Twitter for £24Million. Despite users being locked into Vine/Twitter (There was no way for the clips to be embedded on another social platform) Vine celebrities were created with hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of followers, with many earning a living with promoted and sponsored Vines.

There is not a date when the app will be closed by in a blog post from the creators on Vine’s blog site said that users will be “notified before we make any changes to the app or website”

However in a twist of events Pornhub VP Corey Price has offered to take Vine off of Twitter in an open letter:

“We figure since Twitter has dropped (Vine) and is having significant layoffs, that you and your stakeholders could benefit from a cash infusion from the sale of Vine. Not to mention we would be saving Vine gems like ‘Damn Daniel,’ ‘Awkward Puppets’ and many more.”

Not only that Pornhub wishes to “restore Vine to its NSFW glory…….six seconds is more than enough for most people to enjoy themselves.”

Let us know some of your favourite Vines via our Twitter : @howtokillanhour

To hear the guys talking about the death of Vine: please click here!

Philips Shaver Series 7000

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We here at How To Kill An Hour are a hairy bunch and what comes with hair comes with responsibility (unless your like this guy from Rebellion games with a MAGNIFICENT Beard that puts us all to shame) but if you’re not him and have to shave your beard every now and then well you have come to the right place as we have featured many a shaver on How To Kill an Hour throughout the time we have been live!

We recently used the Philips Series 7000 electric shaver with vacuum and let us tell you, this shaver is AMAZING! As it cleans up most of the mess that us guys leave in the sink (and get consequently moaned at by the other half) via the integrated vacuum cleaner! Yes that’s right an intergrated vacuum cleaner! For your face!

The shave has an innovative lift-and-trim system which raises those pesky hard to get to hairs then guides them towards the blades of the shaver, which in turn creates a quick and easy trim, especailly good for those “I’m going to be late” moments”

For more information on the Philips 7000 Beardtrimmer with Vacuum please click here! 

To buy a Philips Series 7000 shaver please click here! 

To listen to the guys talking about the Philips Series 7000 please click here!

The Bragi Dash!

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This past week we have tried a headphone that is truly revolutionary, we were excited to try our hands at these and these boys did not disappoint!

Heralded as the “world’s first hearable” the Bragi Dash helps you as you train, it’s like a ‘Personal Assistant in your ear’ it’s basically a super powerful computer built into a headphone, packed with tons of features such as 4gb flash storage, bluetooth technology and touch controls make it one of the most technologically advanced piece of tech we have ever tried on How To Kill An Hour!

That’s not all, with integrated gesture controls all you have to do to answer a call is nod your head or turn your head from side to side to reject a call! With a ton of activity trackers for the sporty people out there such as heart rate trackers, step counts, a calorie counter, a stopwatch and much more these little headphones have big pulling power!

Check below to buy your own pair!

 

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To buy your own pair of Bragi Dash’s please click here!

To listen to the guys discuss the Bragi Dash please click here!