Comments on: Palm Supports CA Hands Free Cell Phone Bill

You must initiate with voice dial or you're in violation pal. Too bad the Treo 650 won't do it. Next it will be you can't use character recognition while driving, ... only a built in keyboard.

Pat Horne

Bluetooth is a specification to standardize on a low-cost, low-power RF (Radio Frequency) solution for wireless transmission between a wide variety of devices such as PCs, keyboards, cordless telephones, cell phones, headsets, printers, monitors, LCD projectors, and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants).Initially developed by Ericsson, the specification was furthered by the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group) consortium (April, 1998) of Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba. At some point during this process, the code name Bluetooth was attached, after Harald Blaatand, the 10th century Danish king who unified Denmark and conquered Norway. (I'm betting that the Vikings at Ericsson had a good deal to do with the name selection.)
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Tanyaa
http://www.legalx.net"REL="DoFollow">california dui

Oh c'mon Pat. Do you really think it's a bad thing to say people should focus on driving when they're, erm, driving?

We've had similar legislation here in Oz for quite some time. It doesn't stop everybody but most people now will pull over to take phone calls, rather than keeping on driving and risking a fine and demerit points. And that's a good thing!

I'm sure that nearly all of us here have had a scary experience on the road at some point, with some moron talking on their phone and not watching where they're driving. (Personally, a 4WD nearly ran me off the road last year while its completely oblivious driver yakked away.) Studies have shown people talking on mobile phones while driving are nearly as bad as drunk drivers. As Gekko says, they're a menace to society.

Ugh. I agreed with Gekko. How do I get this taste outta my mouth?

(and yes, Palm should be focussing on building better devices, but we all knew that, didn't we? ;) )

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

"Just because it's "good" doesn't mean the State has to babysit its subjects into it."

Well, its your country. But I have a feeling those people who've been injured (or worse, killed) by irresponsible phone-wielding drivers would see things somewhat differently. Drink-driving is illegal; since talking on a phone affects your judgement in much the same way, isn't it just a no-brainer talking while driving should be illegal too?

The risk of collision while using a mobile phone is increased 4-fold, compared with a 2-fold increased risk when driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.06 per cent, the study authors wrote. A case–control study showed that the risk of a fatality is increased 9-fold when using a mobile phone.
^^ http://www.mydr.com.au/default.asp?Article=4044

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

The studies (perhaps including the one cited just above) do not say :

== "Holding a phone and talking is worse than drunk driving"

They instead say:

== "Talking on a phone is worse than drunk driving"

Hands-free is politically nice but functionally a NOP.

Google is your friend.

Cell phones as dangerous as drunk driving
July 1, 2006 10:00 AM PDT

Is having a cell phone pressed to your ear while behind the wheel the equivalent of driving while intoxicated? According to a study by University of Utah psychologists, the answer is, unfortunately, yes.

"Just like you put yourself and other people at risk when you drive drunk, you put yourself and others at risk when you use a cell phone and drive," writes David Strayer, a psychology professor and the study's lead author. "The level of impairment is very similar."

http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-6090342.html

...I'm sure you'll find (at least) the one that notes that it is the talking, not the hand-use, that is dangerous.

That would certainly be interesting to see. Begs the question about simply talking to the guy next to you in the passenger seat.

(I simply don't know nor care enough to check!)

I used to throw around a particular "statistic" to make a point. Years later, I went back and found that I was sorely mistaken about what I thought I knew. Additionally, I usually don't trust the conclusions of a study until I can see the methodology as well. It's just too easy to manipulate the process.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, da*ned lies, and statistics." Mark Twain (supposedly quoting Disraeli)

I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.

As they say (quite accurately), there are lies, d#$@ lies, and then there are statistics / studies.

Pat Horne

I, for one, welcome our qwerty keyboard-dialing Palm overlords.

Tooling down the road at 65MPH trying to dial a Treo with the tiny buttons (or the miserable software screen method) is much more practical than including voice-dialing (at least for wired) on a $650.00 phone.

Maybe it's Palm, Inc. whose thinking is impaired for supporting this, even though I personally agree with it wholeheartedly.

Perhaps Palm figures nobody will look at the phones they produce and bring up the fact that they are one of the worst phones to dial WITHOUT holding it in your hand?

Why wait? Don't hold your breath.

OLED is overrated.

VL wrote:
Right now the i-mate JasJar PPC has my attention. Just considering my options at this point.

The JASJAR is neat, but unfortunately ill-designed if you're not in Europe. It doesn't support US UMTS or even EDGE networks, and it doesn't support the 850 MHz band either.

There are reports of a Universal (JASJAR) successor called the Omni, due out late this year or early next, which keeps the design and VGA screen but boosts the connectivity to HSDPA. At this point, it's unknown whether this model will include US frequency support, but I'd suspect it will.

SV wrote:
Doesn't HTC design/manufacture all of HPs (among others...) handhelds?

They used to, but HP wanted to bring their design in-house, which is what resulted in the 1700/2000/3700/4700 family of UghPaqs. I think that HTC still manufactures for them, but they no longer do the design. Pity. The best iPaqs were the ones HP never touched.

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=121351

>It certainly cannot be any worse.

You're new here, eh? ;)

...now if it would only stay paired with the Treo it would be worth more than you paid for it....