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Posts with tag hands free

Hands-on with the Motorola Smart Rider

by Chris Ziegler, posted Apr 7th 2008 @ 10:10PM Featured Story


We're really not so sure we can envision mounting one of these in our own slab, but we'll admit, Motorola's Smart Rider is just about the most fully-featured car kit we've ever seen. The thing's pretty freaking massive and the screen's plenty clear, which we figure is perfect for drivers who want to minimize the amount of time they spend fiddling with controls and maximize the time they spend... oh, you know, driving. In general, the device could stand to be just a little less angular -- we figure a few folks are going to balk at mounting this giant hunk of plastic in their beloved rides -- but then again, the device seems targeted squarely at fleets where aesthetic beauty is far from priority one. Click on to the gallery to get a sense of what we mean.

Gallery: Hands-on with the Motorola Smart Rider

Mvox Duo Bluetooth headset and speakerphone

by Thomas Ricker, posted Sep 26th 2006 @ 2:48PM

It's hard to believe this is a first (you listening China, Korea?) but Mvox is calling their Mvox Duo the "world's first all-in-one wearable smart communicator." Surely, it's not the fact that this Bluetooth headset can be used with your cellphone, hands-free car kit, or favorite VoIP application (yes, it works with Skype), so it has to be the fact that it does all that and contains a speakerphone. The speakerphone with "patent-pending small array microphone technology" is said to allow the device to offer near 100% voice recognition. In other words, it's designed to "grab the speaker's voice" while blocking-out the background noise. It can also be attached to the PC via USB cable which hopefully doubles-up as a charger. Available Q4 which could mean next week, for $199, list.

California to go hands-free in the car

by Chris Ziegler, posted Sep 15th 2006 @ 8:44PM

Banning phone use while driving is all the rage these days -- despite evidence suggesting it doesn't help -- and now California's the latest to join the bandwagon. The law, which goes into effect January 1, 2008, requires the use of a hands-free device when chatting behind the wheel, lest some Erik Estrada type pulls you over and slaps you with a $20 fine. Repeat offenders get their fine upped to $50, but apparently has no adverse effect on the driver's insurance premium; we suspect a sizable number of Californians are going to view an occasional $50 chat with a CHiP as more of a price of doing business than a deterrent (but then again, maybe that's the idea). And no, being parked in LA traffic won't count as an exemption.

[Via Autoblog]




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