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Applikompt^TM

Applied Computer Technologies^TM, Inc. 

Guess what we dreamed up today...        

              Then watch it happen tomorrow...

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Watch Secretary LaHood, DOT Driver Distraction Summit 2009

Please watch these Social Commentary videos about

Driver Distraction. 

Copyright Notice: The videos here are from our Research library and they are covered by copyrights.  Other videos are from YouTube and other public sources that permit embedding.  If you claim Copyright violation, contact YouTube or the site we are linking to and have your video removed.

What we do?:  Intellectual Property in the area of Driver Distraction Mitigation through smart HMI and adaptive Workload manager.

With the advent of the Information Age and Personal Computing, in the 80's and early 90's, came also an explosion in the need for data to travel and move to where we are. Cellular phone later came to the mix and solved the verbal data issue and notebooks solved the work data issue. Private Networks and later the internet made it even easier to access our data from anywhere even in the car. This led to another explosion: Driver Distraction due to In Vehicle Information Technology.

The automakers wanting to please their customers and try to profit from this revolution sought to use speech recognition as the one size fits all solution. They totally ignored human impulses and their effect on the driving experience, and focused on perfecting complicated and expensive speech recognition to do the job of a simple switch.

In the meanwhile, the Car remained an island all on its own without meaningful integration with the rest of the world and it remained alone with its hardwired contents isolated from the rest of the world. tapes and CD's allowed for the transfer of soft environment such as songs and books on tapes, but that was it.

We saw matters differently, particularly in light of the heavy travel experience. In addition to already experimenting with in car computing for navigation and later computerized driver assistance in 1985-1987 and 1989, we have now added Cellular Phones to the mix and we put together the concept of car specific applications and data just like we have home specific applications (video games) and office specific applications (Spread Sheet, Word processor etc.)

Unlike many fine researchers in the Academia, UMTRI, University of Iowa, or big budget government projects, SAVE-IT, PReVENT, IVBSS, we do not use theories developed in simulators. We actually developed our solution by following real life experiences of a focus group. This means video taping ourselves, and others while driving, since 1996 forward, and reviewing the tapes and decipher our actions and that of others. The review often involved passively as well as actively involving others in the review and as asking passively and actively a specific focus group of various ages and genders for their input on certain situation or activity. No wonder that 88% of the people that see the demo think of its as a safe device. One of the most fun observation we made is that of a grand mother usual hands position on the steering wheel which makes it seem that she is attempting to turn the steering wheel. We then observed that one grandson holds the steering wheel in the same manner but other siblings and cousins hold it differently.

Later research by many of our Academic and Governmental counterparts came to use similar research methods process and come to conclusions that support our findings. Eventually, we found many of our IP emphasized direction being transferred to controls, displays, navigation systems, cell phones, and warnings–used in the car while driving and we hope that our pending patents and documented development track will give us the upper hand when requesting the automotive industry to pay us reasonable royalties.

Our IP emphasis and our PR campaign in Europe and the U.S. was successful in steering the industry away from the Speech Recognition model as a solution to driver distraction to research to better understand Real People Driving Habits, but we believe the industry is still off because they are still ignoring many essential facts and trying to fit all in one solution and laying the responsibility of avoiding temptation at the driver.

The Automotive industry is not a villain here, nor it is the only contributor to the persistence of this problem.  Researchers and their funding partners are muddying up the water by confusing distraction, cognitive attention, hand free, and hand held.  The fact that cognitive attention effect is the same for hand held and hand free, does not mean that having hands free to control the steering is not safer.

To get an idea about the type of IP that’s pending, please see a sample of our solutions. More patents are being prepared almost on a regular basis in the Intelligent Vehicle arena and other related arenas, thus our motto, Guess what we dreamed up today and watch it happen tomorrow

.Social Commentary about Driver Distraction.  One by Professionals and another by a mother watching her infant

Driver Distraction Solutions

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Our Intellectual Properties

Patents, Trademarks & ©

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Articles

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What is Distraction?

This is an ongoing effort to put together a scholarly paper about the topic of Distraction.

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Eyes on the Road & Hands on the wheel is not an option? The best illustration for drivers to keep your eyes on the road and ands on the wheel is what other drivers do.  ---- Read More

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Speech Recognition? Really?

Many consumers, of all walks of life are still impressed with Speech Recognition and what it (Supposedly)can do.  The following are.....

Read More

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What is STMCGateway^TM?

STMCGateway^TM stands for Safe Telematics Monitoring and Control Gateway.  ----- Read More

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Help us Save Lives?

Some drivers take the responsibility of driving for granted. They do so by taking part in activities  ----- Read More

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Distracted Drivers captured on film?

Some drivers take the responsibility of driving for granted. Here is a sample ----- SEE More

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Hand Free is not safer then Hand Held?

Many of us have seen the reports and heard the news about the research concluding that --------

 Read More

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Hands On Wheel Interface^TM, (HOWI^TM)

Speech recognition failed to deliver on the Sci-Fi promise of computer obeying our every command. -------- Read More

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Driver Distraction- Our Views and Conclusion.

Defining the driving system is an essential part of working with driver distraction.------- Read More

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Assessment based on DrivingApplication^TM

The challenge is in assigning limits to telematics activities in a way that it will not interfere with safety or inconvenience the driver in a controllable driving situation------- Read More

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Intelligent Notification^TM, (IN^TM)

.-------- Read More

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Profile & Data Portability

We all want to take it with us, Right?

-------- Read More

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Blind Spot viewing made easy?

.-------- Read More

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The Concept of DrivingSystem^TM?

.-------- Read More

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Regulatory Submissions

Blog about Your Driver Distraction experience

Come join our

Driver Distraction Group

on LinkedIn.com

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NCSL database on             Cell phone Laws      Or follow this link

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Transport Canada Cell phone & Driving

Countries that ban cell phones while driving

A mother took this video of her son playing with his car and cell phone. I am not sure what her intent was, but it very much reminded me with my children and others at their early age and how they used to run to the phone when it rings. My son, used to leave me and go over to his grand parents, another apartment in the same structure, just to call me and talk to me on the phone. The same was true with one or more child in my immediate family as well as children of friends and colleagues. (Family children, now teen agers, were and are part of my focus group because they tend to act their real intention without prejudice).

he little boy here uses his phone exactly like an adult would. he partly imitates the adults (pulling open the antenna with his teeth), and he never leaves the phone to regain balance and falls to the ground while still holding the phone. This very much compares to the way adults hold on to the phone and continue the conversation, but they leave the steering wheel while driving to take a puff, scratch, sneeze, change the radio, etc.

The mystery of the phone, unlike a live conversation, always leave the spectator wondering about what's going on in that little set and make them yearn to be on the inside of the call. Could that be the reason why we can not put our phone down? The expectations? The Mystery? and the climax of knowing who is on the other side, even though it is not something we particularly like? I believe it is.

I believe that our obsession with these medias is just that, an obsession and a compulsion to be IN and not be left out. This is my conclusion and this video from the world wide web confirms our desire to be IN, Like Mom, Dad and our friends.

Please enjoy the video. Mouhamad A. Naboulsi

Copyright © 2007 Applied Computer Technologies, Inc.    Metro Detroit, Michigan U.S.A.  Phone: 001 248/736-7303  Voice/FAX: 001 313/731-0207