Electronic Books - Ready For Prime Time

I sent my friend Eric a recent ad from Amazon about the Kindle electronic book.

His reply was “Solution for a problem that didn’t exist?”

I totally understand his reaction and have been on the same page for many years (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). But I suspect this is probably like the DVR, something you didn't think you needed until you tried it. I have a DVR that I got through Dish Network and I love it. I set it to record the shows that I happen to like, and it records all of them over the next week or so, or just the new ones, depending on how I set it. Then I watch them when I have time, without the commercials. I often wonder how I got along without it.

So, although I have resisted the urge to buy an electronic book due to the high price and the hard to read screens, I am seriously thinking about it now with the promise of electronic paper. After reading some of the user feedback, I'm expecting the next version of the Kindle to have more memory, better ergonomics and lower cost.

It's like digital encyclopedias versus paper ones. As e-books evolve, you will be able to search a document, highlight a paragraph, tag it, save it, and email it to friends just like you do on a PC, only in this case it will be in a form factor that is much more comfortable to read than sitting at a desk staring at a monitor, i.e. on a bus or on your balcony overlooking the Swiss alps. The Kindle is networked like a cellphone, not WiFi, so it should work almost anywhere.

Eventually, the DRM legal issues will get worked out so it is not so restrictive, and you can share passages with friends or resell your copy. Maybe they will even get to the point where the creative guy gets the bulk of the royalties, and the middle man just gets a small percentage.

I still prefer the character and feel of a real book and the fact that you don't need batteries, but at some point the two curves will cross and electronic books will become "better than cutting down trees" for many purposes. For example, my kids had to lug 30 lbs of textbooks back and forth between school and home every day. You could take your back out reaching across the car seat to grab one of those backpacks. That's at least one good argument right there.

RFID License Plates

I think it’s high time we moved away from the antiquated low tech way we have of identifying vehicles on the road. I’m talking about the dumb metal plate with letters and numbers embossed on it that we call tags or plates. We now have the technology today to do much better.

As has been done in the UK and other places, it is time we switched to RFID license plates. The new plate would be made of nylon or some very tough plastic composite material with a chip embedded in it. The chip would be programmed with the VIN number of the vehicle, the make, model, year built, registered owner, etc. The RFID chip would probably need to be passive with a large antenna so that it doesn't need to be connected electrically to the vehicle.

Benefits:

• Ability to confirm that the plate goes with the vehicle just by matching the make and model of the car.
• Ability for police and parking enforcement to accurately identify the registration and eliminate errors of writing down the tag number or errors in radioing in the numbers. This is especially useful with vanity plates that have some arcane combination of symbols and letters and numbers that are easy to misinterpret.
• Faster way to ID a vehicle electronically. The officer would just aim a reader at the car and the info would pop up on his screen, no need to type it in on a computer or call it in.
• Ability to scan vehicles at full speed at checkpoints
• Better control of vehicles at the borders
• Cars that run red lights would be accurately identified – no need for photographs that are hard to read during the daytime and almost useless at night.
• Automated speed traps. A combination of radar and RFID readers would be incontrovertible evidence of speeders.

You’re may wonder if I work for the justice department. Actually no, but I am an advocate for better traffic control. I am convinced that it is the wild guy on the freeways that sets up situations where massive collisions occur. We all notice the guy who is weaving all over the place, passing around traffic at 85 in the slow lane, constantly changing lanes in an attempt to go 20 or 30 mph faster than the prevailing traffic. He is the guy who cuts in front of people scaring them into over reacting and causing accidents. This is often the guy who leaves dead people in his wake, unaware of the consequences of his reckless driving. Why does he get away with it? Because he enjoys effective anonymity on the road. Unless there is a cop right there, he is free to drive any way he wants with impunity.

I watched one of these guys on the way to work a few months ago. He was totally out of control. He was making such drastic lane changes in his truck that you could see the whole vehicle tilt left and right as he was careening around other cars. It wondered if he was on drugs. When you see such a blatantly unsafe driver you instantly think “where is a cop when you need one.”

So, consider the impact on people’s driving habits if they knew that their speed or their driving was being constantly monitored as they go through every intersection. The RFID readers and radar detectors can be small enough to be unnoticeable, possibly buried in the pavement like the traffic sensors. Inconspicuous enough that you start to believe that they could be anywhere. Soon you pay more attention to your speed and you drive more conservatively knowing that the police have the advantage of technology. It is as if you amplified the effect of people driving in the vicinity of police cars where they take it easy and watch their driving.

Another thing to consider is our ever growing traffic congestion. As drivers pay more attention to speed and avoid reckless actions, there will be less stress on the road, fewer lane changes, which translates to less congestion, less road rage, an easier drive to work. Small changes in our driving habits would also save gasoline. A more conservative foot on the gas pedal will save a huge amount of energy across the entire population.

It is time to move away from the no-tech license plate and encourage people to be more responsible. A little psychology can save energy and so many lives.

To those who counter with the argument that RFID is somehow an invasion of privacy, my response is that if you are one of the people running red lights and doing 50 in a 35 zone, you have made the conscious decision to ignore other people's safety and deserve to be caught. RFID license plates are just a more effective way to make drivers accountable for their actions and in the process, make the roads safer.