Hasta La Gadget!

We basically all knew this, but science just confirmed that novice drivers are easily distracted by cellphones on the road which leads, almost inevitably, to accidents. The study, conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, watched drivers as they texted, tweeted, and got into accidents. They found that as young drivers spent a few more months behind the wheel their initial skittishness turns into confidence, multi-tasking, and crashes.

According to the study, “drivers from 15 years to 20 years of age represent 6.4 percent of all motorists on the road, but account for 11.4 percent of fatalities and 14 percent of police-reported crashes resulting in injuries.”

“The true risk is probably higher than indicated,” said Feng Guo, co-author of the study.

Essentially what happens is that novice drivers begin with an excess of caution and then become distracted. By watching multiple drivers with hidden video cameras they’ve seen novices slowly become as distracted as their experienced counterparts. The co-authors, Charlie Klauer and Guo, compared a 100-car study of drivers between 18 and 72 with an 18-month study of 42 teens with little road experience. The setup included four video cameras and driving performance sensors. Data coders noted when the drivers were distracted by phone calls and texts and noted when the participants were in “crash/near-crash events.”

“In previous studies we found that crash or near-crash rates among the novice drivers were nearly four times higher than for experienced drivers,” said Klauer. “Therefore, it should not be surprising that secondary task engagement contributes to this heightened risk among novice drivers.”

Why does this matter to us technonerds? If someone could perfect the non-distracting notification/lock system, the world, I suspect, would beat a path to their door. As it stands, however, keep your eyes on the road and off your phone.

Last week it was rumored that Verizon is finally going to launch the Moto G smartphone for its customers in the near future. Now that didn’t come as a surprise considering that the carrier had already confirmed when the Moto G was announced that it would offer the smartphone to its prepaid customers. What did come as a surprise was the rumor that Verizon would offer it for $99, a significantly discounted price despite the fact that it normally costs $179 off contract, which is relatively affordable. Big Red has officially confirmed that the Moto G will be sold for $99 and that prepaid customers will be able to order it online from January 9th. The smartphone will reach its retail stores in the “coming weeks.”

Verizon’s official announcement follows word from Best Buy yesterday that it will begin selling Big Red’s variant of the smartphone as soon as shipments arrive at its stores, that too for the same $99 price tag as had been previously rumored. Moto G is billed as one of the most affordable mid-range Android smartphone out there, it is certainly an enticing option for those who are looking to save money but still want to have the luxury of using a bonafide smartphone without being tied to a two year contract.

Moto G Available For Verizon’s Prepaid Customers On January 9th original content from Ubergizmo.

There’s one unreleased Nokia device that is consistently making the rounds in the rumor mill. It is believed to be Nokia’s first Android smartphone, which was believed to have been shelved. Earlier today a tweet from the infamous leaker @evleaks claimed that the reports of Normandy’s deaths have been greatly exaggerated, hinting at the possibility that Nokia just might release this device. We have now come across what is believed to be the Android user interface of this much rumored device.

The authenticity of this image can certainly be called in question, because fabricating an image like this isn’t too hard. Though its worth noting that the device seen above is actually quite similar to all of the press renders of the Normandy we have seen up till now. Judging by the icons on the status bar, the Normandy has dual-SIM support as well as Wi-Fi. Not much is known about the specifications of this device at this point in time, and its not known when Nokia intends to officially unveiling it. Perhaps the launch might take place prior to the close of the acquisition of Nokia’s hardware business by Microsoft. One thing is for sure though, Normandy’s rumors are certainly not dying anytime soon. [Image via ithome]

Nokia Normandy Android UI Apparently Leaked original content from Ubergizmo.

Over the past few years there have been a number of major changes at Nokia. The company diverted its attention from Symbian and MeeGo to focus exclusively on Windows Phone devices. It did end up clinching over 92 percent of the entire Windows Phone market, but the opted to sell its hardware division to Microsoft. Today the company has announced that its plan to kill support for Symbian and MeeGo app has finally been completed. The announcement was made through Nokia’s Symbian Signed Twitter account.

It was actually back in October last year when Nokia announced that come January 1st, 2014, it would no longer allow developers to submit new Symbian and MeeGo apps, and that they wouldn’t be able to offer updates for existing apps. The company made this move to focus its attention on Windows Phone as well as its Asha lineup, which has been particularly successful in emerging markets. Symbian and MeeGo were once Nokia’s biggest weapons in its arsenal, however due to the onslaught by rivals iOS and Android, the company opted to exclusively adopt Windows Phone for its high-end devices and kill off Symbian as well as MeeGo. Today’s announcement can be considered as the final nail in the coffin for those platforms.

Nokia Kills Support For Symbian And MeeGo Apps original content from Ubergizmo.

Bump was a very popular file sharing application back in the day. Users could share files with each other simply through “bumping” their devices together. The app might have lost its lustre recently but that didn’t stop Google from picking up the company in September 2013. It seemed like a talent focused aquisition because work on the company’s apps stopped soon after the acquisition. Now it has formally been announced that the company’s Bump and Flock apps are going to be shut down and removed from the App Store and the Google Play Store on January 31, 2014.

Even though Flock wasn’t as popular as Bump, users are likely to miss it as well. It is an automatic photo sharing application which is capable of recognizing faces in photos. Once it identifies people in a photo, Flock can share it with them. Those who have been using both of these apps for quite some time and have data in them can simply launch then right now and get instructions on how to take out their data. It should be kept in mind that all data is going to be wiped once the shutdown date has lapsed, so there’s no point in procrastinating if you have data in the apps. Even though the apps will be no more, the team will continue to work on projects at Google.

Google To Shut Down Bump And Flock Apps original content from Ubergizmo.