Volvo will be able to watch you drive and pull over if you seem distracted

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Eyes off the road? As soon as next year, Volvo’s cars will be able to pull over automatically — thanks to cameras that watch you as you drive.

Earlier this month, the Swedish company announced its future cars will have a max speed limit of 112 mph. Now, the company says it’s introducing in-car cameras and sensors that monitor the driver for signs of distraction or intoxication — which include looking away from the road for too long, keeping your hands off the steering wheel, weaving through lanes, or reacting too slowly while driving. 

More about Safety, Volvo, Drunk Driving, Speeding, and Semi Autonomous

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TikTok is launching a series of online safety videos in its app

On the heels of news that TikTok has reached 1 billion downloads, the company today is launching new initiative designed to help inform users about online safety, TikTok’s various privacy settings and other controls they can use within its app, and more. Instead of dumping this information in an in-app FAQ or help documentation, the […]

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Even Apple’s self-driving car safety report is super secretive

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Apple’s autonomous car program is as secretive as ever. 

Compare the seven-page safety report Apple submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week to the 43-page color explosion from Waymo, the self-driving car startup from Google parent company Alphabet. 

Apple's first page.

Apple’s first page.

Image: apple / nhtsa / screengrab

Waymo's first page.

Waymo’s first page.

Image: Waymo

Both talk about each companies’ safety practices and guiding principles when it comes to self-driving vehicles, but only one (guess which one) keeps it brief and vague. Other companies like Ford, GM’s Cruise, and Nuro also share additional details and include charts, vehicle pictures, and images of — wait for it — people.  Read more…

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California to close data breach notification loopholes under new law

California, which has some of the strongest data breach notification laws in the U.S., thinks it can do even better. The golden state’s attorney general Xavier Becerra announced a new bill Thursday that aims to close loopholes in its existing data breach notification laws by expanding the requirements for companies to notify users or customers […]

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Tesla’s main Autopilot safety stat is seriously flawed

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It turns out that a heavily cited safety stat that Tesla received from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) back in 2017 isn’t so accurate.

Following a deadly Tesla crash involving Autopilot, Tesla’s semi-autonomous advanced driver assistance system, a 2017 federal report found that Autopilot led to a 40 percent crash reduction. But last week a small research group finally obtained most of the data NHTSA used to reach that number and found the underlying data was severely flawed.

The discovery confirms what the group, Quality Control Systems Corp., and others like this report from Wired last May. People had been skeptical for a long time. Even NHTSA said last year the numbers weren’t as solid as they had originally indicated. The QCS researchers wrote in their report, “Remarkably, NHTSA’s announcement was not accompanied by any of the data underlying this astonishing claim.” So back in 2017 they requested the data and successfully fought for accessRead more…

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Police license plate readers are still exposed on the internet

Smile! You’re on camera. At least, your license plate is. You might have heard of automatic license plate recognition — known as ALPR (or ANPR in the U.K. for number plates). These cameras are dotted across the U.S., and are controlled mostly by police departments and government agencies to track license plates — and people — […]

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YouTube will “ramp up” enforcement of its policies against dangerous challenges and pranks

YouTube announced several policy updates today, including more stringent enforcement of its ban on videos of dangerous challenges and pranks. In a FAQ posted to its support site, YouTube wrote “we’ve updated our external guidelines to make it clear that challenges like the Tide Pod challenge or the Fire challenge, that can cause death and/or […]

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Report: A manager at Uber’s self-driving unit warned executives about safety issues just days before fatal crash

Less than a week before a Uber self-driving SUV prototype struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona last March, a manager sent executives an email cautioning that its autonomous vehicle unit needed to “work on establishing a culture rooted in safety,” reports The Information. Robbie Miller, then a manager in the unit’s testing operations, […]

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Keep holiday gifts safe with a super strong door lock that’s on sale

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The holiday season is known to be a time of giving, but in reality, it’s the season of stealing. According to the FBI, many states see an increase in burglaries throughout the month of December, when people’s homes are filled with expensive gifts sitting out in the open. 

This holiday season, let’s make sure that Kris Kringle is the only stranger who’s secretly sneaking into your home. Ten times stronger than a deadbolt and designed by U.S. Special Ops veterans, the HAVEN Mech Lock will keep your house safe and secure whenever you’re there.

Check it out:

The HAVEN is a foot-activated, wedge-shaped door lock made from military-grade materials that mounts at the base of your door — its strongest point — and absorbs the force of an attempted break-in. It’s remarkably easy to install, and once it’s in place, all you need to do is walk into your abode and step on its pedal to set the lock. You don’t have to worry about your little ones accidentally activating it, either — it’s calibrated so that only adults can engage it. Read more…

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