By now, you’ve probably heard that West Virginia may ban Google Glass use while driving, and it might just be on to something given those snowy mountain roads.

The piece of legislation proposed by Gary Howell, a Republican from Mineral County in the West Virginia House of Delegates, would ban drivers from wearing Google Glass while on the road. He equates its multitasking features, such as text messaging and Internet connectivity, to using cellphones while driving — a practice that West Virginia and a number of other states have banned.

And yeah, as the video above demonstrates (and our own Jolie O’Dell attests to), West Virginia has some roads so scary that you probably don’t want blinking texts to distract you from.

Howell told CNET that he believes the government “has no business protecting us from ourselves,” though he does think it has a place making sure we don’t hurt others. Google Glass, he says, is just the right kind of distraction to get us in trouble.

The bill may very well not pass, however, and Howell says he’ll try again in 2014 if it fails. Then, he says, we’ll unfortunately have first-hand accounts of Google Glass causing accidents.

But while this may be a great piece of legislation for West Virginia, it might not be as pivotal for, say, Kansas:

hat tip Ars Technica; Google Glass image via Google

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Americans spend 45 billion hours a year in the car, which is more than four times as much time as they spend on Facebook.

Joyride seeks to make this time more fun with voice-activated mobile applications that provide a safe and social way to spend the driving hours. The startup is launching publicly today after presenting off-the-record at the Founder Den Demo Day last week and announcing $1 million in funding.

Founders Jeff Chen and James Zhang previously developed Skyvi, a voice-activated media app which is like Siri for Android. They applied this expertise to creating the VoiceUI Architecture platform that forms Joyride’s foundation.

“We are not talking about a simple ‘navigate’ or text command,” said Chen during an interview at VentureBeat. “We are talking about a full-blown rich mobile application that is 100 percent hands-free and brings all the social fun pieces of the Internet to you while you are driving.”

The first application built on this voice platform is a trivia game. Your phone asks you questions about historical figures, landmarks, or events (and more) and provides clues. When you have a guess, you say it out loud, and you score points for being right. The game is what Chen describes as “fake synchronous.” You are neither playing against other people in real time or against a machine. Instead, you are matched against other players whose activity was already saved in the system. It gives the illusion of social connectivity — without the behind-the-wheel dangers.

“Internet penetration of the car is a big macro trend, and Internet usage in the car is inevitable,” Chen said. “Voice tech is finally getting really good, and with cloud services and connected devices, we are really seeing voice recognition where it can be great.

“The third factor here is social. People are super-bored while they are driving, and we think people want a social experience that is a safer alternative to mobile apps.”

The technology’s design has three criteria, according to CTO James Zhang. The first is a “reusable voice user interface” (VUI) that maintains data about certain commands. The second is how it handles arbitrary user input, or knowing what interactions apply to the app and which don’t. Third is the “equal coexistence” of voice and gesture user interface, all connected to the driver through the smartphone’s connectivity and an AUX jack or Bluetooth.

Down the road, Joyride plans to build a diverse library of applications on top of this platform that provide engaging in-car experiences.

“The most important thing is that people are suffering in their cars,” Chen said. “They are these tiny little boxes with tiny little windows and we are going to turn cars into starships and make it fun and interesting and even safer. This is just the beginning. It is a cool, untapped area that has a lot of potential.”

Investors see potential here, too. Freestyle Capital and the Cowboy Venture Fund, as well as angel investor Seth Goldstein, provided seed financing to to build out the engineering team and accelerate entrance into the market.

Photo Credit: Joyride

Today, Cisco and NXP announced they are making a strategic investment in Cohda Wireless, which builds hardware to make cars smarter and more connected. The technology creates wireless communication systems between cars, as well as between cars and infrastructure, to create a safer driving environment. It allows vehicles to interact with each other so drivers receive notifications about cars traveling at high-speeds, out-of-control vehicles, or traffic congestion, and have a better chance of avoiding a collision.

“Driving is really one of the premier use cases where we will be able to experience the power of the Internet of everything,” said Andreas Mai, director of product management for Cisco’s smart connected vehicles unit. “This technology allows cars to communicate with each other and with infrastructure like traffic lights. Various test sets have proven that this could prevent 80% of crash scenarios.”

Cisco has been working on smart vehicles for a few years now and recently funded a separate business unit to work on creating more connected cars. Even though new cars often come tricked out with safety features, millions of people around the world are still injured or killed in traffic-related accidents every year. There is still a long way to go, and by creating a stronger link between vehicles and their drivers, Cohda’s technology seeks to reduce accidents by making safety systems more dynamic and responsive.

“If you are driving and another car is approaching on a side road driving too fast, the system in your vehicle is aware of the other vehicle and can generate a warning so you can take steps to avoid the accident,” said CEO of Cohda Wireless Paul Gray. “If the time is too short for the driver to react, the vehicle may preemptively break. What this means for the driving public is significant improvement in safety.”

As this is a two-way dialogue, the technology is only useful if a significant number of cars on the road have it. Cohda has partnered with 12 car manufacturers in Europe to install the technology in their vehicles in 2015 (model year 2016). The equipment is also being tested in the US, with eight car makers engaged in trials in Detroit. While it is important for multiple car makers to collaborate to make deployment a reality, each manufacturer has control over how they implement the technology.

“From a driver-experience perspective, they want additional security for their vehicle, but there are a range of industry implications as well,” Mai said. “On the business side, the connectivity of cars will transform the automotive industry. We are going to be able to connect vehicles to the Internet, which means applications in the entertainment space, location-based service space, and insurance space. The insurance industry is very keen to understand better what really happens in the event of an accident. Then there are the services you can provide. Remote diagnostics mean that abnormalities can be detected and customers told when a service is needed.”

Cisco’s expertise in software and networking and NXP’s experience with building semiconductors will help Cohda bring the technology to market. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple has updated the maps that Australian police warned about yesterday, moving the town of Mildura out of Murray Sunset National Park and back where it belongs. But there are still problems right here at home.

Aussie police had recommended that motorists not use Apple’s Maps app, noting that some travelers had been stranded for up to 24 hours in a very desolate and hot desert area with no water supply.

As the Guardian notes, and VentureBeat has confirmed, Apple has fixed that issue.

Which is great for Australians. But the middle of the Australian continent is not the only place where drivers are being put into danger.

I received this email yesterday from an American driver, Joey Newell, who had a Friday the 13th episode with Apple Maps:

This past Saturday night, my girlfriend and I were returning from a company Christmas Party in Yazoo City, Mississippi (an area we are unfamiliar with) headed home to Brandon, Mississippi just after midnight … it was raining.

iOS Maps suggested we take the Hwy 3 exit … which we did …

It then suggested we take a right onto Eagle Road … which we did … a near fatal mistake …

After traveling along the road for approx. 10 miles it suddenly turned into a gravel road … please keep in mind this is a desolate road … no homes, no lights, no businesses … just pitch black, muddy fields, and trees … we were in the middle of nowhere …

As we continued to inch down the muddy gravel road it became treacherous due to the rain and we noticed that we were sliding … if we slid off the side of the road we would be stuck for sure 10 miles from anywhere in the dark of night in the rain …

iOS Maps told us we had 6 miles to the Highway so we pushed forward … my girlfriend was terrified …

As we got closer to the Highway were were confronted by a strange man in the middle of the road trying to flag us down … Bizarre because this is the middle of nowhere … He was holding something in his hand which we couldn’t make out due to the darkness and rain … We both became terrified and had to make a decision … We knew it was dangerous because if we slid off the gravel road we would be stuck and then would be confronted with this individual whose intentions were unknown … this was a bad situation … One we never should have been placed in … we should never have been directed down a dangerous, isolated gravel road.

We took the chance and slid around him on the gravel road nearly getting stuck and pushed on … It was something straight out of a horror movie … Total fear … We will never use iOS Maps again and I strongly advise nobody else does either … It can get you killed.

I can’t confirm all those details, although I have asked Newell for more exact departure and arrival addresses (and will update when and if they arrive). But there are clearly significant issues in Apple’s Maps in various places.

A personal pet peeve: Maps is rather brain-dead about helping you when you give it limited information. I noticed two examples on a recent trip to pick up a sofa.

In both cases, I searched for a street name, assuming (or hoping, the second time) that Maps would find a street somewhat near me, around Vancouver, Canada. Instead, in the first case it found not the Hastings Street in Vancouver, just a few miles from where I was, but the Hastings Street in the UK, thousands of miles (including, by the way, an ocean) away.

In the second case, Apple’s Maps didn’t look in my nearby vicinity for a “Johnson Street,” choosing instead to find a Johnson Street 12,520 kilometers away (amazing but true, see below).

In either case, you would expect a user-friendly, intuitive mapping application from a company like Apple to default to nearer options, which are more likely to be the ones you are searching for. Particularly when oceans intervene, and there won’t be any driving directions possible between the users’s currently location, and the mapped one.

Apple is apparently hard at work on fixing Maps, which is a good thing. Because it desperately needs it.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just in time for the Summer driving season, driving app Waze is today embarking on bold new territory: crowdsourcing the best gas prices.

With the latest version of the free Waze app, launching today, you’ll be able to find gas stations and compare their prices in real time. Even better, the company is offering exclusive gas discounts to users at participating stations. Waze also announced that it has reached 19 million users.

Waze’s apps, which are available on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones, offer free turn-by-turn directions. But Waze’s true value is its vast amount of live traffic data. Crowdsourced entirely from its users, the data makes Waze a far more useful alternative to standalone GPS units.

Cheap gas apps like Gas Buddy and Fuel Finder have been around for some time, but Waze has the advantage of integrating its gas info alongside GPS routes.

Gas information is Waze’s first vertical attempt outside of its core crowdsourced navigation feature. Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze’s VP of platform and partnerships, said the company will slowly begin to explore other verticals as well.

Waze has also finally added the ability to use waypoints on your trips, allowing you to plot more than one location for a single journey. The company also has brought its nifty voice control feature to Android phones with this latest update.

Waze is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and has raised over $55 million thus far.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

There’s no stopping Waze, the crowdsourced app that offers free GPS navigation. The company announced today that it has raised another $30 million in growth funding, led by Horizon Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Waze also confirmed that it has topped over 7 million users, thanks to its aggressive global expansion.

The news comes on the heels of Waze’s recently launched 3.0 version, which boasts a revamped design, search integration, and more. The company’s free app, which is available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. Waze’s claim to fame is the generous amount of live traffic data it has access to, which is powered completely by user contributions.

The company says it will use the additional funding to support its growing user base, as well as help bring its service to China. “Expanding to China, the world’s fastest growing automotive and smartphone market, is an obvious next move for us,” Waze CEO Noam Bordin said in a statement today.

Along with the funding, Waze is adding to its board John Malloy, managing partner at Blue Run Ventures, and Jason Wong from Horizon Ventures. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker is also joining as a strategic advisor and board observer, and she’s joined by Josh Silverman, former Skype CEO and currently president of American Express’s US consumer division.

Palo Alto, California-based Waze previously raised $25 million in funding last December.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

DEMO Fall 2010 alumnus Bump.com, a social network that links people through their car license plates, has raised more than $1 million in its second round of funding, VentureBeat has learned.

As the DEMO Spring 2011 conference wraps up, Bump.com’s funding news demonstrates how the event, which VentureBeat coproduces with tech publisher, IDG, often sees graduates move on to greater and greater business success.

CEO Mitch Thrower wouldn’t disclose exactly how much the company raised in its Series B-1 funding round, but said the round was oversubscribed — meaning there was more offers for funding than Bump.com was willing to take from investors. The round was closed in a little more than two weeks, Thrower said. (The service is not to be confused with Bump, a content-sharing application for the iPhone.)

Bump.com users take a picture of a license plate and pass a message along through the Bump.com application. If the driver of the other car has registered their license plate with Bump.com, he or she will receive a text message or an email message. They can decide from there whether they want to respond. Drivers spend more than five years in their cars honking at each other when they could be actually communicating with each other, Thrower said.

There are a lot of applications outside of the social networking aspect as well. There are billboards in Los Angeles that track more than 250,000 license plates every day. The company is also setting up shop at the Coachella music festival in April — where it will track license plates as they enter the music festival and deliver discounts to songs played by bands at Coachella.

That’s a lot of license plates and data. So the company works on Amazon’s AWS cloud servers instead of running the service on in-house servers. The company makes money by supplying users with a subscription similar to AAA — it includes free towing and discounts to some other companies. Around 7 to 10 percent of users that claim their license plate on Bump.com end up converting to paid users, Thrower said.

Bump.com also partners with other companies to help deliver better advertising data. Partners, for example, might ask how many motorcycle riders pass through a part of the freeway in a given part of the day — and Bump.com can deliver that kind of information.

The actual site is launching a closed beta at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas later this month. Bump.com has raised $1.1 million from an initial funding round led by angels and money from the founders and employees. Bump.com was founded in 2009. The company’s first round of funding, which closed before it presented at the DEMO Fall 2010 conference, was also oversubscribed.

Waze says the funding will be used to “expand corporate and marketing initiatives,” build up its core infrastructure, and increase its staff as the company moves its headquarters from Tel Aviv to Palo Alto. In an interview, the company told VentureBeat that its investors were particularly enthusiastic over the phenomenal engagement it’s seeing from users. Waze just recently surpassed 2.2 million users — up from a mere 500,000 in January.

The company’s app, which is available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. Waze’s claim to fame is the generous amount of live traffic data it has access to, which is powered completely by user contributions.

Given its tremendous growth, Waze tells me that it will be spending quite a bit of time scaling its infrastructure. Everything on the platform is done in real-time, so the company can’t afford to have any slowdowns as it attracts more users.

Waze says its next big goal is to open up its platform, perhaps with some sort of API so that developers can take advantage of its data. Potentially, that would allow Google to take advantage of Waze’s live traffic data in its Maps Navigation app on Android phones. The company tells me that it’s also looking into bringing its application directly into cars that support apps, like those equipped with Ford’s Sync technology (which is developed by Microsoft). Waze could make its way into cars as early as two years from now.

The funding round was led by Blue Run Ventures and saw participation from other existing investors Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Venture Capital. Qualcomm Ventures also joined in on the round as a new investor.