The next big advance in cell phone technology would allow people to send text messages without using their hands:
New technology promises to make it safer to send and receive text messages while driving as companies respond to the latest safety threat created by an increasingly connected world.
“We’re so highly mobile, it’s a natural inclination that we’re bored, we want to get some stuff done on the way,” said Igor Jablokov, chief executive officer of Yap Inc., whose software converts spoken words into text messages. “Some people are saying, ‘Why don’t you just call someone instead of texting him?’ Texting is the way people are interacting nowadays.”
One-fifth of all drivers send or receive text messages, according to a Nationwide Insurance study conducted in 2006. But the number is much higher among younger drivers: 66 percent of those ages 18 to 24 confessed that they text while driving, a Zogby poll found last summer.
Yap reads incoming messages out loud and enables users to send messages without typing. Mr. Jablokov said the Charlotte, N.C., startup hasn’t worked out details on pricing or distribution but hopes to make the application available for “minimal to nothing” by midyear. Cell-phone users would download the application over the air, which would allow the company to enhance the program continuously, he said.
On some level I think this would turn texting into something completely different from what it is now.
