Time for U.S. Fatality Reduction Targets

Time for U.S. Fatality Reduction Targets
by Roger C. Lanctot on 09-01-2016 at 12:00 pm

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog implicating the insurance industry in the high level of highway fatalities in the U.S. As part of that blog (“The Insurance Industry Has Blood on Its Hands”) I suggested that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ought to look into developing a fatality-reduction… Read More


Millennial Tyranny in the Connected Car

Millennial Tyranny in the Connected Car
by Roger C. Lanctot on 08-30-2016 at 12:00 pm

Nielsen’s latest AutoTECHCAST study once again introduces confusion to the connected car debate, but it’s understandable and relates to a demographic gradient around technology. Young people are aware of an interested in so-called “brought-in” technologies, while the majority of (older) people… Read More


Keep It Simple, Allstate

Keep It Simple, Allstate
by Roger C. Lanctot on 08-28-2016 at 4:00 pm

A report in the Wall Street Journal last week dives into the insurance industry’s quandary over the anticipated onset of self-driving cars that might significantly and negatively impact the volume of claims and, ultimately, mitigate the need for car insurance altogether. The report is simultaneously a source of alarm and relief… Read More


Customized PMICs with OTP in automotive and IoT

Customized PMICs with OTP in automotive and IoT
by Don Dingee on 08-24-2016 at 4:00 pm

Power. Every device needs it. Managing it properly can make all the difference between a device people enjoy using and one that is more hassle than it is worth. What happens between the battery and the processor is the job of the power management integrated circuit (PMIC).

Why are PMICs gaining so much attention? Increased power … Read More


Did My FPGA Just Fail?

Did My FPGA Just Fail?
by Daniel Payne on 08-22-2016 at 12:00 pm

Designing DRAMs at Intel back in the 1970s I first learned about Soft Errors and the curious effect of higher failure rates of DRAM chips in Denver, Colorado with a higher altitude than Aloha, OR. With the rapid growth of FPGA-based designs in 2016, we are still asking the same questions about the reliability of our chips used for safety-critical… Read More


Optimization and verification wins in IoT designs

Optimization and verification wins in IoT designs
by Don Dingee on 08-17-2016 at 4:00 pm

Designers tend to put tons of energy into pre-silicon verification of SoCs, with millions of dollars on the line if a piece of silicon fails due to a design flaw. Are programmable logic designers, particularly those working with an SoC such as the Xilinx Zynq, flirting with danger by not putting enough effort into verification?… Read More


Apple, Alphabet, AT&T – We Have a Problem

Apple, Alphabet, AT&T – We Have a Problem
by Roger C. Lanctot on 08-10-2016 at 12:00 pm

Poor Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Emmy award-winning chief medical correspondent for CNN, a neurosurgeon and professor and now an explainer of distracted driving as part of CNN’s weeklong report on Driving While Distracted which concluded last Saturday. He offers a detailed medical explanation of driver distraction as only a neurosurgeon… Read More


E-Class: Saving Lives with Fine Print

E-Class: Saving Lives with Fine Print
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-31-2016 at 7:00 am

Television spots for cars are becoming a little like pharmaceutical ads filled with fine print and warnings about side effects and clarifications. Safety advocates are taking Mercedes to task for its latest TV ads for the 2017 E Class, claiming that the car company is misleading consumers into thinking the car can drive itself.… Read More


When Waze Comes to Town

When Waze Comes to Town
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-27-2016 at 12:00 pm

Waze’s Connected Citizens program, rolled out in October of 2014, was envisioned as a means for cities to create a two-way data exchange between Waze users and cities for communicating urgent traffic information as well as to facilitate the analysis of traffic patterns. In other words, Waze wanted to be part of the solution… Read More


Car Theft Making a Comeback

Car Theft Making a Comeback
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-24-2016 at 4:00 pm

In the U.K., where vehicle theft has been in a steep decline for the past 20 years, the most widespread advice given by police to car owners is: keep your car keys in your freezer. The most common source of vulnerability these days is the interception of RF signals between keyfobs and cars. For a time, several years ago, there was a rash… Read More