Hands-on With Nissan’s Taxi of Tomorrow: Teched Out Cabs Take To the Streets

Ford’s land yacht masquerading as a car, the Crown Victoria, has been a staple of the busy streets of New York for more than 30 years. But when the Blue Oval decided to end production of the Crown Vic in 2011, the city that never sleeps put out the call for a new vehicle to take the place of Ford’s roomy rear-wheel drive behemoth. Hundreds of entrants signed up for a chance to become the Big Apple’s next vehicular icon, an in the end it was the boxy van-like Nissa NV200 or Taxi or Tomorrow, that took the prize.

With the New York International Auto Show in town, Nissan decided to bring its cab to the the city to show its often fickle residents the vehicle they’d be riding in for the foreseeable future. We were lucky enough to jump into a display model for a little hands-on time with the NV200 to see just what all the fuss is about.

Teched Out Taxi

The Crown Victoria was a lot of things, large, fast, borderline indestructable. But one thing it wasn’t was smart. Sure, over the years yellows cabs started being equipped with touchscreen displays for rear-seat passengers, but they were always too slow. The Taxi of Tomorrow, on the other hand, was built with technology in mind from the start. Back seat passengers now have a large 12-inch display, two USB charging port, and a 12-volt adapter ports.

But it’s not just about the electronic goodies. Nissan has outfitted the cab’s ceiling with a carbon activated coating that will help cut own interior odors. Even the seats get a helping of tech with their anti-microbal, environmentally-friendly fabric.

Vehicle Improvements

The Taxi of Tomorrow also features improved creature comforts. Passengers will now have access to rear climate controls, as well as a opening side windows and overhead rear reading lights. The biggest advantage the Taxi of Tomorrow has over the Crown Vic is in rear seat legroom. Ford’s beast was by no means a tight fit for most passengers, but with the Taxi of Tomorrow, Nissan is offering up the largest amount of rear seat volume of any cab in the U.S. The improved space is partially the result of Nissan’s decision to make the cab’s floor completely flat.

Nissan has also made some big improvements to the outside of the cab. The company has decided to create a “low-annoyance” horn with exterior lights that activate when your press the horn. Nissan says the addition of exterior lighting will lead to drivers using the horn less frequently, but if you’ve spent more than 15 minutes in New York, you may find that claim a bit hard to swallow.

The Taxi of Tomorrow also comes equipped with two sliding rear doors, which will help reduce the risk of opening a door and smashing it into a biker or passing car. Pull open one of the cab’s doors and a large red light in the shape of a pedestrian will pop up on the rear of the taxi., letting drivers know that a passenger is stepping out of the vehicle.

Accessibility Upgrades

New York’s current fleet of cabs aren’t known for their accessibility. Wheelchair bound New Yorker’s are often unable to get into cabs, while the blind often have no way of knowing the name of their driver or medallion number. The hard of hearing can also find it difficult to hear what the driver is saying. Thankfully, the Taxi of Tomorrow includes braille writing identifying the name of the cab’s driver and a hearing loop system and driver and passenger intercom system.

Certain models of the cabs will include a rear access ramp for wheelchairs complete with straps to hold the chair in place.

Warp Up

With the Taxi of Tomorrow, Nissan has finally brought the cab into the 21st century. From being able to charge your devices to improved accessibility options, the cab is a massive improvement over the current fleet of Crown Vics for passengers and drivers alike. The new taxi may not solve the biggest issue facing cab passengers, the city traffic, but it will certainly make it much more tolerable.

From Laptopmagazine. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center Here

How Tech Trends Today Affect Romancing Tomorrow

Improved communication can help people bond, but can also be distracting, said Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families in Olympia, Wash. “I see with my students an ability to share thoughts and experiences that keeps them quite close in many ways,” she said, “but on the other hand, it does sometimes substitute for being fully in the moment.” 

Better worldwide communication also makes it easier for people to meet new potential partners in online games or forums, which makes it easier for some people to cheat. “It may start out very innocently, but can end up leading to a new relationships or infidelities,” Coontz said.

INFOGRAPHIC: High Tech Love in Space and Time

We Met Online

Dating sites such as Match.com, OK Cupid and eHarmony are also having a huge effect on how people relate to one another. These services have “radically altered the dating landscape,” according to a report by five psychologists that’s slated for a future issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The report was published online on Feb. 2 as an uncorrected proof.

When dating websites first arose in the 1990s, most people thought that those who joined were “social failures,” said Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist and chief scientific advisor to Chemistry.com, a division of Match.com. “And now everyone’s doing it because it’s so easy, it’s so cheap.”

In 2005, a Pew Internet survey found that 11 percent of Internet-using American adults had tried dating websites, but only 2 percent of Internet users had started a long-term relationship with people they had met online. By 2010, about one in five new committed relationships started online, according to a study commissioned by Match and unpublisheddata cited in the Feb. 2 report.

With hundreds of thousands of members each, Match.com and its compatriots help people meet other singles they might not otherwise encounter. That has opened up opportunities for adults, especially women, who are middle-age and older. Over the last five years, relationship-oriented websites have seen their biggest growth in users age 55 and older, wrote eHarmony senior director Grant Langston. “There is a better chance for women in their 40s and older who don’t want to go to bars,” Coontz said. “New technology has really opened the doors for relationships, especially for older women.” 

Beyond exposure, however, Internet matching may not work better than any other meeting methods, the new report argued. It didn’t find evidence that the sophisticated mathematical equations dating sites use to find partners for their members actually ensure compatibility. 

I Googled You First

One of the benefits finding dates online does offer is that it helps take the strangeness out of meeting strangers. Before people ever contact each other, they can read each other’s profiles and learn basic information they might otherwise have to gather during a first date. In general, an online culture of social media and sharing means it’s much easier to research people before meeting them, by reading their Twitter feed or clicking through their Facebook photos. 

Oversharing is no passing fad, most experts think. In one study conducted by the Pew Research Center of 895 Internet experts, two-thirds thought that people born after 1980 “will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information,” even as they mature and have families. 

Fisher agreed: As social media platforms grow, people will share more. “That is how the human animal operates,” she said. She credited social media’s addictiveness to human societies’ historic states of knowing everyone’s business. “For millions of years, we traveled in these little hunter-gatherer bands and everybody knew everything about everybody.”

People’s natural fit with this small-town mentality can make online dating feel natural as well, she argued. Before, when someone spotted an interesting potential partner, he might ask his relatives and friends about his prospect’s background, kin, religious beliefs and goals in life. “Online dating mirrors that, unlike walking into a bar,” Fisher said. 

In the farther future, people may someday know much more about each other than what they choose to put on social media profiles. Technologies such as “social glasses” that help wearers measure others’ emotions from involuntary cues like subtle paling or blushing will give people a leg up. 

Of course, writers and filmmakers have long considered what it would be like to match people by their genetics. Couples that are genetically dissimilar should make up for each other’s inborn faults in any children they have together. It’s not clear how two people’s DNA translates to attraction and healthy relationships, however. While several studies have shown that women prefer the smell of men who are genetically different from them, others show that people tend to like faces that are more genetically like them. 

Loving Oversight?

Current and future communication tech may expose people to more singles, but it can also make it harder to pick someone to date. Online dating services can present people with an unprecedented number of choices and it’s easy to cast our nets ever wider. As Young said, “With two extra clicks, you’ve got a whole other pool.”

Psychologists have long known that people overwhelmed with too many choices sometimes become detrimentally picky and don’t make any decisions at all. “One thing these dating services all know is that the more people you think you can meet, the less likely you are to end up with any of them,” Fisher said. To get around this tendency, dating sites can suggest a limited number of good matches to every user. Fisher suggested people set their own limits during the initial search phase. “After you’ve met nine people, pick one and get to know them more,” she said. “Stop this windmill.”

In fact, as Fisher tells it, there are several ways dating sites help people get around the obstructions of their own subconscious tendencies. Some sites track whom their users actually follow up with, which often doesn’t correlate with the parameters they offer the site. Match.com and OK Cupid both do this tracking, as The New Yorker reported in 2011. The companies can then present their users with mate choices based not only on their stated preferences, but also reflective of their actions.

As more human activity moves online in the future, more human actions will become trackable and useable to psychologists and companies, ranging from search engines to matchmaking sites. As people click and choose during their Internet browsing, whether for mates or homework answers or the next movie to watch, they leave behind a trail of data as one huge cohort. “We have so many people to study,” Fisher said.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

In spite of advancing technology, perhaps the substance of relationships will never change. Even the term “online dating” is a misnomer, Fisher said. People now meet online, but they still do their dating in person. She thinks people will always need that day-to-day contact to maintain their relationships, though not everyone may agree.

“The brain will not change because of modern technology,” she said. “In the long run, no, I don’t think it’ll make people’s relationships different.”

From Laptopmagazine. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center Here