Post by Whitney Heckathorne, Marketing Manager
I love the subway.
I know, I’m probably the only NYC-dweller who really, really loves it, but I do. And I’ve always bragged that I love it “so-o-o much” mainly because it allows me to get other things done while in transit. I Tweet. I catch up on People Magazine The Economist. I draft work emails (often in that order—priorities, see). I mean, really: who would rather drive a car when you can be so productive/entertained during your probably-not-so-hygenic-but-really-cheap-and-quick public transit commute?
Well car drivers, your chance at multitasking awaits. According to our AutoTECHCAST study just released, nowadays, all sorts of technologies are being developed to help drivers be as productive as possible—and drivers are becoming increasingly interested. For starters, 35% of drivers say they would be likely to adopt voice activated controls or features in their vehicle, up from just over one-quarter (27%) in 2009.
Additionally, a minority indicate interest in Text to Speech and Speech to Text (TS-ST) technologies, which enable drivers or passengers to respond to text messages and emails while driving by having them read aloud. Then, the driver can speak his or her reply which is converted to text and, voila! Email and texts successfully sent. In any case, one in seven drivers (14%) say they are likely to adopt this and I can only imagine this percentage will skyrocket in the future.
Will you adopt/have you adopted any of these hands-free technologies? And what do you think from a work/life balance perspective? Would working on your commute increase your productivity? Or would it just be another “thing” to distract you from actual work?
You answer, and in the meantime, I’m going to go petition the MTA to install WiFi underground.
