Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

Drive, talk, crash...

Hey, if you want to be a reckless, dangerous #sshol$, by conducting conference calls while driving on interstate highways, thats bad enough, but by writing about it as if it was a good thing gives it a multiplier factor as some other simpletons may follow your lead and upgrade to your fancyass-mobile-killing-equipment-headset.

I just want to go to work without some jerk on a conference call crashing into me, my wife and kids don't want that either.

Otherwise I enjoy your blog. Keep it up! :)

Got the same one! With similar experiences. Noise cancellation is fantastic. Had conference calls at Starbucks and nobody knew. And I also left it in my pocket one day to find the earlobe piece all bent. So ditto on that. IMHO its the best bluetooth headset around.

I have to say, I have the same opinion as Jack. If MS is 'insisting' you talk on the phone while driving like that, maybe they aren't someplace you want to work.

I'd rather think that if a manager at MS FOUND OUT that this is what you're doing, they'd insist that you NOT do it. Many managers at Nokia have that sort of policy. If they hear anyone on a teleconf talking while driving, they either ask them to pull over or insist they join later when they're stopped.

i am not impressed with the quality of the voice from your record, near 100 bucks just not cut it.
what is the old one?

"How is listening in on a conference call different from talking to the passenger next to you?"

You don't share the same context. The passenger next to you does.

I think by "context" David means that an in-car passenger will know to stop talking when you get into heavy traffic or otherwise need to concentrate on the road, whereas the person/people on the other of the phone won't.

Scott - some people do think that talking to other passengers in the car is safer than talking on the cell phone because they are aware of what's going on around you and (in theory) will adjust their conversation accordingly so as not to distract you from your driving. However... personally I think it depends on the person in the car, and the person using the phone. Sometimes people in the car can be more distracting if they aren't paying attention to the traffic, or using grand hand gestures while talking, or if the driver turns their head often to look at the person they are talking to.

The problem with cell phones in the cars in general is in two parts... one, you have to look down at them to dial or find your contact or answer the phone... two, you have to hold it up to your head while driving, which takes one of your hands off the wheel. The jawbone at least frees your hands so you can drive properly and talk at the same time. As to answering calls... I believe you just tap it against your head to answer, right? (when I first saw one it reminded me of a Star Trek communicator... all it needs is that little squeaky sound)

Mu husband has a jawbone, and he loves it... but just so you know he did have some problems with it (actually started with a problem with the iPhone) Dan started using his iPhone as an MP3 player, and he discovered that when he did this he could no longer be heard on incoming calls. He could dial out and talk to people, but if he answered incoming calls the person calling would hear nothing - unless he was specifically using the jawbone or the little iPod-esqe headphone/mic combo that the phone came with. This is apparently a known problem, so he took his phone back to the Apple store, they gave him a loner and sent the broken one in. Within a week we received a new iPhone in the mail, and all seemed to work fine except for his jawbone. He ended up exchanging the jawbone at the store he bought it from and now his new one works just fine. As to talking to someone who has a jawbone, just keep your window up and it sounds really good.

Let me know the next time you are coming up here, we'll have you over for dinner (my house is in a suburb close to a few Microsoft locations)

OK... I just listened to your headset recording... strike my window comment, I just need to tell Dan to use the noise canceling feature. Thanks!

Two of my colleages returned the Jawbone. One swears by it. Check out the Plantronics 510. It's a little "borg-ish," but crystal clear both ways.

Hi Scott, there seems to be a bit more to it than just "context", google "cell phone drunk driving" and check out a few of the results. I thought that most people were at least aware of this study as it made headlines. If it has been debunked, it would be interesting to know about it. As a result there are a lot of legislative initiatives underway to get it banned.

Anyway, I do know that when I talk on the phone while driving a bit of autopilot kicks in while I focus on the conversation. As a result I don't do it anymore.

Either way, I don't want to go by A) a drunken idiot doing 80 broadsiding me, or B) someone broadsiding me at 80 saying "Can you hear me now?"

Peace out.

Fat people shouldn't be allowed to eat while driving....and extraverted people or managers shouldn't be allowed to talk while driving either...period...

Mexican Dave's law.....