Ctas biggest show is in las vegas during the winter, but every spring the Association Sponsors a show where vendors and Technology Companies come to capitol hill to display their technology and electronics to policymakers. We spoke with some of the people at the show. Host and now joining us on the communicators is the chairman of the energy and Commerce Committee, congressman fred upton, republican of michigan. What are you doing down here at the cta show on the hill . Guest well, i was very sad that i had to miss the show in vegas this year, and thats always, you know, a prime deal. So this is a little event with lots of vendors to show us while were working, while were literally having votes some of the top things coming, changing in technology. Some of them not offered yet. As the former chairman of the auto caucus and as a ford owner, i wanted to see some of the upgrades that theyre doing in terms of mapping, music, phones, technology, directions, and they got it down. Host what do you think . Guest really exciting. Its really exciting. I dont know if itll plug into my gm car, but i know itll work in my ford car. Host congressman, how much of the stuff that were seeing down here being displayed does the energy and Commerce Committee have a hand in . Guest well, as you know, we have jurisdiction over the world. [laughter] we have a separate subcommittee on communication and technology host greg wald withen. Guest greg waldens done a super job. Lets let the consumer decide whats going on. I can remember a number of years ago going to vegas to see the Technology Show and walking with brian roberts, then the president , soon to be chairman of comcast, looking at hdtvs. And the two of us saying, i think this is going to really go, and all of a sudden bingo, look where we are in terms of communication, job creation . Were working on a major bill, legislation weve already passed, were going to see the fcc free up more spectrum which is going to enable these devices to be built, to be used, to communicate. Were on the run. Its good things, and shows like this, you know, with 30 some different vendors that are here today, pretty exciting. Hard to get out of here, actually. Host congressman i understand. Guest kid in a candy shop. Host i understand. The spectrum auctions are taking place. Where does congress fit into guest were going to have some oversight. First of all, we helped, you know . You couldnt unless we freed up the spectrum, and that was the whole transition from analog to digital which was actually my bill a lot of years ago, that now has created the spectrum, and were seeing the finishing cc doing fcc doing some more spectrum sales literally in the next couple weeks. Were going to have some oversight to make sure its done right, but it seems at least at this point were in a blackout period, but we think its going to go well. Its going to be a win win not only for the taxpayers, but also for the vendors. Your verizons, your tmobiles, your at ts, automobiles, etc. , will not only be safer, but save energy, do, you know, theres not a downside. Host do you foresee the energy and Commerce Committee considering a rewrite of the telecom act . Guest well, you know, we wanted to do that in this congress, but the whole issue of Net Neutrality gummed up the works. And so weve got to now wait to see what the courts decide. We were, frankly, very close to, i think, a bipartisan solution in both the house and the senate, but the fcc chose to go a different way, so out stalled in the courts. So until thats resolved, and it may be in a couple of months, that really stalled us in terms of doing a rewrite of the Communications Act which, as you know, hasnt been done in nearly 20 years. Host what do you think of the fcc, the current makeup of the fcc . Guest well, id like to think that being a republican that things might change in november and well take a 32 edge, and well see a little change there, but well see. Voters will decide that. Its not something we can do on our own. Host fred upton is chairman of the energy and Commerce Committee, and he joins us here on the communicators. [inaudible conversations] host congressman fred upton brought us over to the ford display to see what you were displague, and Gary Jablonski is with the ford motor company. Whats the technology youre showing members of congress . Guest really two things. This is the Third Generation of our sync technology, so ford was the first automaker to bring Connectivity Technology into the car and really mass market numbers. And we did that in 2007, and we really changed the industry and the way the industry approached Consumer Electronics in their car. This is our Third Generation, it launched about 12 months ago. Really focused in this generation on the user interface and making the system as easy to use as possible for customers. The other thing were showing today is new technologies brought by apple and google that let you integrate your experience with your phone into your car. So i have my iphone, and all i do is plug it in, and youll see that the sync display is going to change to an apple display. This is called apple car play, theres an equivalent feature for google called android auto, and the two companies have designed a caruser interfate face. Its not exactly my iphone, but you can tell its my iphone, and i can access maps, siri, i can dictate text messages, basically, everything i can do with my phone i can do with the cars now. Host can you check your emails . Does it have your full apple components in the car . Guest they havent implemented email yet. They have a full text messaging service. I think when they master the user interface for mail, mails very long, i think once they master it, they can do it by voice i. Seem reasonable. Host well, a lot of us, you know, would be able to read our emails or do this kind of thing in the car, but there is a downside to that, isnt there . Guest well, from the very first generation of sync that we launched almost a decade ago, our focus has been on making your dice as useful as your device as useful as possible in the car in a way that lets you keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. Were really proud of the fact that we voiceactivated the iphone before apple did. Our very first generation of sync, siri did not exist. But you plugged an iphone into sync, and you could Voice Control and make phone calls or play music. We think that was a key element to making it safe in the car. Host now, the ceo, mark fields, said that ford is really becoming a Technology Company more, i mean, its an auto company, sure, but its also a Technology Company. Guest yeah. We think that our sync Product Development team a big piece of that genesis of a Technology Company inside of ford. A lot of the attributes of the car competitively have become sort of neutral ground whether its fuel economy or performance or package, and its things like Connectivity Technology. Our phones have become like a fifth appendage for us. If you leave home without your phone, youre going to turn around and go get it, right . So making sure that experience in the car is great is really an important piece of our business now. Host well, Andrew Woelfling is also with the ford motor company. What do you do for ford . Guest im in fords washington, d. C. Office, and i work on Public Policy as it relates to smart mobility. So Autonomous Vehicles, connected cars, working with cities to bring Smart Transportation solutions to them. Host all right. Were up here on capitol hill. This is cta on the hill. What are some of the issues you would like to discuss with members of Congress Today . Guest well, one of the things that were looking at right now is actually a spectrum issue. Its the 5. 9 gigahertz band which is where dsrc functions for automobiles. Host dsrc is what . Guest dead shades shortrange dead dedicated short range [inaudible] what this helps cars do is talk to each other, identify obstructions in the road, see that maybe a pedestrian is coming around the corner and avoid that accident altogether with Driver Assist technologies. We feel that dsrc or d to b has Great Potential in the future to protect drivers, occupants, pedestrians, what have you on the road, just increase safety tremendously. At the same time, ford understands that there is great command demand for more spectrum for unlicensed use, so we are working with our colleagues to come up with a sharing solution, were working with ntia, department of transportation and, most importantly, the federal communications commission, and were making progress such that we can keep the dsrc in cars and at the same time allow Device Manufacturers to come out with wireless devices and use spectrum that consumers know drives Economic Growth and all sorts of other demand. Host gentlemen, thank you for your time this evening. Guest thank you. Host and bill shuster is the chairman of the house Transportation Committee. Hes here at cta on the hill. Mr. Chairman, what are you doing down here . What are you looking at . Guest coming and just looking at all the technology. Exciting to know that the technology is coming out, its going to help save liveses, make it safer on the roadways, increase productivity with, eventually, the coming of the Autonomous Vehicle. So, again, its very exciting. Ive been in one ive actually been in it a couple of times, and its very exciting. Host are you a supporter well, let me rephrase that. Is the Transportation Committee looking at some of the issues around autonomy in vehicles . Guest absolutely. Host selfdriving . Guest the energy and Commerce Committee has the jurisdiction over the actual manufacturing of the cars that come out. Our committee deals with the building of the roadways, and so we put in the last highway bill, the fast act. We have a title in there dealing with encouraging states to look at the road of the future. Is it similar similar to today . What do we have to do different . Different types of materials need to be used for the road to make it easier for the car to sense things . So weaver looking at it u were looking at it. I know that pennsylvania has engaged Carnegie Mellon university which was the winner of the darpa contest several years ago for the Autonomous Vehicle, and theyre having them study as to what do we need to do with the roadways of the future. So these cars are coming within the next generation, 10, 15, 20 years well have a majority of the vehicles on the road will have this technology in it, we believe. Host whats a technology that youve seen that youre very excited about . Guest oh, actually, being in an Autonomous Vehicle going 35 miles from the outskirts of pittsburgh to the pittsburgh airport, thats just amazing. I saw that car, the original darpa winner ors, it was a chevy blazer that was so packed with technology, you couldnt fit a human being into it. Seven years later i get into a car, its a cadillac, and it looks like a regular car, but it was an Autonomous Vehicle. All that technology is just amazing. And once again, it is going to save lives, its going to improve efficiency, its going to do things for seniors, for instance, that itll help them improve and be able to stay on the road, be able to be more mobile. Host besides encouraging states to build smarter roads, i mean, first of all, how are you encouraging the states to do that, and what else can the house Transportation Committee do in your view to support this kind of technology . Guest well, i think, obviously, supporting it, speaking out publicly, but putting in the legislation, encouraging those states to start to take a look at how do you build a road dealing with the companies that are here today, what do you need for your technology to be working and better on the roadways . Like simple things like and i dont have an answer to this, but do we have to have a different type of paint so that the sensors on these vehicles can sense it and react better. Again, the answers to those questions are still unknown, but encouraging states to look at it, study it, i think, absolutely an imperative. Host bill shuster is chairman of the house Transportation Committee and a republican from pennsylvania. Guest thank you very much. And now joining us on the communicators is tony hudgins of tran sitscreen. Transitscreen. What is that . Guest its a local startup near washington d. C. Were about a 3yearold company, went commercial in march of 2013. But what we do is were a software company. We build realtime [inaudible] information displays. What those displays do are help people understand what their multimodal transit options would be for a particular building or a particular address. Specifically, where weve been growing is out of the impetus to try to help local governments and local jurisdictions deal with new developments particularly in already dense areas where theres parking congestion, traffic congestion. Obviously, you cant add any more cars or add any more street parking, but the goal is to allow people to understand what their realtime transit options are for that particular address and help them understand that they can actually use those transit options without [inaudible] their own cars. The real hope there, obviously, is they will begin to reduce their single occupancy trips. Were also trying to help cities become more connected and more smarter, or smarter to allow people to understand that they can get to and from that particular location in the city without actually using their own car. Host all right. Lets show the camera what youve got doing. So what is actually running right here is for this address here at the rayburn building. Its running in realtime. We get our [inaudible] from open source and partner data, so what you have, obviously, for the rail is coming from [inaudible] host this is the local transportation. Guest local transportation. Host authority here. Guest we open source that information. Its an api. We pull that in and display in hdml5. The other information for ride sharing, car sharing, ride hailing and capital bike share, partner data that wal pull in through their own [inaudible] host all right. So when we see this, this says that you have access to uber data. Guest correct. Theyre our partner. Of. Host okay. And theyre saying, hey, were at 1. 7 [inaudible] but in four minutes you can have an uber car waiting for you. Guest so a real clear explanation, we have a 20 minute radius for this particular location. Were pulling in all of the uber [inaudible] within that 20 minute radius and in addition the other information, we also show you the surge before you actually have the opportunity to hail. Host now, is this Public Information that were seeing . [inaudible] host washington metro and some of this . And youre allowed to pull that in . Is it free information . Guest it is free to us. Host whats the benefit of showing this technology to members of congress . Guest so what were really trying to accomplish here today is the ability to help demonstrate how we can help local governments and transit agencies particularly if theyre trying to deal with the information that they provide. People obviously have found that realtime transit information is valuable to them, but being able to pull that information away from either the bus stop or the train stop or [inaudible] also helps those people make smart decisions about what modes of transit they want to use without defaulting to their cars. The oh issue is other issue is as time is going by, cities are becoming dense. There are more and more people moving into those cities, and those options to be able to use the existing infrastructure as it relates to [inaudible] helps those cities stay more connected, helps people make smarter decisions about getting [inaudible] host and now we want to introduce you to bob fields. The company is called smartwheel [inaudible] mr. Fields, what is smartwheel . Guest we developed an intelligent Steering Wheel cover to help distracted driving. Host and this is just a Steering Wheel cover . Guest correct. Host how does it work . Guest its a cover thats fully adjustable, is it fits on every light duty vehicle on the road today. We have another version more heavy duty trucks as well because our focus is to help new teen drivers and fleet drivers be safer drivers. Host okay. What does it do . Guest so smartwheel has a sensor built in all the way around it. Its patented technology, and we sense the hand position on the Steering Wheel. So the premise is we were all taughting to drive with two hands on taught to drive with two hands on the wheel. Its scientifically proven to be the safest driving position while youre driving, two hands on the wheel, two eyes on the road. Once we got our license though and we became unsupervised, thats when most of us started driving with one hand on the wheel. Now, when i started doing that with my gray hair, it was okay because i was just driving. Maybe it wasnt okay, but i was just driving. But todays teenage drivers, new teen drivers, they dont go to the bathroom without their smart device, let alone into their car. So you couple the fact that theyre an inexperienced driver just getting their license, newly unsupervised, with a device that theyre prone to looking at all the time, and its just really a recipe for disaster. Host so teenagers [inaudible] parents put this on the car wheel, how do they monitor their behavior . Guest so once they put this on the wheel, again, it monitors two hands on the wheel. The light turns green just to indicate the safe hand position. The light goes back out. So in and of itself, its not distracting. When theyre driving down the road and they take one hand off the wheel for an extended period of time, so its starting to warn, starting to warn, but after about four seconds, the red light comes on. It makes a sound reminding the driver to put both hands on the wheel where it will turn green again and then go out. So we focus on extended time off the wheel because we realize that you need to adjust the heat, do other things. But if youre off if you have a hand off the wheel for more than four seconds and youre looking at something other than the road, at 55 miles an hour, thats over a football field that youve traveled without looking at the road. Host so what if somebody is texting . What if somebody is [inaudible] as you say on your web site . Guest yeah. You know, theyre looking at their smart device for a long period of time, again, that would be that two hands off the wheel, or one hand off the wheel for an expended period of time, that would be the warning, and us continues to the warn until you put both hand on the wheel. If you took both hands off the wheel, it would alert immediately. And if you were trying to text and drive, this is really the interesting thing. If you were trying to do this, it will alert as well. So 42 states have enacted laws to prevent, to say you cant text and drive at the same time. They wanted to change the behavior of drivers in the vehicle. Well, they did, but just not in the way that they wanted. Because drivers used the drive down the road like this texasing and driving. Texting and driving. Now they drive like this. So their eyes are, theres not even any peripheral vision of whats happening on the road. Theyve actually made driving more dangerous in that regard. And just, you know, in the u. S. Alone and, obviously, this is a global problem, more than 3200 people a year are killed due to distracted driving crashes. Dont say accidents. Our friends at aaa will remind you that this was 100 avoidable if they had just paid attention to driving as opposed to doing anything else. Over 400,000 people are injured, many of them seriously and lifechanging injuries. The stories that you see, you know, and the people that we talk to, i mean, families, the pain, you know, the financial, you know, millions of dollars. It just goes on and on all because Somebody Just wasnt paying attention while they were driving. Host is this on the market . Guest its close to have it on the market. We hope to have it on the market by the Time School Starts up this year, september time frame. Really fine season for driving and things like that. So theres a number of ways were going to go to market. The new teen drivers, moms are really interested, you know, in the technology, and, you know, shes yelling at me because its not available yet. But fleet owners are also very interested in this as well, because when that branded truck dose down the road, if the goes down the road, if the driver is texting and driving, even if he doesnt get in an accident, hes devaluing the brand. So they can lower insurance costs and all those things as well. And eventually, the second phase of this is going to be getting rid of these buttons. So instead of, you know, volume up, volume down, youll be able to volume up, volume down without taking your hands off the wheel, so taps and swipes will be able to control different activities in the car as well. Host whats your background . Are you the developer of this . Guest so, actually, the founder and the inventer, his name is t. J. Weve relates, hes just turned 20 years old. Now, he came up with this idea when he was 14, and he was driving with a friend of his who just got their license and was engaging in a distracted activity. Hes very technicallyfocused, and he did research and found there was actually no dice that proactively no device that proactively helped the driver main tape their focus. All of the devices were reporting devices. There are applications that shut off phones when your phone is moving and things like that, but people dont buy those kinds of things. They want a coach to help them with that. But these recording devices would be great to tell you the kid was doing 70 when he hit the tree, but the smartwheel ideas is to give you that realtime you know, a realtime coach to help you keep your hands on the wheel, Pay Attention to the road. And then the secondary, you know, application for the parents to be able ore view that with the kids. So all of those things we talked about are are recorded and later uploaded to a smartphone or a tablet or even to the cloud so you can have access to it from anywhere. So your phone does not have to be connected all the time. It might not be in the car, you know, could be the parents phone, but the device still works in the car for coaching. Now, hey, lets look at what you did. Oh, you got a b. Look, you had a propensity for onehanded driving. Come on, johnny, what are you really doing, right . But we dont want it to be all just negative. Theres a reward system built in here so the parents say, hey, if you improve that score next week, ill pay for the gas, or you can win an mp3. But the other thing were going to work on quickly is game fight it, because we thought that teens would like to compete against each other and see who the better driver is, but thats not who they want to compete against. Do you know who they want to compete against . Host mom and dad. Caller mom and dad. Mom and dad are dont do as i do, do as i say, right . Now thats going to put theyre so excited. When we talk to mom and teen or the dad and teen together, the teen gets squadsed. So we can have jazzed as well. Host whats your role with the company . Guest longtime Car Electronics guy working with car manufacturers, the after market, you know, the retailers, so im really helping them with strategic alliances and sales, you know, of the product. Host whats the importance of showing this to members of congress here on the hill . Guest yeah. So with the distracted driving problem being so huge, you know, every representative in congress has had just terrible things happening in their districts from this, right . April is actually distracted driving awareness month, so theres many communities that are increasing enforcement and doing things like that. So what we want to do is let congressmen know that theres actually technology thats relatively inexpensive that can actually help the problem. Most people see technology as being part of the problem want to say hello. Guest hey, john, how are you . They see technology as part of the problem where we can see it being part of the solution. Host bob fields, smartwheel is the name of the company. And what youre seeing on the communicators now is the Virtual Reality display. This is htcs display an ces on capitol hill. Joe bissonnette is with htc. What are we looking at . Guest the htc, it is the first Virtual Reality system commercially available in the world. It was launched in the first week of april. What youre seeing right now is a demo. Its called estimate brush where you can tilt brush in where you can make art in 3d and in different shapes and walk around them, look at them from above, below, behind. Host is he aware that we are standing here. Guest he cannot see us, although there is a passnew camera on the heldset. But you can see whats in the room around you with. We dont have it activated, he cant see us. Host have you put any members of Congress Guest we had about half a dozen come in today. [laughter] they all enjoyed it. Host whats the point of showing them this . Guest ing we want to see what it is were working on. This is a new technology, nobodys really experienced this before, you know . Everybody who tries this, its kind of an aweing experience. Its so different from what theyve done, right. And its manager, we just want people to have some familiarity and understand what were working on. Host are there any legislative or regulatory issues involved with this . Guest i think v. R. Is so new that theres really not a lot that applies to it, and thats why we want to educate people today, so they can [inaudible] we dont want people to make assumptions that may or may not be correct on what the technology is or isnt or really does. Wed rather have them come and experience it. Host what youre seeing is htcs [inaudible] youve been watching that it ors, this week looking the communicators, this week looking at new technology at ces on the hill in washington. If youd like to watch some of our previous program, go to cspan. Org. Congratulations to the class of 2016. Today is your day of celebration, and youve earned it. The voices crying for peace and light because your choices will make all the difference to you and to all of us. Dont be afraid be to take on cases or a new job or a new issue that really stretches your boundaries. You spent your summer abroad on real ships rather than internships [laughter] and the specter of living in your parents basement after this Graduation Day is not likely to be your greatest concern. Throughout this month watch commencement speeches to the class of 2016 in their entirety from colleges and universities around the country by business leaders, politicians and white house officials on cspan. Next, v. A. Officials and representatives from several veterans advocacy groups speak