Textalyzer, Future of Oil, Musk to Mars

New 'textalyzer' tech aims to catch distracted drivers and Saudi Arabia will attempt to lessen its addiction to oil. Plus, Elon Musk steers Dragon 2 toward possible 2018 Mars landing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogebum,
a resear turn writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
Today we explore two big questions. It's a future without

(00:22):
gasoline and other petroleum products closer than we thought and
less terrifying. Lee Could a Mars colony also be closer
than we thought? But first? Senior writer Jonathan Strickland looks
at proposed legislation in New York State. If it passes,
a police officer on the scene of an accident could
give your phone the equivalent of a breathalyzer. If you

(00:46):
live in New York and the proposed legislation, known as
Evans Law, passes, you will State Senator Terrence Murphy filed
the act back in January, and a company called Celebrate
is developing a device that police could use to enforce
the law. Here's how it would work. A police officer
comes to the scene of an accident and suspects that
at least one person may have been distracted by a

(01:07):
personal electronic device connecting Celebrates gadget to each person's phone.
In turn, the officer can see if anyone had been
using their phone immediately before the accident. According to the
proposed legislation, the device wouldn't record or analyze what the
phone was doing. It would just log that an activity
had taken place. And since it's illegal in New York

(01:29):
to operate a personal electronic device while driving, this information
could lead to an arrest. It's sort of like the
smartphone equivalent of a breathalyzer test. The Act argues that
each driver has given implied consent to hand over a device,
just as they have given implied consent for a breathalyzer
test if an officer requests it in New York State.

(01:50):
So what happens if you refuse to hand over your phone?
The state suspends your driver's license for at least a year,
unless you've refused to hand over your phone before then
it's a minimum of eighteen months, plus you may phase
a fine of five hundred dollars for the first offense
or seven fifty dollars for subsequent cases. This is in

(02:11):
addition to any other legal action taken against you due
to the accident itself. Senator Murphy argues that since the
Celebrate device doesn't access your data, it doesn't violate the
Fourth Amendment guaranteeing protection against illegal search and seizure. There
are lots of questions left to answer. Will the Celebrate
device be able to determine if the phone was being
used in hands free mode? In New York, it's legal

(02:34):
to operate personal electronic devices if you aren't holding them
in your hand, And since Celebrates other major products can
scrape a phone for data and activity, some people are
concerned that this law could lead to more invasive searches
in the future. It's important to remember that distracted driving
is a legitimate problem. According to the CDC, about eighteen

(02:54):
percent of all crashes in which someone was injured also
involved distracted drive, and according to Senator Murphy, scent of
drivers admit to using their cell phones while driving despite
knowing the dangers involved. But is this the right way
to solve that problem now? Head video writer Ben Bollan

(03:19):
digs into the news that Saudi Arabia is getting out
of the oil business. Aside from having a huge impact
on the global fossil fuel market, what does their plan
indicate about the future of oil in general? On April sixteen,
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salmon announced the beginning of

(03:41):
the Vision Initiative, which aims to steer the country away
from its current economic addiction to cheaply produced oil. This
plan requires Saudi Arabia to float stakes in their massive company,
while also setting up one of the world's largest investment
funds and trimming those sweet, sweet perks the govern has
historically provided to its citizens. The Kingdom spends an estimated

(04:04):
sixty one billion dollars on these benefits alone each year.
This all sounds pretty ambitious, right to quote Billy Mays. Wait,
there's more. According to the Deputy Crown Prince, the Kingdom
aims to rid itself of oil dependency by twenty twenty,
a move that experts like Capital economics Jason Turvey find
dubious to say the least. But the Kingdom is putting

(04:27):
actions behind this rhetoric by selling five percent of the
world's largest oil company in an I p O. The
government is also laying bare the books of a notoriously
secretive global operation. And all of all of this leads
us to a bigger question. Is oil on the way out?
Currently the world runs off fossil fuels to the detriment

(04:48):
of the environment. While alternative forms of energy do exist,
We've got solar, nuclear, hydropower, wind and so on, none
have as of yet been able to match the efficiency
and profitab ality of good old crude. Recent breakthroughs in
oil extraction technology, such as fracking, have driven a drop
in prices for energy exporters like Saudi Arabia and for

(05:10):
that matter, of Russia. This spells bad news on the
economic front. This might not be a symbolic gesture, but
a matter of survival and what happens If Saudi Arabia succeeds,
will other countries follow suit, diversifying their economies and attempting
to kick the fossil fuel habit. For now, it seems
like a pipe or should I say, oil pipeline dream,

(05:31):
but it's getting less and less implausible. For decades, we've
known that an oil powered global economy is not sustainable
over the long term, but now it seems that the
end of the bubble maybe closer than we thought. Finally, today,

(05:51):
senior writer Robert Lamb reports on Elon Musk's plan to
launch a mission to Mars as soon as eighteen A
Sex is in for a busy couple of years. That's right,
in just two years, we might well see the first
private Mars landing in history, the first big step in

(06:13):
Musk's epic dream for an off world colony, dubbed the
Red Dragon Mars. Mission SpaceX intends the endeavor to serve
as the first test flight of the upgraded Capsule, a capsule,
according to Musk, designed to land anywhere in the Solar System.
Its predecessor, the Dragon one capsule, made history in twelve
when he became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully deliver

(06:35):
cargo to and from the International Space Station, and they
hope to start moving human cargo with it over the
next couple of years. Now you're probably wondering why eighteen
while it all comes down to what scientists call Mars oppositions,
convergences in the orbits of Mars and Earth that shortened
the distance between the two worlds by hundreds of millions

(06:55):
of miles. The maximum distance between the two planets is
a colossal two hundred and fifth d million miles with
the Sun in between us. The average distance is more
like a hundred and forty but the closest possible distances
is tantalizing. Thirty three point nine now July eighteen will
give us thirty five point eight, which ain't bad at all.
We won't beat that again until the year twenty thirty five,

(07:18):
and then only by about half a million miles. The
Mars opposition window is important, but the hard part won't
be getting to the red planet. It will be successfully landed,
a tricky task no matter who you are. Much like
the Curiosity Rover's nail biting descent in two twelve, Dragon
two will hover down to the surface via eight hover rockets.
It's super draco propulsive landing system, which SpaceX has already

(07:42):
tested planet side. Still, a great deal of work remains
to be done here, and Musk intends to announce more
details later this year, but if successful, SpaceX could very
well be on the way to hitting Musk's previously touted
go for human Mars exploration, beating NASA to the honors decades.

(08:05):
That's all for this week. Thanks so much for tuning in.
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(08:26):
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