Motor safety
Jack Schofield's article (My Other Car is a Computer, Online, December 7) ignores one key area: what impact will telematic developments have on safety, not just for the car occupant but for those outside the vehicle?
We already know that 3,500 people are killed on our roads every year: 25% of these are pedestrians, often going about their lawful business and knocked down by drivers.
We need technology to help the driver to avoid the crash in the first place, not technology to distract him or her from the important task of driving. Work by Leeds University Institute for Transport Studies and the Motor Industry Research Association shows that control of the speed of vehicles will reduce crashes substantially.
Robert Gifford
Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety
Jack Schofield's article exposes the utter irresponsibility of the motor manufacturers in their pursuit of profit. Almost all of their proposed "enhancements" to the motor car serve to distract the driver or passengers, apart from the one designed to pack more cars on to the road. Given the millions who have been killed by cars, one might think that some computer-aided measures designed to reduce car speeds, pollution and violations of traffic regulations might be in prospect. The fact that they are not shows that the manufacturers do not want to remind us that cars and their rising numbers are a social menace.
All we can do is call on the government to force safety measures on the manufacturers, starting with a Global Positioning System speed control system, to prevent the breaking of speed limits and to impose lower limits in towns. With such a system could be incorporated a device to cut out the engine for five minutes (after a suit able warning) if the driver makes an illegal manoeuvre. Such measures will cut pollution as well as accidents and make drivers see more clearly that cars are lethal weapons.
Philip Ward
ballandward@netscape online.co.uk
Choice of chips
I felt that Jack Schofield's recent guide to buying a new PC was lacking in one regard; while he mentioned Pentium IIIs, Celerons and Athlons, he failed to note that extremely good budget PCs could be found based upon AMD's Duron processor. Unfortunately, people may not be as familiar with these as with Intel processors, so may be deterred from buying them. They're usually cheaper than Celerons, and give superior performance, hence ideal for the budget conscious buyer. No, I don't have commercial interests in AMD, by the way...
Nick Palmer
Vinyl is best
"Discerning" - having or showing good insight or judgement (Shorter OED) - is surely an inappropriate adjective to describe music fans who opt for MP3 replay. Ashley Norris (Online, December 7) must know that MP3 lies at the bottom of the digital hierarchy, below MiniDisc, and CD. If he cannot hear the difference, ear syringing would seem to be required! Of course, none of these technologies can match vinyl if the criterion is "the closest approach to the original sound". Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio would like to be seen as the digital equal of analogue, but so far both lack a wide-enough range of software.
Roger Perry
The system wars debate
How dare D Hill (Online, December 12) assume that all Mac users are ignorant. I use Windows-based software for work related material but for personal use I much prefer my Mac PowerBook.
Mac overrated? Never. Overpriced? Yes, but originality and innovation always have a price.
Martin Jessett
This may be distressing to both sides of the camp, but I use both Macs and PCs and I'm perfectly happy with both! There. I've said it.
The differences between the two platforms are negligible and I'm sure that most antagonism is fear of the unknown. I spent a decade working on Macs before being (forcibly) introduced to PCs, and suffered the mild Luddite reaction one expects, before discovering that they both crash at the most inconvenient times and both go funny if you dare to install new software. I don't think Microsoft is any worse than Apple when it comes to releasing system software that's still riddled with bugs, or making wild promises for future revisions that are never delivered.
I prefer to do the bulk of my print design work on Macs because the majority of our industry uses the same platform and it saves causing cross-platform problems further along the line. I use the PC for all my web design work because the vast majority of my audience will be using Internet Explorer on a PC to browse.
Computers are tools, and I choose the best tool for the task at hand.
Kevin Hardy
In the run up to Christmas, readers may like to consider the following comment on the great "system wars" debate.
If your main use for a computer is word processing, email and the internet, then before shelling out a thousand pounds plus, serious consideration should be given to the Psion hand-held devices, which use the Epoc operating system. I have used PCs, Macs and Psions, both for work and home use. I have never known an Epoc OS device to crash or give me any serious problems. They are cheap, British and you can take them anywhere. Add one of the feather light travel modems and the world (or the web) is your oyster.
Julian Ross
What's a postbox?
Reading Online, I thought I would enter your Psion Revo competition. Apparently, I need to "write" on a "postcard" and "send" (which seems to mean walking down the road to find a "postbox". Why?
Paul Appleyard
paul.appleyard@translation.demon.co.uk
