USA Today -- There are plenty of reasons to rent a car, from leaving an unreliable car behind on a vacation to getting around on a business trip. But there's a real hidden danger when doing so that you may not even realize — one that potentially puts you and your family at substantial risk.

Rental companies continually upgrade their fleets with newer-model cars, which means many now have the latest infotainment systems, which let you connect, or "pair," your smartphone via Bluetooth with the car. This lets you take calls over the car's audio system, dial from the center console, get directions or stream your music. Others include a USB connection so you can do all that and charge your phone.

When you connect your gadget to a car with Bluetooth, the car stores your phone number to make it easier to connect later. It also stores your call logs, including any contacts you dialed. Just one problem: All that information is saved inside the system and just sitting around for the next renter to find.

First, we all know that returning a rental car usually happens at the last moment. You're in a hurry and the flight won't wait for you. But give yourself an extra 10 minutes to remove your personal data from the car.

Simply go into the car's settings (it will vary for every car make and model) and locate your smartphone from the list of previously paired Bluetooth gadgets. There should be an option to delete your phone. That should wipe the call logs and saved contacts. Better yet, look for an option to clear all user data or do a complete factory reset. Talk to the employees at the car rental place if you can't find these options.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2015/07/03/komando-car-rental-mistakes/29614165/

USA Today -- Americans love their cars (and trucks). They also love technology gadgets. So, it’s not the least bit surprising to see strong interest in efforts to merge the smart technology of our gadgets into our cars.

For some, the penultimate expression of this combination is the autonomous, self-driving car. Efforts by Google, as well as car makers like Audi and Tesla, have received enormous amounts of press and fostered speculation of highways full of machine-driven cars by the end of the decade.

The reality, however, is likely to be far different. It’s not that the technology isn’t there to make cars that can drive on their own — it clearly is. But the practical, legislative, and insurance requirements that are going to surround the widespread usage of autonomous cars are likely to keep them from becoming mainstream for a decade or even longer. The problem isn’t necessarily with a single car, it’s about getting a lot of cars from a variety of vendors all working together in a coordinated fashion. That is not a trivial task.

What we will see, moving forward, is increasingly smart cars. Those smarts are going to come at many levels — from the relatively simple but still important notion of better integrating our smartphones and popular mobile applications into our cars’ in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems, to better car connectivity, to increasingly sophisticated advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Today’s cars already offer a surprisingly wide but not always well-known array of ADAS systems, from lane drifting warnings, to collision detection systems, to 360-degree camera views to performance enhancing adjustments to drivetrains and suspensions, and more. Even good ol’ cruise control — arguably one of the first ADAS features — is evolving to the point where it can do some basic autonomous driving of its own.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of technology companies involved in making these kinds of improvements and their automotive business is growing. Companies like graphics giant nVIDIA, who reported a 76% increase in their automotive business during last week’s earnings report, not only can power the graphical display on car infotainment systems, but they’ve also created chips specifically designed to read, react and learn from sensors and cameras built into cars.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/08/10/future-cars-smart-not-autonomous/31411613/