opportunity, not the obstacle it is today. to do all of this, we need a change in washington, a change that does not settle for the "new normal" economy. we can, we will, and we must use >> tomorrow, president obama gives the commencement speech to the graduating class at rutgers university. live coverage begins at 12:50 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> this week on "the communicators," a visit to a community -- a consumer electronics show on capitol hill. cta's biggest show is in las vegas in the winter. every spring, the association sponsors a show where vendors and technology companies come to capitol hill to display their

technology and electronics to policy makers. we spoke with some of the people at the show. is thejoining us chairman of the energy and commerce committees, congressman fred upton, republican. what are you doing at the cta show? was sad i had to miss the show in vegas. that is always a prime deal. so this is a event with lots of vendors to show us what we are the top things changing in technology, some of them not offered yet. as the former chairman of the auto caucus and a ford owner, i wanted to see the upgrades on music, phones, technology, directions. they have it down. it is really exciting. it is exciting. fordw it will work in my car. peter: how much of the stuff we are seeing down here being

displayed does the energy and commerce committee have a hand in? rep. upton: we have jurisdiction over the world. we have a separate subcommittee on communication and technology. greg has done a super job. our role has been to get the government out of regulating this, to let the consumer decide what is going on. i can remember a number of years ago, going to las vegas to see the technology show, and walking , then the roberts president, soon to be chairman tv's.cast, looking at hd the two of us saying, i think this will really go. all of a sudden, bingo. look where we are today in terms of communication, job creation, we are working on a major bill, on legislation we have already passed, we will see the sec , which willspectrum

enable the devices to be built, used, to communicate. we are on the run. it is good things. this, 30-some vendors here today, pretty exciting. it is hard to get out of here, actually. peter: i understand. rep. upton: kid in a candy store. peter: where does congress fit into the process? rep. upton: first of all, we helped. unless we freed up the spectrum, and that was the whole transition from analog to digital, which was my bill a lot of years ago, that now has created the spectrum, and we are seeing the fcc do some more aectrum sales, literally in couple weeks, we will have oversight to make sure it is done right. it seems at this point we are in thinkkout period, but we it will be a win-win for the taxpayers and also for the technology sector, because they will now have the spectrum that they will be able to use and

sell. verizon, t-mobile, at&t, will be using the devices. safer, butll it be it will save energy. there is not a downside. peter: do you perceive the energy and commerce committee considering a rewrite? rep. upton: we wanted to do that in this congress, but the whole issue in net neutrality gummed up the works. we have to wait to see what the courts decide. a are very close to i think bipartisan solution involving the house in the senate. the sec chose to go in different the so it's stalled in courts. until that is resolved, maybe in a couple months, that stalled us in terms of doing a realize of the communications act. rep. upton: -- peter: what you think of the current makeup of the sec? rep. upton: i would like to

think being a republican, things might change in november and we will take an edge and we will see change there. but we will see. fred upton, chairman of the energy and commerce committee joins us on "the communicators." congressman fred upton brought us to the ford display to see what you were displaying. gary jablonski is with ford motor company. mr. jablonski: we brought two things to the show. this is a third-generation of this technology. ford was the first automaker to bring connectivity technology into the car in mass-market numbers. that in 2007. we really changed the industry in the way the industry approached consumer electronics in cars. this is the third-generation. it launched 12 months ago.

it is focused in this generation on the user interface and making the system as easy to use as possible for customers. the other thing we are showing technologies wrought by apple and google to let you integrate your experience with your phone into your car. i have my iphone, and all i do is plug it in, and you will see that the display will change when apple display. there is an equivalent feature called android auto. the companies have designed a car-specific user interface, so it is not exactly my iphone, but you can tell it is my iphone. i can do things like access maps, i can access, dictate tech -- text message, everything i can do on my phone, i can do in my car. peter: can you check your e-mail? does it have the full apple components? mr. jablonski: they have a text you cang service,

dictate messages and receive messages. i think when they master the user interface for mail, mail is long. when they master that to be done by voice, it seems reasonable. peter: a lot of us would love to be able to read our e-mails, or do this kind of thing, in the car. but there is a downside. mr. jablonski: from the first generation to launched a decade ago, our focus has been on making 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. or us, it has been about voice technology. we are proud of the fact that we voice-activated the iphone before apple did it. siriirst generation, didn't exist. we think voice is really a key element to making the user interface. came onhe ceo of ford

our program a year or so back, and said that ford is becoming a technology company, it is an auto company, sure, but also a technology company. mr. jablonski: we think our product development team is a big piece of that. the genesis of a technology company is inside of ford. a lot of the attributes of the car, competitively, have become neutral ground, whether it is fuel economy or performance or package. conductivity technology, our phones have become like a fifth upended. if you leave home without your phone, you will turn around and go get it. making sure that that experience in the car is great is an important piece of our business. with: andrew woelfling is ford. thewoelfling: i am in washington dc office, and i work

on public policy as it relates to smart vehicles, connected cars, working with cities to bring smart transportation. peter: this is cta on the hill. one of -- what are the issues you would like to discuss with congress iago mr. woelfling: one of the things we are looking at is the 5.9 gigahertz band, which is where the src functions or automobiles. that is dedicated short-range communications, which allows cars to talk to one another. the other way to look at it, vehicle to vehicle communications. this helps cars talk to each other, identify instructions on the road, see that maybe a pedestrian is coming around the corner and voice that action. we feel this has a great potential in the future to protect drivers, occupants,

pedestrians, bike riders, what have you, increased safety tremendously. ford understand that there is great demand for more spectrum, for unlicensed use. we are working with colleagues to come up with a sharing solution. we are working with the and cia and the department of transportation and the sec, making progress such that we can manufacturers to come out with wireless devices and use the spectrum on the roads and other devices. peter: thank you for your time this evening. chairman of the house committee, he is here at cta on the hill. mr. chairman, what are you doing? >> i am looking at the technology.

exciting to know that the technology is coming out to help save lives. make it safer on the roadways, increase productivity, essentially the coming of the autonomous vehicle. it is exciting. i have been in one. i did it a couple times. it is great. is the committee, the transportation committee, looking at some of the issues around autonomy in vehicles? rep. shuster: absolutely. the energy and commerce committee is -- has jurisdiction over the manufacturing of the cars that come out. our committee deals with building of roadways. highway, a last dealing with encouraging states ofsay, and look at, the road the future. is it similar to today? what do we have to do different? is very different type of material used for the roads to make it easier for the cars?

fencing? we are looking at it. pennsylvania has engaged carnegie melon university several years ago for the driverless vehicle. and the a thomas vehicle. they are having them study as to, what we need to do to the roadways in the future? these cars are coming. the next generation, 15-20 years we will have a majority of the vehicles on the road with the technology. the technology you have seen you are excited about iago --? rep. shuster: being in an autonomous vehicle, going 35 miles to the airport, it is amazing. i saw that car, the original winner at carnegie mellon, a chevy laser pact with technology. we couldn't fit a human in it. it had bubbles in the top. seven years later, i get in a cadillac, and it looks like a regular car but it is an

autonomous vehicle. all the technology is amazing. it is going to save lives, improve efficiency, do things for seniors that will help them improve and be able to stay on the road and help them be able to be more mobile. peter: besides encouraging roads,to build smarter how are you encouraging states to do that? what else can the house transportation committee do, in your view, to support this kind of technology? rep. shuster: supporting it, speaking out publicly. putting in the legislation encouraging companies to look at him i have you build a road? what are these autonomous vehicles iago dealing with the company's here today, what do you need for your technology to work better on the roadways? do we need to have a different type of paint, reflective material so the sensors on the vehicles consented better and

react better? the answers are unknown, but encouraging states to study it is imperative. peter: bill shuster is a republican from pennsylvania. joining us on "the communicators" tony hudgins. >> where a local startup in washington the sea. we are a three-year-old company. what we do, we are a software company and we build real-time information. whatlp people understand their multimodal transit options would be for a particular building or address. specifically, where we have been the impetus to help local governments and

jurisdictions deal with new areaspments, in dense where there is parking congestion, traffic congestion, you can't have any more cars, add anymore street parking. the goal is to allow people to understand what their real-time transit options are for that address and help them understand that they can actually use those transit options without defaulting to their own cars. they will begin to reduce vehicle trips. we are focused on dry to hope cities be more connected and smarter, to allow people to understand that they can get to and from that particular location in the city without actually using their car. peter: give us an example of what you've got. this is the url we built for an address at this building. it is running in real time. we get our data from open source and partner data. what you have for the rail,

coming from here -- >> the local transportation authority? tony: we open-source the information, pull that in in displays, in html five. the other information for ridesharing, car sharing, right hailing and bike share, the data we pull through, we have partners. peter: [indiscernible] tony: they are our partner. in four minutes, you can have a car here waiting? radiuse have a 20 minute for this particular location. we are pulling in all the interactions within a 20 minute radius, and in addition to the other information, you can get on your phone, we show you the search before you actually have the opportunity to hail it.

peter: is this public information? the metro and some of this. you are allowed to pull that in? it is free? tony: it is free to us. [indiscernible] are trying to demonstrate how we can help local governments, if they are trying to deal with the information that they provide, real-timee found that transit information is valuable to them. being able to pull that information away from the train platform helps those people make smart decisions about what modes of transit they want to use without defaulting to their cars. the other issue is, as time is going by, cities are becoming more dense. they are more and more people moving in.

the options to be able to use the existing infrastructure as it relates to this multimodal transportation helps cities stay connected, helps people make smart decisions about getting around. peter: now we want to introduce bob. the company is called smart wheels. [indiscernible] bob: we want to prevent distracted driving. peter: this is a steering wheel cover. how does it work? bob: it is fully adjustable. it fits on every light-duty vehicle on the road today. we have another version for heavy duty trucks, as well. our focus is to help new teen drivers be safer drivers. assented --eel has

a sensor built-in all the way around. it is patented technology. the hand position on the steering wheel, the premise is, we were taught to drive with two hands on the wheel. it is scientifically proven to be the safest driving position while you are driving. on the road, two hands on the wheel. when we get our license, and we became unsupervised, that is when most of us started driving with one hand on the wheel. when i started doing that with my gray hair, it was ok because i was just driving. drivers don't go to the bathroom without their smart device. let alone into their car. couple that with the fact that they are an experienced, newly ,nsupervised -- inexperienced newly unsupervised, with a device they are prone to looking at all the time, it is a recipe for disaster. peter: teenagers, [indiscernible] monitor their behavior.

: it monitors two hands on the wheel. the light turns green to indicate that safe hand position. it is not distracting. when they are driving down the road, they take one hand off the wheel, for an extended time, it is starting to warn. after four second, the red light comes on, it makes a sound, the coach reminds the vehicle -- the driver to put more -- both hands on the wheel. we focus on extended time off the wheel, because we realize you need to adjust things. but if you are, if you have a hand off the wheel for more than four seconds, and you are looking at something other than the road, 55 miles per hour, that is quite a ways you have traveled without looking at the road. peter: what if somebody is texting? they are looking at their

smart device for a long time, again, that would be that both hands off the wheel, one hand off the wheel for an extended time, it would be warning. it continues to warn until you put both hands on the wheel. when you do that, it shuts off again. hands off theh wheel, it would alert it immediately, and if you try to text and drive, this is the interesting thing. if you were trying to do this, it will alert, as well. laws thathave enacted say you can't text and drive. they want us to change the behavior of drivers in the vehicle. they did, but not in the way they wanted. drivers used to drive down the road like this, texting and driving. now, they drive like this. not even anye peripheral vision of what is happening on the road.

they are driving more dangerous in that regard. alone, and this is a global problem, more than 3200 people per year are killed due to distracted driving a in -- and crashes, don't say accidents. avoidable.0% if they had just paid attention doingving, as opposed to anything else. over 400,000 people are injured, many of them seriously and life-changing injuries. , the peopleyou see we talked to, families, the pain , the financial, billions of dollars, it goes on and on. all because somebody wasn't paying attention while driving. peter: is it on the market? bob: we help donovan on the market by the time school starts in september. -- we help -- we hope to have it on the market by the time school starts in september. the new teenage drivers, moms

are interested in the technology . she is yelling at me because it is not available yet. but the owners are interested, because when the branded truck goes down the road, if the driver is texting and driving, he is devaluing that company brand. so if they can lower their insurance costs and all those good things, eventually, the second phase of this is going to our --technology, and allows us to do recognition and control. able to do volume up, volume down, without taking your hands off the wheel. you can control different activities in the car. peter: are you the developer? is: the founder and inventor ej, he just turned 20 years old. he came up with the idea when he was 14. he was driving with a friend of his who just got their license,

and was engaging in a distracted activity. he did research, because he is technically focused, and found that there was actually no device that proactively helped the driver maintain their focus. all of the devices were basically recording devices. there are applications that would shut off phones when your phone is moving and things like that, but people don't buy those things. they want, these recording devices would be great to tell you the kid was doing 70 when he hit the tree, but the smart wheel idea is to get you that givetime coach to help you your hands on the wheel, pay attention to the road, and the secondary application for the parents to be able to review that with the kid. all those things we talked about are recorded. aey are later uploaded to smart phone or a tablet, or even to the cloud, see you can access it from anywhere.

so your phone doesn't have to be connected all the time. it might not be in the car, it phone.e the parent plus the device works in the car for coaching. let's look at what you did. au got a b. you had propensity for one-handed driving. come on, johnny. what are you doing? we don't want it to all the negative. there is a reward system built-ins of the parents can say, if you improve your score next week, i will pay for gas, or you can win an mp3. the other thing we will work on it.kly is game-ifying we thought teenagers would like to compete against each other. but they don't. they want to compete against mom and dad. like, don't do as i do, do as i say. , when we talkthem to mom and the teenager or dad and the teenager together, the gets happy teen

about that. i spearhead car electronics, working with car manufacturers on the market. the resellers. i am helping them with strategic alliances and sales of the product. peter: what is the importance of showing this to congress? --: with distracted bribe driving being a huge problem, every representative in congress has had terrible things happening in their districts from this. april is distracted driving awareness month. there are many communities that are increasing enforcement, doing other things like that. what we want to do is let congress know that there is actually technology that is inexpensive, that can help the problem. most people see technology as being part of the problem. they see technology as being the problem, as opposed to where, we

could actually have technology be part of the solution. [indiscernible] tell me what you are seeing on " the communicators," a reality -- a virtual reality display. [indiscernible] what are we looking at? >> the hpc. the first room scale virtual reality system commercially available in the world. it was launched in the first week of april. what he is doing right now is a demo. he can make art in 3-d in virtual reality, and draw different shades and walk around

them, look at them from above, below, behind. he cannot see us. there is a camera on the front of the headset, but you can see what is in the room around you. we don't have that activated right now, so he cannot see us. have you had any members of congress? >> half a dozen. they enjoyed it. what wepeople to see are working on. this is a new technology. nobody has really experienced this before. everybody who tries it is in all the experience. it is different from what they have done. we havemething familiarity with. are there any regulatory or legislative issues involved? >> it is so new that there are not a lot of things. we want to educate people today

so they can kind of, we don't want people to make assumptions that may or may not be correct about what the technology is or isn't. we would rather have them come and experience it. peter: [indiscernible] >> you've been watching "the communicators, code looking at new technology at ces on the hill in washington. if you like to watch our previous programs, go to www.c-span.org. >> on american history tv on c-span3, >> there has never been a full public accounting of fbi must intelligence operations. undertakentee has such an investigation. >> on "railamerica," the 1975 church committee hearing to

investigate the intelligence committee -- activities of the cia, fbi, irs, and nsa. tonight at 10:00 p.m. the questions detailing fbi abuses, including attempted intimidation of martin luther king jr. >> there is only one thing left to do for you. you know what it is. you have 34 days in which to do it. this number has been selected for a specific reason. it has practical significance. it was 34 days before the award. you are done. ask associate director james adams admits to some of the excesses while defending a number of other fbi practices. then at 8:00, on lectures in history, >> the rest of us may see a death or two. they see hundreds. they are the first to sort of see patterns, or shifts, in how people are going out oe