Tool Kit: Blood Alcohol Testers for Those Without Badges

A recent proposal by the National Transportation Safety Board to drop the legal definition of drunk to 0.05 percent blood alcohol from 0.08 percent has kindled interest in the personal units, some of which are sold as smartphone accessories, app included.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Safety experts warn that a reassuring reading on one of these consumer-grade measurement devices does not guarantee someone is safe to drive, partly because impairment from alcohol varies from person to person. And manufacturers, wary of liability, don’t endorse the idea, either.

These machines do offer some form of measurement beyond counting drinks, however, and they could be useful to parents trying to make sure their offspring aren’t drinking.

Keith Nothacker, whose company, BACtrack, sells a so-called fuel cell unit that displays its results on an iPhone via a Bluetooth link, argues that “law-abiding citizens can’t possibly be expected to know the difference” between 0.05 blood alcohol content and 0.08 blood alcohol content without doing a test. BACtrack displays a graph that predicts blood alcohol levels in the hours to come, all the way down to zero. The device sells for $150.

Inside the hand-held, battery-powered unit is a metallic catalyst that starts a chemical reaction, breaking alcohol down into an acid and water. The reaction also gives off electricity, which is easy to measure and which the unit uses to calculate blood alcohol.

Mr. Nothacker’s company describes its product as “pocket-sized peace of mind,” but in a telephone interview he insisted that its purpose was not to assure a drinker that he or she would be under the limit if pulled over by the police. He said it was simply an “an educational tool.”

A competitor, Alcohoot, is promising shipment in September of a $75 model using the same catalytic method that plugs into an iPhone. Alcohoot’s product includes an app that displays a list of local restaurants where people can eat and sober up and a list of taxi companies.

Another type of measurement device, which typically costs $30 to $70 and is made by manufacturers including Bactrack, relies on a tin oxide semiconductor. Applying alcohol to the sensor changes its ability to conduct electricity, giving an easy indication of blood alcohol. But those sensors may go bad after three to six months. They also can be prone to giving false positives, mistaking acetone, hair spray or other common contaminants for alcohol.

The machines are all calibrated by the manufacturer using a device approved by the Transportation Department that takes in a solution with a known alcohol concentration and puffs it out in a way similar to human breath.

Bactrack recommends annual recalibration of its more expensive models, which it will do for $19.95, including prepaid return shipping.

The market for these devices varies. Most of the cheap semiconductor models are probably bought for personal use, manufacturers say. The fuel cell units are sold to drinkers for their own use as well as to employers and parents.

The testing equipment used by police, on the other hand, is usually not sold to private citizens, nor could the average person easily use them without training.

A driver pulled over by the police and subjected to a blood alcohol test back at the station will most likely blow into a device about the size of a desktop printer. Inside, an infrared light shines through a breath sample, and a sensor measures how much is absorbed; the higher the absorption, the higher the blood alcohol.

Most police departments use a model called the Intoxilyzer, made by CMI, of Owensboro, Ky. It sells for about $10,000 and its results are widely accepted in court. “We have instruments, as opposed to machines,” said Alan C. Triggs, a CMI spokesman.

Machines like the Intoxilyzer can detect blood alcohol levels at 0.08 percent, or 0.05, or the lower levels applicable to commercial drivers, teenagers and others. But before police officers haul a driver back to the station to take the test, the officer often will stick a flashlight-shaped device through the driver’s window. The light given off by this $600 mobile detector mostly serves to disguise its true purpose: an air sensor that sniffs for alcohol.

The mobile units do not get the same respect in court as the big systems seen at police stations, although their manufacturers claim that they have the same accuracy. But they do provide an officer with probable cause to order a driver out of the car for a field sobriety test or further action. The N.T.S.B., which recently called for the stricter definition of drunken driving, recommended more use of the flashlight sensors, because studies have shown that even at a sobriety checkpoint, officers often fail to spot the drunks.

J. T. Griffin, a lobbyist at the Washington office of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, warned that the consumer models were sometimes used by people who wanted to skate as close to the edge as legally possible. And, he said, “If the device isn’t calibrated properly, it could give them the wrong reading and they might drive anyway.”

The devices might be accurate when new, he said, but they all require follow-up testing, and “The average person isn’t going to get one calibrated.”

“From our standpoint, it’s not a good a good way to test” blood-alcohol content, Mr. Griffin said. A better idea, he added, is to pick a designated driver. And even if a person is below the legal standard for drunkenness, he said, “Impairment does begin before 0.08.”

State of the Art: Remember All Those Passwords? No Need

Have these security pundits ever listened to themselves?

That advice is clearly unfollowable. I currently have account names and passwords for 87 Web sites (banks, airlines, blogs, shopping, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter). How is anyone — even a security professional — supposed to memorize 87 long, complex password strings, let alone remember which goes with which Web site?

So most people use the same password over and over again, and live with the guilt.

There are solutions. Most Mac and Windows Web browsers now offer to memorize passwords for you. But that feature doesn’t work on all Web sites, and is generally of little help when you pick up your phone or tablet. At that point, the only person you’ve locked out of all your online accounts is you.

The only decent solution is to install a dedicated password memorization program (like Roboform, KeePass, LastPass, 1Password, and so on). Last week, one of the best was just improved: Dashlane, now at 2.0. It’s attractive, effective, loaded with timesaving features and available for Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android — and it’s free.

Installation is quick. Dashlane works in Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox. It can import existing password “vaults” from rival programs.

Dashlane has two primary features. First, yes, it’s a password memorizer. Every time you type your account name and password into a Web page and press enter, Dashlane pops up, offering to memorize that information and fill it in the next time.

In fact, it also offers to log you in — not just to enter your password, but also to click “log in” for you. In effect, Dashlane has just removed the login blockade entirely. When you go to Facebook, Twitter or Gmail, you just click your bookmark, smile at the briefest flash of the login screen and arrive at the site.

Since Dashlane is now storing and auto-entering your passwords, you’re now free to follow the security experts’ advice. You can make up long, unguessable passwords — a different one for every Web site, since you don’t have to remember any of them. In fact, each time you sign up for a new account, Dashlane offers to make up such a password for you, and then, of course, to memorize it.

Dashlane’s second huge feature is even more amazing. It can also fill in other kinds of Web site forms: your name/address/phone number, and even your credit card information.

When you’re buying something online, and you click into the credit card number box, Dashlane displays pictures of your credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express or whatever — even PayPal.

When you click the one you want to use, Dashlane instantly fills in the long card number, your name, the expiration date, even that accursed security code, in the right boxes. Every time you order something online, you save between 30 seconds and five minutes, depending on whether you have your card information memorized or have to go burrow through your wallet.

When you make a purchase, Dashlane even offers to store all the details in a digital receipt that you can call up later, along with a screenshot of the Web site where you shopped. This feature makes online shopping so frictionless, every dot-com retailer on earth ought to be promoting Dashlane as if its profits depended on it.

In fact, Dashlane can fill in all kinds of forms automatically: phone numbers, job titles, tax numbers and so on. If you’ve ever recorded multiple answers — you have two different Twitter accounts, say — two tidy buttons appear beneath the name box, bearing the account names. Click the one you want.

Unlike some rival programs, Dashlane doesn’t require you to associate one set of personal information to each “profile.” If you have three addresses, for example, you’re always offered those three when filling in a form. You don’t have to create three personalities’ worth of personal information.

So far, Dashlane probably seems designed for convenience, and that’s true. Behind the scenes, of course, its ultimate goal is security.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 7, 2013

The State of the Art column on Thursday, about the password memorization program Dashlane, misspelled the name of a rival program. It is KeePass, not KeyPass.

App Smart: Tech Reminders for Keeping Those New Year’s Resolutions

This year it’s different. I’m using some apps to help me stick to my resolutions. We’ll see whether the best 21st-century motivational companion is the smartphone or tablet. If you want to try the experiment, too, here’s where to start.

The Astrid Tasks/To-do List app (free on iOS and Android) is not specifically meant for keeping resolutions, but as its name suggests it’s both a to-do list app and a reminders app. To use it for resolutions, just enter them as tasks and set repeating reminders. With all your data inside, Astrid becomes your portable digital conscience, gently nagging you to hit the gym, practice the piano, leave work on time and so on. (Ah, if only my smartphone knew when I was picking up a piece of chocolate.)

The app’s interface is simplicity itself. It’s a list of the tasks you’ve entered, with icons that tell you if each one has been completed or if it’s a recurring task. Entering a task (or a resolution, in this case) is easy: click “add,” type in the resolution and select a reminder alarm if you need one. In my case, the app is going to ping me at 9 a.m. every day to remind me to take a morning jog. If you need moral support, you can tell the app to share your goals with friends via e-mail or Facebook.

The iOS and Android apps differ a bit. The iOS version is cuter, thanks to its icons and cleaner design; the Android version is trickier to operate (I found it hard to see the little “save” icon when setting the time for a reminder, for example). But both versions work well, and both integrate with a cloud-based database so you can sync all your goal data among your devices.

Lift, free on iOS, is a similar motivational app, but with a community angle. The core of this app is a social network: you join groups that help you achieve a goal. For example, if your New Year’s resolution is to quit smoking, several groups can help you do so. You check in with these groups and comment on your actions and the group’s activity, and you can even earn a thumbs-up from group members for your progress.

The app lists existing groups in categories like “popular,” “fitness habits” and “learning habits,” or you can create your own group and invite friends to join you. For those who need a bit of social encouragement to stick to their resolutions, this app may be the best option.

While Lift does have reminders, they’re not the app’s main function, which means it will require a degree of willpower to remember your resolution, turn the app on and check in. The forgetful may not find it the best choice for keeping resolutions.

A new fitness or health regimen is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions, and Fitocracy (free on iOS) is an app that can help you stick to it. It has a social group setup similar to Lift’s, but it’s exercise-centric, with a much jollier design.

For example, during setup the button to advance to the next settings page is labeled “go forth!” rather than a boring “next.” This playful attitude is really what the app is all about. It awards you points when you finish activities and has gamelike features like reward badges and even “level ups.” This combination of lightheartedness and a sense of community spirit may be exactly what you need to help you keep exercising.

For a simpler, calendar-based app to help you keep a resolution, try Streaks — Motivational Calendar ($2 on iTunes). After you’ve added a goal, you tap on the app’s calendar to cross off a day when you achieve the goal. It’s a little like playing a game; the app keeps track of the longest streak of days you’ve managed, and your current number.

Though it is much less sophisticated than the others mentioned here, it’s ideal for those pressed for time, because interacting with it is so fast. Momentum Builder is a free Android app similar to Streaks, though its design is not as polished.

I look at a bunch of other resolution-binding apps on the Gadgetwise blog.

Happy New Year from me to you! May your apps help your resolutions come true.

Quick Calls

Google’s Zeitgeist app, free on Android, is a great way to look back at 2012. It’s an interface to Google’s report on how the world searched during the year, and it’s crammed with fascinating data. ... Nokia’s free Xpress, which compresses Web data so your phone doesn’t consume so much of your 3G or 4G data allowance, has been updated to be compatible with all Windows 8 phones. It had been limited to Nokia handsets only.