Drivers in Pennsylvania between the ages of 50 and 75 will get to test out a new program by Allstate that’ll attempt to determine whether playing video games makes for better drivers. The pilot program will be open to 100,000 people who will be asked to play at least ten hours of memory-type games aimed at improving alertness. These drivers will then be compared to other 50- to 75-year olds who haven’t gone through the training, called “InSight” to see if accident rates differ.

The “brain fitness” games have been developed by a company called Posit Science, based in San Francisco. If the program works well in Pennsylvania, Allstate may roll it out to other states as well. Apparently accident rates start to creep up around the mid-sixties age range, so if these games are able to help decrease accidents in and around that age bracket, it’d likely be a worthwhile program to pursue nationwide.

[Posit Science via CNN/AP]

Good news for those of you that get angry and smash lose your PDA on a regular basis: AT&T is planning to expand their insurance options to include PDAs come June 2nd, 2008.

Insurance will cost $4.99 per month, with two different pricing tiers for deductibles:

• Tier I: Most standard phones, $50 dollar deductible.
• Tier II: High end phones and PDAs, $125 dollar deductible.

Contrary to some reports, these options will not cover the iPhone.

Insurance is only available to those initiating a new contract and those who have purchased their phones within the last 30 days.

Photo Credit: justinbaeder

While it’s true that they’d have to buy a new phone, the 18-month contract would not start over.

Undercover reporters were told the same thing at three out of the five stores. If they were to lose their phone, they’d have to buy a new one AND start their contract over from day one. They were also told at some stores that the insurance sold through Carphone Warehouse offered more coverage than the insurance sold by O2, the iPhone’s UK carrier. In reality, the level of coverage is the same.

Salespeople at Carphone Warehouse are offered extra commission for selling phone insurance and the company as a whole was fined £245,000 last year for similar insurance-related shenanigans.

Company representatives told the BBC that such reports might be due to "some element of confusion among an isolated number of sales consultants" and that such complaints aren’t reflective of the entire chain.

Carphone Warehouse misleading iPhone customers? [iLounge]