The talking cars of the future

On this week's Tech Check podcast, Doug Gross, John Sutter and Stephanie Goldberg discuss some pretty big advances in car technology that could be just a few years away from becoming a reality. Consumer Reports has endorsed what's called vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology. The tech, which is being tested now, lets automobiles, in effect, talk to each other -- for safety and other reasons. There's also growing talk that cars that drive themselves could be closer than we think. In other news we talk about a billboard in London that shows you a different ad based on your gender. It uses facial recognition to decide (supposedly with 90 percent accuracy) whether you're a man or woman and respond accordingly. We talk about what this might mean for the future of advertising. Our Reader Comments of the Week come from our stories this week about internet privacy -- most notably concerns by lawmakers and state attorneys about Google's upcoming changes to its privacy policy. Google says it will be pulling all of your data from all its sites and tools into a single profile. Should you be concerned. And our Tech Fail of the Week goes to some folks who we feel are taking Klout -- a pretty fun app to play with that attempts to measure your online influence -- a little too seriously. To listen to Tech Check, click on the audio box to the left. To subscribe, you can add Tech Check to your RSS feed here. You can also download the podcast on iTunes or using mobile apps like Stitcher.