GM Working On Interactive Windshields

this_boat_is_real writes "Rather than project info onto a portion of the windshield, GM's latest experiment uses the entire windshield as a display. Small ultraviolet lasers project data gleaned from sensors and cameras onto the glass. General Motors geeks are working alongside researchers from several universities to develop a system that integrates night vision, navigation and on-board cameras to improve our ability to see — and avoid — problems, particularly in adverse conditions like fog."

Comments

Re:Non-average driving positions?

[grumbel]

As the video shows they are doing active head and eye tracking of the drivers position in space and adjust the image accordingly.

One thing worries me...

[SharpFang]

It can improve safety of driving in poor weather conditions immensely comparing to current situation. But I'm afraid it will have a reverse effect in reality: increasing driver's confidence ("the HUD displays the road far ahead, so there is no danger") will result in increasing the speed in these conditions, and result in more serious accidents because the system can't foresee everything - obstacles on the road, slippery surface, other cars that don't have it and drive blindly - the kind of accidents slow and cautious driving would help against, or at least minimize impact.

Re:One thing worries me...

[natehoy]

That's what scares me, too. It's like 4WD here in Maine - if you go down the highway after a snowstorm, you'll pretty much see only two types of cars - very small light cars and SUVs. The former because the cars simply can't handle the conditions, and the latter because some 4X4 drivers became severely overconfident in the capabilities of their vehicle and think 4X4 is some form of magic glue that sticks the wheels to the road. The 4x4s are the ones that get really banged up, because their drivers have been running at or above the speed limit.

That and the possibility of some sort of malfunction at an ill-timed moment. A bunch of drivers tootling down the highway in deep fog, all tailgating one another just like they do in clear conditions, and the second car in line has his sensors hit by a rock kicked up by the first car, and it knocks the sensors off kilter or out of order. Second driver is now completely blind in heavy traffic.

If used to enhance defensive driving, this kind of system could be really useful. Especially using senses like IR to detect problems that may not be very visible (pedestrian in dark clothing walking up to crosswalk at night) or providing useful safety information (paint the 3-foot barrier line around the cyclist, and estimate whether you have enough room to safely pass him based on the speed of oncoming traffic in the opposing lane). Combine this with GPS to "mark" the road you want to drive down, and maybe even "paint" the road names on roads you are passing by, and turn-by-turn GPS is suddenly a lot less distracting.

But that's not how it's going to be used, at least not exclusively. For every driver using this as additional information while driving at a speed they can support without the enhancements, you'll have at least one that turn the system on, put the "Top Gun" soundtrack in, crank it to 11, and drive down the highway in 20-foot-visibility fog at 70MPH following the painted lines.

Re:Reward vs risk?

[Vanderhoth]

I don't want my attention drawn to a speed signs.

How am I suppose to tell the cop I didn't know I was in a 50 km/h zone with my stupid windshield pointing out all the frigging signs to me.

Re:Great, more distractions for drivers...

[Securityemo]

You could simply put in sanity checks for the number of highlighted entities/on-screen information density. Each type of displayed object having a priority and a weight, based on screen area covered, distance to other objects, and such...

Re:Reward vs risk?

[Dunbal]

You have yet to experience driving through fog so thick you cannot see past the front hood of your car or rain pouring so quickly the wipers do nothing.

Hint: This is when you pull over and wait for the weather to clear before killing yourself/someone else.

Re:Reward vs risk?

[jimbolauski]

Most people with common sense know if you can't see you shouldn't drive, I know that some cases are unavoidable long bridges in Florida where you're not supposed to stop are the most obvious case. The problem with this system is that it will give morons a sense of security, similar to dumb-asses in SUVs going way too fast in the snow, who think they are invincible because they have 4 wheel drive until they try to stop their 1 ton SUV and slam into something, every winter I see more SUV's off the road then anything else. This has the potential to be a great innovation hopefully GM will try to moron proof it by disabling the feature when visibility is low and the car is traveling too fast.

Re:Reward vs risk?

[Runaway1956]

"Red is pretty much always used to indicate danger of something critical it's a bad color to use for that sort of information amber might make more sense if you have to highlight this sort of information. I would save red for things in your path or moving into your path - real dangers."

Please, think of those of us with impaired color vision, alright? Use red for frivolous bullshit. Save blue for something that really needs attention.

Don't expect green to get our attention, either. I can drive down a big city street at night, and every single light in sight is pure white. Suddenly, one of those white lights changes to yellow, and I slow down, because I know there's a traffic light there, going to turn red. Yes, you guessed, YELLOW is another good color to get our attention. Don't use red, don't use green.

Amber is alright - I see that. I guess some rare people with worse color vision than I have don't even see that.

Re:Reward vs risk?

[Rasperin]

I hate SUV's but the argument that you see "more suv's then anything else in some certain scenario then another" is probably more along the law of statistics. There are (or were a few years ago) more SUV's on the road then cars/trucks/vans/etc. So law of statistics is going to say that if an equal amount of dumbasses are driving and there are more SUV's on the road, then there will be more SUV's wrecked.

I will admit that security probably also has to do with it, but I feel pretty damn safe in my ((insert 5star crash rating car here))