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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."
Can I get these laser beams on a Camaro Shark?
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"Wow, it's like those other cars are coming right towards me!"
Depends what fog.
I faced fog that really obscured anything further than on your lane. No road signs, no turns, no edges of the road. You could still drive safely at a snail's speed, but finding the way was a real challenge. An "augmented reality" GPS display that shows where the actual road goes would be immensely helpful.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It looks like you are trying to crash.
Would you like to
( ) Buy more insurance
( ) Change your beneficiary
It gives new meaning to BSOD.
And the Blue Windshield of Death will actually cause your death.
I live west of my place of employment, and the recent time change has given me it's yearly double-whammy. When you live west of where you work, it means that you're driving east in the morning to get there, and west in the evening to get home. Depending on start and stop times, it means that the sun can be right on the horizon, blinding you at both times. This happens for a few weeks each spring and fall, until the sun rises earlier and sets later, so that the visor can adequately and easily block it. Then time change comes, knocking the sun back down to the horizon.
I want an "active windshield" that knows where my eyeballs are, knows where the sun is, and blackens just the right spot (with a little margin, of course) to shade my eyes. Compared to that, any heads-up displays are secondary.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Awesome now I can enjoy handsfree video chat!!
The people who don't, for one thing. This system can help you avoid them, or help them avoid you.
I don't think you'll see ads on your windshield. Too distracting, there would be lawsuits and finger pointing every time such a car was involved in an accident.
I'm sure they would test to make sure the system can't obscure your vision of the road. Worst case scenario is it has a problem and turns itself off (that would be a sane course of action), and you're no worse off than you are today without such a system.
Making "decent", efficiant, cars before working on further power drains.... I would love a car with a better alloy of steel, or even perhaps frames of aluminium bronze, with lightweight plastic coverings.... Immune to rusting out after five years.... And maybe a decent engine. Or go the path of Honda.... Build an electric car as you want it: the best motors, interior, etc, but instead of a ton of batteries, use a fuel cell to hold the energy in the form of quick to refuel hydrogen.... If a battery can ever be made that fits and fuels, cool, but until then you can get the kinks out everywhere else until that advancement has been made....
I say, make fewer, better cars.... Cranking out miles of unsellable crap doesn't help in the long run...
Unless this is done VERY carefully, I'm afraid it'll just end up distracting most drivers. Yes, head-up displays have existed in fighter jets, etc. for decades, but those pilots are highly trained to process all the data given to them. Throw an average driver into a car that suddenly starts highlighting road signs, etc. and you risk distracting him. What happens if the system freaks out as you drive down a street with tons of road signs? You could end up flooding the windshield with lots of neon lines as the system tries to highlight all of them. And how do you decide exactly what to highlight? Suppose it highlights a person crossing the street in darkness a mile down the road? The driver will get distracted trying to figure out what the car is warning him about.
Now imagine all this being done with a teenager behind the wheel who just got his license...
Actually, this leads to an interesting question - positional accuracy.
This information is going to be projected on a windshield - a surface that is several feet from your head. Different drivers from different positions are going to have different viewpoints. Someone who is 5' 2" and is sitting in a seat cranked all the way forward is going to be looking through the windshield at a significantly different angle from someone like me (6' 3") sitting in a seat cranked all the way back, and even I sit in different positions based on whether someone is behind me, etc.
Heck, move a few inches to one side and the perspective is going to be thrown totally off.
This is irrelevant for the Buick HUD that displays your current speed, since it really doesn't matter exactly where that "floats", but if it's going to highlight the roadside or some other "position critical" information for me, this is going to be a problem.
There ARE good uses for the sensor technology they talk about. But I don't think a windshield HUD is going to be one of them, sadly.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I'm still waiting for the "Back to the Future" cars to start surfacing. We were promised those cars over 20 years ago. Where are they?
Oh, and "hover boards"... Where are they? I don't see 'em...
When, GM? When will you give me what I want?!?!
No government funds for you!
Holy happy hippy crap!
As the video shows they are doing active head and eye tracking of the drivers position in space and adjust the image accordingly.
How do they draw a line that represents the edge of the road without knowing the exact position of the drivers eyes? This is just half of the puzzle.
My other signature is a car
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.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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.
You can't fuck up drive-by-wire because drive-by-wire itself is a fuck up. Tie a bike cable to your accelerator and hook the other end to your throttle at tension. This is the perfect throttle control system, just like 2-system hydraulics with a side-channel booster (i.e. if it fails, it no longer supplies assistance; but the hydraulics still work) is the perfect braking system (especially since if the whole engine AND electrical system AND half the braking hydraulics catastrophically fail, you can still stop).
There's all this "efficiency" crap, about how we need drive-by-wire to tune that last little 0.1% of fuel economy out and get better MPG. Also we need low rolling resistance tires (and less handling and grip with the road-- sticky tires might cost you a MPG over low-grip low-rolling-resistance fuel economy tires). EFI and electronic ignition isn't enough; we need full tank-to-air-to-cylinder fuel mix and combustion management.
Meanwhile the US gets the lowest fuel economy ever out of the world; everyone else has gasoline cars averaging over 30mpg for real, while we have EPA rated 36mpg cars (the Pontiac G6, which is a Chevy Cobalt which was rated for 32mpg...) but they really get 24mpg highway and 21-22mpg city. I recall Japan averaging over 40mpg on non-hybrid petrol cars; while Europe is averaging 50-60mpg (someone I knew got 80mpg on a rental during a trip though, wtf?) in diesel cars.
We're doing something wrong, and putting a computer between the accelerator and the throttle isn't it. I don't like software bugs being able to floor it for me. And Toyota and Mercedes-Benz can go to hell with their up-and-coming Brake-by-Wire systems.
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Now I can install a stock market app on my windshield that lets me watch GM stock fall in real time.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Allow people to better see in fog and they will drive faster.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There's a reason more and more new production aircraft are coming out with HUD and EVS systems. Better visibility and having data in the field of view beats not having it every day of the week. The same can be applied to cars; having an infrared camera projecting an overlay (not a replacement image, but a transparent overlay) would increase visibility at night or in fog/rain.
Look up "gulfstream evs" on youtube for an idea. The tracing and outlining stuff in TFA is something entirely different.
I want something like this:
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
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.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
My problem with Japanese vehicles is that they don't offer me what I want. I like their cars, but their trucks are inadequate. They have adequate trucks in other markets (Toyota HiLux, Nissan Patrol) but they don't bring them here. Even if they did, they wouldn't come with diesels due to the emissions equipment; both companies sell numerous vehicles that they sell in the states in other countries, but with diesels as an option. The pickups only have maybe 4 liter diesels at the largest. Ford is about to offer a half-ton diesel, allegedly. If Nissan would offer me a 3.5 liter turbo diesel patrol here in the USA, I'd like to own one. I can't afford a new car anyway though, so even if they brought it out tomorrow, I'd still be rocking my antique 7.3 liter diesel ford F250 for some time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Add in the sign-recognition system GM’s Opel division has developed and the head-up display can tell you when you’re exceeding the speed limit
So the highlighting of speed limit signs looks like it's intended to be used to highlight signs when they display a speed limit that is lower than your current speed. Sounds pretty useful for all those little "speed-trap" towns that litter state routes.
"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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Been there, done that. Pulling over isn't always the best thing to do. Ask a California highway patrol, he'll tell you that the people BEHIND you, who can't see where they are going, will follow your tail lights anywhere. Trying to stop in that thick fog invites an accident.
I experienced a sudden downpour of rain in Mississippi, on the interstate. I mean, no warning at all. Someone on the CB radio said "Rain", and then I was in it. No little warning spatter or anything. Just a solid sheet of water, like walking under a rain spout during a downpour.
Someone one the CB said he was stopping til it ended, someone quickly answered, "Don't stop - there's oil on the road, you can't stop, and the people behind you can't stop!" In six or seven minutes we had all made it through the squall, no one went in the ditch, and we were happy.
Having driven much of my life on ice, I already knew that the best answer is often NOT to touch the brakes. We got lucky as hell, that day, that no one ahead of us hit THEIR brakes!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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))
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Yeah, and if you ever hit thule fog on I-5 in California, it can be just like that rain you encountered. Everyone is flying along at 70-80 MPH and suddenly you can barely see the edges of the road. It's a white knuckle experience, because you know you can't just pull over or you will be the wall that people run into at 70-80 MPH. That's been publicized after some of those dozens-of-car pileups.
I turn on my front and rear fog lights*, let off the accelerator, and slowly decrease speed until I feel like I have just barely enough visibility to see hazards and steer around them if necessary. Then I continue to try to get the hell out of the fog before somebody rear-ends me with a 20+ MPH difference in speed.
* And actually I use the rear fog light very conservatively, only turning it on when it isn't clear the following cars can already see me without it. Nothing pisses me off more than some of those yahoos who drive around on I-5 on a crystal clear night with rear fog lights and high beams blazing, completely scorching the retinas of everyone else.
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I don't know how useful / distracting an entire interactive windshield will be, and I can easily see possible issues; but I had a 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP with a true HUD that projected speed, turn indicators, etc. up on the glass. When you combined it with the radio control knobs on the steering wheel, I really only had to take my eyes off the road to look at the rear-view or side-view mirrors. It was not distracting at all even though it was directly in front of vision when looking straight out the front from the drivers seat; and it really helped / eased concentration in my opinion. It didn't add squat to the cost of the car and the only downside was that the windshield was expensive if you had to replace - you had to use a special coated one instead of just any replacement. Personally, I cannot figure out why all cars don't come with one. I truly miss mine.
+1
Some more numbers...
The GMC Yukon weights 5200 lbs or 2.6 tons, with the 4x4 version tipping the scales at nearly 5600 lbs or 2.8 tons.
Even my Subaru Outback does even come close to this, weighing in at a blistering 3600 lbs.
I have to say it: I always wanted night vision like Jackie Chan in that movie—hopefully with some kind of safety so it can't be used (easily) without the headlights on. Heh heh.
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
Saab, BMW, Volvo, you know, any decent European car. The problem is, a lot of Americans don't know what they are (even the people who own cars that have the fog lights) so when people are tailgating obnoxiously I hit the switch (I have rear fogs on both sides, not just the driver side) and the people behind me invariably back off, thinking I am breaking, but I actually accelerate slightly to confuse them and get them to back off further.
You've seen rear fog lights. Ever see a volvo or saab with one super-bright "brake" light that is stuck on? You've seen an idiot who doesn't know what the rear fog light is for and thus leaves it on all the time.
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You probably won't be able to get this on any car that doesn't have adaptive cruise control with a distance sensor. It will know how fast the car ahead of you is going, including if it's stopped.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But I can't think of an American car that qualifies as a good beater with good MPG. Suggestions?
All of them are actually imports in disguise except some Geos and the Focus which are designed with an import mentality and after substantial technology transfer. Focus is not a bad choice, but most models come with drum brakes in the back. You might be able to lift some discs from a ZX3 and put them on other models though. Escort was a Mazda 323. Chevy sold some Toyotas here and there. CRX is a good choice if you don't live in California or feel up to bucking smog restrictions... oh yeah, and don't mind driving the coffin you'll be buried in because it's too much trouble to pry you out of it. I guess you could strip it and install a cage :)
Whatever you do, don't buy a Neon, they're about the most unsafe car being sold in the US.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"