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EyeDriver Lets Drivers Steer Car With Their Eyes
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that German researchers have tested a new technology called eyeDriver that tracks a driver's eye movement and, in turn, steers the car in whatever direction they're looking at speeds up to 31 mph. 'The next step will be to get it to drive 60 miles per hour,' says Raul Rojas, an artificial intelligence researcher at Berlin's Free University. A Dodge Caravan fitted with eyeDriver has been tested on the tarmac at an abandoned airport at Tempelhof Airport. However, it remains unclear when — or if — the technology will be commercialized, as questions about safety and practicability abound: What about looking at a cute girl next to the road for a few seconds? Not to mention taking phone calls or typing a text while driving. But the researchers have an answer to distracted drivers: 'The Spirit of Berlin' is also an autonomous car equipped with GPS navigation, scores of cameras, lasers, and scanners that enable it to drive by itself. And should the technology-packed vehicle have a major bug, there's still an old fashioned way of stopping it. Two big external emergency buttons at the rear of the car allow people outside to shut down all systems."
So we want cars to steer towards what we are looking at? Seriously? You want to have all the cute women in the world run over?
just sayin
Once they figure out how to steer the car by thought, I'm going to be at Taco Bell a lot.
"Two big external emergency buttons at the rear of the car allow people outside to shut down all systems"
It can only be stopped if it is stopped...
Or someone with a rock and extremely good aim!
Possible use in fighter jets, video games, or controlled environments, perhaps say a UAV pilot locked in a room. An interesting idea, but a terrible initial application.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Driving in the direction you are looking is a terrible idea.
Here in the UK you don't pass a driving test without using your rear view mirror, your side mirrors; and looking when appropriate through the side or rear windows. Just because you are looking for potential dangers doesn't mean you want to steer into them (e.g. a car overtaking you). Applying makeup etc. or tuning the radio would be unusually lethal.
Jonathan Paton
Kind of like the EyeDriver, but Steve Jobs drives your car with his own eyes. This ensures a consistent driving experience, so long as you only want to go where he sends you.
-Lod
What problem is this actually trying to solve? Are people really finding it too difficult use their arms to drive? Or is this aimed at people who can't drive right now, because they have no arms?
Advanced driving courses always teach scanning techniques for driving that include looking not only where you are going, but constantly scanning for pedestrians on either side of the road, cars that may or may not see you about to turn in front of you, cars in your left and right side mirrors, and cars in your rear view mirror. They also teach to always have an escape route: if the unexpected happens, always have a place you can steer to to avoid a hazard without crashing into another car or a pedestrian. You can't do these things if you always have to look only where you want the car to go. Peripheral vision is not acute enough to pick up, for example, the shadow of a person's feet beneath a huge SUV parked on the side of a road, where that person may suddenly step out in front of you without looking since the SUV is blocking both your and their line of sight. Unless entirely autonomous, the vehicle's control surfaces HAVE to be independent of eye movement, because situational awareness depends on it (even in some cases the ability to turn your head to check a blind spot, or to see if your kid in the back seat isn't choking on his or her toys).
No sig now
People do this already. To learn to drive a car, ride a bike, ski, or control any other type of vehicle, you go through a learning process where you commit the control procedures to muscle memory. Once you have that covered, you pretty much go where you want to go, without necessarily thinking 'ok, now I need to turn the steering wheel'.
By and large, barring any significant equipment failure, you pretty much go towards whatever has your attention - for better or worse. Target fixation is alive and well in pretty much all of us. If you're on your bike and you keep staring at it, you'll most likely hit it. If you look at the path around it, most likely you won't. It has nothing to do with your ability to control the bike, and everything with the ability to control your attention.
I feel really bad for the poor guy changing the flat tire, or getting the traffic ticket...but as a Darwinist it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
With most people that drive while texting or looking cellphone, the car should see that idiot is not looking at road and pull over to the side of the road safely so that the idiot knows that person is no looking at the road.
death!
"You have chosen to look at an accident. Would you like to join the accident?"
Especially given how many people find it necessary to constantly make eye contact with their passengers when talking. Ah, well. At least it would cull the herd. It's too bad it'll take out so many innocents in the process though; surely there's a more efficient way.
Alright, that aside... it looks like it won't be that sensitive after RTFA:
"The car stops at intersections and asks the driver for guidance on which road to take," the researchers say. A few seconds of attention with the driver looking in his desired direction get the car flowing again.
Heh. That'll be even better. Could you imagine stopping at every intersection... "Please indicate direction..." ... roll forward a block ... "please indicate direction..." ... roll forward...
You know the new VW minivans are Dodge Caravans, right?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Dude, this is /. -- we don't READ the FTS, these jokes are all new to us ;)
Does this sig remind you of Agatha Christie?
So we want cars to steer towards what we are looking at? Seriously? You want to have all the cute women in the world run over?
While the comment WAS funny there is a problem with something like that already.
It's been known for decades that drunk drivers tend to fixate on flashing yellow lights and then steer toward them. This makes using flashing yellow lights as a warning counter-productive.
Oregon, for instance, long ago switched away from blinky-yellow lights to the rear on police cars to use as warning lights when they have people pulled over - with a significant reduction in car-hits-cop-at-traffic-stop incidents.
California, of course, has standardized on big yellow blinky-lights for cop car pullover warnings. (I recall a few years back when San Jose was lamenting how many of their new fleet of cruisers had been smashed by drunk drivers that year...)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What happens when a deer runs onto the shoulder of the road in front of you? Most people would probably look at the deer, not away from it.
Have you read my blog lately?
This ensures a consistent driving experience, so long as you only want to go where he sends you.
Yes, but on the other hand you are automatically re-routed around all of the upside-down Vista cars.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... if you are riding down the road and see an object (such as a pothole or large stone or piece of exhaust pipe) that you wish to avoid, THE LAST THING YOU DO IS LOOK AT IT, because you do ride where you look.
This is a lesson that bikers learn the hard way, you fall off and get hurt.
Car drivers are different, so you will have car drivers who notice obstacles in the road as being more visually interesting than the blacktop itself, and promptly drive though / over / into all of them.
"Rubbernecking" also means that every single accident suddenly becomes a gravitational black hole, and the possibility of any vehicle passing it without adding to it approaches zero.
The steering wheel works perfectly well, just ask Michael Schumacher, if you are going to mess with that then go directly to fully automated, cut the human right out of the control system.
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