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Google Glass Integration For Cars Is Coming: Neat Idea Or Crazy Town?
cartechboy writes "Americans have enough trouble keeping from texting their way to dangerous — or worse — situations in cars. But now car makers, looking to differentiate with tech integrations and after jamming iPhone everywhere, are working hard at integrating Google Glass into vehicles. Consider this quote: 'Within seconds, I've got step-by-step directions to a coffee shop down the street beamed directly to my eyeballs.' Aside from being a little Jetsons, sounds potentially problematic. (Note, Mercedes had been doing R&D since July.) It goes without saying that someone is working on an integration of their own with a Tesla Model S. There is a coolness factor, there may be some utility — but not sure this is a great idea."
yeah right
Not crazy town !!
Car, I'm bored, take me to somewhere interesting. I'll take a nap while you drive.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
what is the top and bottom quarter of my windshield now going to have banner AD's beaming me garbage I either A) already bought, or B) have zero interest, in as I drive down the road?
I can see the potential of such a heads up system, but I also know how Google makes its money, its not by charity.
oooh....pretty colors....State Farm is There.
I'm really stumped on this one. New cars are coming out with all kinds of distractions, like web browsing and now this. If we all had cars that drove themselves I would not mind. I can't see how this will result in anything different than people texting and driving. A few will use it as suggested (step by step GPS), but a few will crash into innocent people while updating Facebook or browsing the web.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Now you can launch yourself through the windshield directly into the virtual world of Google Glass. My first adware app for Google Glass will simulate a Mac truck approaching your car, right on your windshield. The driver's instinct will be to swerve off the road, right into the gas stations that pay me for this amazing new form of advertising.
YES! Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars creating all these car integration apps, then watch as cities all over the country ban google glass use while driving because its too distracting.
Although car integration for Glass makes a lot more practical sense for me than other uses, I think there are a lot of other options that give you better and richer feedback. In car screens would have more detail than Glass, HUD displays projected on your lower windshield would be better yet as they could provide a ton of useful info.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Fucking Bloomberg
Infrared cameras at night and in fog, anyone?
I would LOVE to see that.
But, as a projection overlaid on my windshield, or at least a pretty large projection on the bottom of the windshield. Or even in the large screen embedded in my dashboard that highlights heat sources.
Having a small floating screen that kind of messes with your peripheral vision is NOT the best way to deliver IR video feeds from the front of your car.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd support a $5000 fine for anyone caught even wearing google glass while driving a car.
People are fucking scary now with their cellphones and other bs they do while driving...
Combine this with the Joo Janta 200 app for Google Glass that turns them into Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses which go completely black at the first hint of trouble!
This is a terrible idea. Trying to read Glass while driving is VERY difficult, and you get the false sense of security that you are still "looking" at the road, when really you are not at all focused on anything in front of you. I tried it for a bit and was amazed how hard it was and how dangerous it felt. I would never use it like that. I think I'd be safer taking quick glances down at my phone with the maps app than trying to use Glass.
After some thought I think Glass is a really bad idea for driving. Having the screen floating in your vision reduces what you can see in the same way a really badly place side pillar in the car can... I guess we can call it the G-Pillar.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Finally!
I was wondering when I could get my old steering wheel laptop attachment.
Google Glass will allow me to pay even more attention to my e-mails on my way to work!
...not gonna happen in my car until it's mandated via obamacare.
Anyone remember this? http://youtu.be/U2AkkuIVV-I
brakes.sys has cases a system error please hold down start to restart your car.
I think a true heads-up display on a windshield would be much more useful than Glass. Plus it could be ensured on a true HUD, you are only seeing what you want to see (i.e. - car stats, speed, highlighted roadway/signs, etc.). I've been thinking of making one myself since there doesn't seem to be a good DIY version out on the webs. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
Browse at 1. You'll thank me later.
Considering these are supposed to be GLASSES, the lack of FOCUS is funny. There are three areas we should focus on when it comes to advancement and evolution of the car:
1. Efficiency. 'Nuff said.
2. Self-driving. Take that incompetent moron sitting between the steering wheel and the seat directly behind it out of the decision making loop, freeing him or her to do whatever he or she feels he/she should REALLY be doing, like texting, for example, or drinking a beer.
3. Flight. Again, enough said. It's absolutely essential though, that 1 and 2 be completed before 3, because the last thing we need is a barely-guided, AIRBORNE missile that belches pollutants by the ton to do what in most cases can be done by a fucking bicycle, namely, moving ONE person from Point A, to some nearby Point B.
Adding distractions to the experience of performing a task (driving) done by so many only marginally competent to do it just goes to show further evidence that Google's motto is a joke, or perhaps it was meant ironically or as subterfuge from the outset.
Good grief. What a stupid idea.
I keep hoping for an augmented reality navigation system. Not only would it make sure I don't have to listen to some automated voice that can't pronounce street names, but it'd make sure my son stops complaining about how he can't see any bears to our left or right, no matter what the navigation system says.
Now that I think of it, instead of an arrow, the system could display a very realistic grizzly bear in whichever lane I am supposed to use to get to the highway's exit.
I retain an attorney so I am ready to deal with irresponsible
fuckwits who think it is somehow "ok" to drive while not
paying attention.
Believe me, if you hit me and injure me or my family, you
will wish you had thought better of it, if not before the legal
proceedings, then afterward when you are living in the homeless
shelter.
It will go well with my HD TV windshield and the Beats by Dre headphones I wear whenever I drive.
Turn-by-turn directions that appear to be floating in the air 8 feet in front of you, a little up and to the right so they're out of your central field of vision, seem like a safer option than putting the same directions on a screen in the center of the console and much safer than on a little handheld screen.
Short of an actual HUD, Glass seems like the ideal way to display driving-related information. In theory, at least. I've read that the current generation isn't quite bright enough, so directions are hard to see. That may be fixed in the public release model, dunno.
Of course, people can (and some will) use Glass for other, distracting, purposes while driving. But that's hardly the fault of the technology.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
(yes I saw it somewhere else)
Except that if someone is going to be a crappy driver, they're going to do it with or without technology. Technology is simply the boogeyman that the media uses rather than simply admitting that there are some poor drivers on the road. A crying child in the backseat is infinitely more distracting than a radio/cell phone/Google Glass
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What if the windshield fogs over at a critical moment during your trip???
Well being a white surface on which the projection would be even more visible I'd be pretty damn happy I had an IR view of the road ahead instead of nothing at all!!
I would of course run the defroster rather than rely on the video for long...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do this with glass, which not only could have a lot going and be more distracting, not to mention it's right in the line of sight where there might be something more important going on? By having a HUD that's actually part of the car, so it's always just at the edge of your line of sight and not in the way of anything but your own hood? I have a family member with a 2000 Corvette that has this feature. It projected onto the bottom of the windshield and was focused in a way where it looked like it was floating. I remember it showing speed and tach and was friggin' awesome, you could see your speed and rpms without ever having to glance away from the road, not even to your dashboard. I'm surprised that this was made 13 years ago and it's still not standard equipment on new cars. I'm sure by now they could have the technology to show more details like maps or whatever would be useful, and out of the way but not so far out of the way you have to take your eyes away from the road.
Even wearing headphones is prohibited in IL (and I expect many other states).
How would this Glass distraction, in front of your eye at all times, help you be a better driver? As far as I'm concerned this is even worse that texting on the road. It would be a great solution if we were concerned that taking our eyes off the road is the problem. Changing focus and distraction seems to be the issue, and I'm not sure how being bombarded with the location-aware reality overlay that is Google Glass will contribute to a decline in automotive accidents.
Unequivocally the realest of the realz...
They'll be covered by their car insurance.
Anyway, what makes you think your attorney is any better than theirs? And why would you think a prospective distracted idiot will know about your attorney before they hit you, especially when you're posting anonymously?
Plus, if I were planning to hit you, and did know you had an attorney (the only situation in which your ridiculous threat has any relevance) you're merely making me realise that injuring you would be foolish, and I'd better make sure I finish the job properly.
I'm not sure you've thought this through.
More likely to be running QNX than Linux based Google Glass. Here's a video QNX put out about the future of in-car integration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY9AzUfSdKU
Ok, it's not google glass but a 2008 vehicle with built-in navigator. It doesn't work. Why? Because my passenger cannot enter information while the car is moving.
No, I don't want to stop on the side of the road with my engine running trying to fumble-input a destination with a lame-ass onscreen keyboard.
&, no, I don't want to put my car on my cell data plan - I'm getting reamed for too much money already by my cell provider.
Oh let's try that new restaurant - only to find the navigator doesn't even know about the street it's on, much less the new restaurant.
So, my passenger can sit quietly by using a smartfone's navigator, or can watch me drive around swearing about one-way & dead-end streets 'til I give up & go to the place I preferred anyway.
I have dreaming about having a display in my car for decades now. It is wonderful to see some of this technologies come to life.
I will consider it my duty to throw a rock through their windshield. Consider this fair warning.
This would seem to offer no clear advantage over current HUD tech, and would actually be worse in almost every conceivable way (ease of use, clarity/resolution, distraction level) except for the ability to use colors, so it seems to be a non-starter from the functionality perspective.
I would prefer that any tech on which I rely while driving be integrated into the vehicle's power source, so that I don't have to worry about it going dead while I'm using it, so it fails (for me) from the practicality perspective.
Many states have had laws against distracted driving on the books for years, and are actually starting to enforce them. There are also laws against front windshield tint and other forward visual obstructions. (It's actually illegal in some states to hang anything from your rearview mirror or to rock a dashboard Jesus, as that is considered an obstruction to driver vision. Wearing something that covers your eyes and interferes with your vision sure seems like it would run afoul of both of these laws. And rightly so, IMO.) So it fails from the legal perspective.
But it'll probably be an option in every car in 2 years.
I'm sure people will find a way to use car analogies in their comments !