New Car Heads-Up Display To Be Controlled By Hand Gestures, Voice Commands

Lucas123 (935744) writes "A new company has just opened a crowdsourcing campaign for a heads-up display that plugs into your car's OBD II port and works with iPhones and Android OS-enabled mobile devices via Bluetooth to project a 5.1-in transparent screen that appears to float six feet in front of the windshield. The HUD, called Navdy, works with navigation apps such as Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions, and music apps such as Spotify, Pandora, iTunes Music and Google Play Music. Using voice commands via Apple's Siri or Google Voice, the HUD can also write, read aloud or display notifications from text messages or social media apps, such as Twitter. Phone calls, texting or other applications can also be controlled with hand gestures enabled by an infrared camera."

Comments

Any bets on how long before the plug is pulled?

[mark-t]

If a display is not integrated into the car itself, and in particular where the *sole* purpose of a display should be to assist in driving the car safely, then it's going to be considered a distraction from driving, and therefore not going to be legal to use while driving.

Re:Any bets on how long before the plug is pulled?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

HUD's don't require you to take your eyes off the road.

Ideally, no. In practice, IME we aren't quite there yet: the focal distance for current in-car HUDs still tends to be significantly shorter than where a driver should normally be looking. However, it's still interesting to consider whether even the HUDs we have available today are an improvement on static instrument consoles, where the driver also has to look down/over, as well as changing focus to an even closer range.

Hopefully it goes without saying that using this kind of technology to display anything that isn't immediately relevant to driving (such as the notifications shown on their site right now) is crazy.

However, in a few years, I can imagine that navigation systems will use a combination of eye-tracking and HUD technology to skip the stylised graphics we use today and just highlight the required driving line directly on the road ahead. My other big wish for this kind of technology is enhancements for when visibility is poor: think night vision/IR with additional highlights on hazards such as a car ahead slowing down sharply or a pedestrian moving toward the road. Those kinds of qualitative improvements in driver awareness could save a lot of lives and a lot of time, not to mention the general frustration that sometimes comes with driving in unfamiliar places today.

Re:What a great idea

[PrescriptionWarning]

Yeah it does seem like a bad idea to be watching videos while driv.... Ooh cute kittens dancing must watch LIKE LIKE LIKE!!!

Hand Gestures?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really the best way to control something in a car? Do we really want drivers taking their hands off the steering wheels to make silly motions in space while they're driving?

I mean, maybe it'll work. Maybe it does make sense. But my initial reaction is skeptical.

a great technology for the United States.

[nimbius]

As an american ive been using hand gestures and voice commands in traffic for years now.

Re:Um...

[Sockatume]

I assume they mean that it appears focussed at six feet away, but it subtends as much of your viewing angle as it currently does on the dashboard. So if it's five inches across and three feet away from your face, it looks like it's actually ten inches across and six feet away.

Ummm ...what?

[gstoddart]

other applications can also be controlled with hand gestures enabled by an infrared camera

So, instead of people taking their hands of the steering wheel to hold onto their phone, they're going to take them off the steering wheel to control their stuff with gestures???

Seriously people, are you actually designing something for people who are driving cars?

Here's a suggestion, save your damned text messages and social media updates for when you're not bloody well driving.

Re:Ummm ...what?

[Ziggitz]

There's a difference between the federal prohibition of all alcoholic beverages and telling someone to put their fucking phone away for 20 minutes while they operate a 2 ton weapon. One is an absolute ban and the other is requiring you by law to be a responsible adult and not partake in activities that have been proven to kill people while driving and to perform those activities at a safe time.

Re:Shut up and drive...

[wbr1]

Rather than provide fancy new 'heads up' displays for drivers or built-in smart phone driver docking stations for drivers with their 'heads up' their ass, we should be working on roadside electronic surveillance and longer prison sentences for the drivers who kill people while using their smartphone.

While I agree that distraction is an issue, and solutions should be found, and I also agree that this device sounds like more distraction, longer prison terms solve nothing. Incarceration does not stop drug use, threat of life in prison does not deter murderers of bank robbers. No matter the differences in incarceration percentage or average length of incarceration, developed countries crime rates stay relatively stable. The few things being tougher on any crime does do well is break up families, provide jobs to the prison workers, and create a hated underclass that is likely to turn to crime again.

This is not to say that there should be no punishment for crime, but to say the money would likely be much better spent on proper prevention. Not more police, swat toys, and police programs, but things like education, family planning , job training, addiction recovery, even driver training, etc. For the cost of putting 2-3 people in prison for a year, a town could hire a person to do distracted driver training and testing on a closed course. All you need is an empty parking lot and some cones.

Honestly officer, I wasn't watching TV on my HUD

[Opportunist]

But, you see, there was a fly in the car and as I tried to swat it...