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"Infrared Curtain" Brings Touchscreen Technology To Cheap Cars

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-touch dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news about an affordable way to integrate touch screen technology in any car. "Although touchscreen controls are appearing in the dashboards of an increasing number of vehicles, they're still not something that one generally associates with economy cars. That may be about to change, however, as Continental has announced an "infrared curtain" system that could allow for inexpensive multi-touch functionality in any automobile. The infrared curtain consists of a square frame with a series of LEDs along two adjacent sides, and a series of photodiodes along the other two. Each LED emits a beam of infrared light, which is picked up and converted into an electrical signal by the photodiode located in the corresponding spot on the opposite side of the frame."

10 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Old Tech by technical_maven · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is not exactly new technology. Our 2001 Acura MDX used the exact same method. One problem with it was that it tended to become non responsive when it was hit with sunlight... Other than that it worked well.

    1. Re:Old Tech by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Informative

      Go back to the HP 150 from 1983.

      That PC had a touch screen using the same tech, and it was a bad idea at that time, the idea of touch screens in some solutions haven't become better. It's OK to have a touch screen on a phone or small handheld device, but in a vehicle in motion it's a traffic hazard. On a PC with a mouse and keyboard it's just stupid.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. This is So old... by j3p0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is so old, I'll bet the patents have expired. I'm sure I saw it close to 20 years ago. The "Anonymous" that suggested it was probably the marketing droid that was responsible for the press release (follow the link) that got some lazy editor to post it on Gizmag.

    --
    "A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down your Pants" -Chuckles The Clown
    1. Re:This is So old... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The '80s called - this sucked then, it still sucks now.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. Multi touch while driving? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unlike an earlier simpler version of the system, the infrared curtain can also identify multi-touch gestures such as pinching and zooming.

    I'm sorry, but pinching and zooming on a multi-touch display seems inherently incompatible with operating a motor vehicle. For a car, steering wheel mounted buttons, easily accessible knobs, and maybe voice control.

    Mucking about with a touch screen? Not so much.

    Do the people who make cars not actually keep tabs on things like traffic laws and common sense? Or are they just all trying to monetize your dashboard, and don't care?

    I'm not sure this would legally comply with most hands free laws.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. What's wrong with capacitive touch? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If THAT is "too expensive", maybe raise the price of the car by ten bucks or so?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. We Don't Need... by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We don't need any more shit in the car to distract us from what we are supposed to be doing, and that is driving.

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    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  6. Touchscreens Suck for Situation Awareness! by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the push to have touchscreens in the car in the first place? Use of a touchscreen demands that the driver take their eyes off the road, focus on the touchscreen, touch it in the right spot, and then they can return their attention to the road (hopefully without seeing a gaggle of kids, puppies, nuns, or whatever bouncing off the hood of their car).

    Why don't we just put all of the car controls in an app on a smartphone and be done with it, making sure that the driver never focuses on the road?

    Tactile buttons and knobs are much safer. You can feel for them, identify them by touch, and manipulate them without taking your attention off the road. Good control designs are unambiguous and easy to find and manipulate.

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    1. Re:Touchscreens Suck for Situation Awareness! by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This. If I had my way, I would ban all touchscreen control systems in cars. They're fundamentally unsafe by design as long as there are humans behind the wheel. If it is unsafe for me to look down at my cell phone and read a text message, it's a hundred times as unsafe for me to look down at my radio, see what channel it is on, scroll through a list of channels, and choose the right one. It is almost as though someone at every auto company simultaneously thought to themselves, "We've been improving the road safety of our cars for three or four decades, and the lower accident rate has meant fewer replacement vehicles. What can we do to cause more car wrecks?"

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  7. I don't want any touch by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Keep touchscreens away from cars. Back in the good old days I could reach down and adjust the air temperature with a slider and fan speed with a knob without taking my eyes off the road. Now I have to navigate menus and read text for the same task.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard