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Mercedes Unveils Digital Headlights That Project Street Signs, Markings Onto the Road Ahead (newatlas.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: Mercedes has just announced a conceptual new set of lamps that can not only adapt their light distribution to cater to the environment, but can project high-res visual aids onto the road ahead, such as makeshift zebra crossings for nearby pedestrians. The new system is dubbed Digital Light and features two million pixels that, with the help of algorithms and sensors that analyze the vehicle's surroundings, can each adjust their individual brightness depending on the scenario. An example of this might be a partial dimming to avoid blinding a cyclist. We have seen this kind of adaptive lighting technology before in systems developed by Fraunhofer and indeed Mercedes itself, although tuning it to control millions of pixels individually does appear to be new territory. But where the Digital Light system gets quite interesting is with the ability to project different objects onto the road. Imagine you are rolling up to an intersection in a foreign city with unfamiliar streets signs and the car, having collected the necessary information, projects a stop sign onto the road out ahead. Perhaps just as practical is the ability to shoot out strips of light that represent the precise width of the car, which could be pretty hand just as you try to squeeze through that extremely narrow gap. For what it's worth, Mercedes says it has already fitted it to a number of demo vehicles and reckons it will be on the road "in the near future."
The correct way to do this is with a heads-up display. Projecting images on the road will have all sorts of unintended consequences,
including but not limited to distracting the drivers of oncoming cars ( those people who are so inconsiderately sharing the road
you imagine you "own" ).
I'd say I was surprised that German engineers thought this was a good idea, but I've seen the cars they are making these days
and I now expect mediocre work from them. Stuff like plastic intake manifolds and coolant piping, and the most amusing of all,
the "biodegradable" wiring harness ( ask any season Mercedes-Benz tech about that one ) have caused me to conclude that
the companies involved are no longer concerned with doing the best possible work.
I believe this story's line should be brown.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
projects a stop sign onto the road out ahead.
Or projects a different sign. Other vehicles see that sign and assume it must be right, ignoring the posted stop sign (or other traffic control device) and causing an accident. I see absolutely no risk in each vehicle creating it's own moving traffic control system.
Especially when it starts projecting "zebra crossings" into the street. That's going to create a mess and be quite a process here in Oregon where there is a crosswalk at every intersection. What fun, when a pedestrian sees the oncoming car projecting crosswalk markings so they assume the driver is aware of it and steps out into the street assuming the driver is already planning on stopping. Hilarity ensues.
This is pretty cool. I think in general it's a good idea, however I can see it causing entirely new sets of problems. As drivers we recognize the difference between what we ought to do, and what we must do. For example, there are times when crossing a double yellow line would result in my death, while there are other times I cross the double yellow line safely and without risk to avoid a hazard in my lane or on the shoulder. My concern is people will start seeing these visual aids as things they *must* do. Thus in the process of trying to adhere exactly to the virtual markings, they become oblivious to the actual hazards that are more important. In one of the pictures they show two lane markers projected, which is where the car ideally should travel. On the right there are barriers that are actual hazards that are taking up part of the lane, and to the left is the other lane, which may or may not be an actual hazard. So if I am concentrating on the projected markers (which I assume are "intelligent" because they are dynamic), will it be obvious enough that I am travelling into another lane and that I must make sure the lane is clear of other vehicles first?
http://img-2.newatlas.com/merc...
The real question though is this... if the car has that much information about the environment to project images that tell you what to do, why isn't the car doing the driving in the first place?
Better known as 318230.
I farted. I demoed this to people in the office, and they were quite excited. You'll be able to experience it yourself "in the near future".
(This kind of shit is stupid and won't be around "in the near future". The regulations for headlights alone would take years to rewrite and grease through. Further, nobody wants to see the projections from a car other than their own, least of all cyclists and pedestrians. It's bad enough when some jackass has illegal HID lamps that are misaligned so they blind you and are that ugly blue color so the last thing you see is just fucking awful. The only sane way to do this shit is to do it on the windshield as a head-up display for the driver.)
Can the project ads for close by stores, like Duncan Donuts? Or maybe pop up some on-road advertising for what you look at on Amazon last night, and then an arrow showing where you can buy it locally! Oh, brave new world!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
ah, romance
I'll bet a bunch of kids in middle school are busy doing that right now.
Red means Go Dog Go!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you want to help the motorist with tech like this, put a HUD inside of the car that will show the necessary info on the windshield to the driver, because there is no reason for anyone outside of the car to see that shit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The real question though is this... if the car has that much information about the environment to project images that tell you what to do, why isn't the car doing the driving in the first place?
That's easy, lawyers.
Lawyers are why we can't have nice things.
Don't get me wrong. We need laws. We need people knowledgeable in law. We need courts, a justice system, and so on. The problem is a profession built upon frivolous lawsuits. These lawyers get paid even if the suit is stupid, or even unlikely to win. There is no easy solution to this because the stupidity of a given lawsuit is in itself something that is open to debate. Getting lawyers that simply will not take money to go through with stupid suits is impossible, because people need money.
Technological solutions to problems are not nearly the obstacle they used to be. Getting this technology to fit in a society that is not used to such a pace in technological development is now a much larger problem. At least that is how I see it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
off topic, but I just heard an ad where lawyers were soliciting clients who had been wronged, for, get this; losing their hair during chemotherapy!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'm piloting over a tonne of metal moving at speeds capable of inflicting instantaneous death upon anything in my way; don't fucking distract me by putting on a pretty light show on the road ahead!
Indeed. And this includes strobo lights on bicycles, which are banned in some more civilized countries precisely because they cause accidents for others than the selfish bastard using them for their own protection, fuck everybody else.
Cooperate, and don't distract people who try to control heavy objects at high speed.
I'm piloting over a tonne of metal moving at speeds capable of inflicting instantaneous death upon anything in my way
What about a California Redwood?
Or a layer of water bears on the road?
I'm more impressed by this proof-of-concept from a few years ago, of headlights which could selectively de-illuminate individual raindrops and improve visibility in rain (or so was claimed) by 50% even at 90km/h.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Oh please, please let the first malware hack of this be a windscreen full of flying dicks, a-la second life interview!
It's less funny when you realize that they are developing a car that can project a "makeshift zebra crossing" onto the road directly in front of it. Why exactly would you want to entice pedestrians to walk out into the road directly in front of a car? Hmmm.
Or you could just make a car that drives itself. Either way.
As a cyclist I would like a system for myself that could mark the minimum safe passing distance to my side.
If it also included a high powered offensive laser for intruders then that would be a bonus!
And projecting ads will be a day 1 feature in this application.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The signs are mostly a gimmick. The important part is to identify other vehicles to avoid dazzling them while keeping everything else well lit by main beams.
Hundreds of millions of people with reduced night vision that cannot (or should not) drive at night will be able to do it safely.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Have gnu, will travel.
That's kind of what I was thinking. Everyone always claims their new tech is going to make people safer, happier, etc.
When really all it is mostly used for is to sell stuff.
Television was promoted as something that was going to show concerts and informative classes to the masses.
Same with the internet
Now granted, selling stuff often does make people safer, happier, etc., but still
these headlights are going to be providing advertisements to the driver.
And in driverless cars, they'll be showing ads to all the passengers all the time.
Just imagine how wonderful that will be.
btw.
https://www.facebook.com/hasht...
#mercedesstanowskiego
Use google translate for reading. Mercedes social meda (and real media) fail for fun and (lack of) profit.
And have it display the names of streets that are coming up if you have the option turned on. Not really required if you have your phone or a GPS system in your car but it would look cool which is basically what this system is about. The only thing that I can see being useful is the lines being projected showing the width of the car. The rest seems kind of pointless.