Pioneer Preps Laser Heads-Up Display For Cars 116
itwbennett writes "On display at Japan's Ceatec show this week is a heads-up display from Pioneer that links with a smartphone's navigation system. The prototype uses a laser to display bright, high-contrast, full-color images on a screen that would be mounted above the dashboard so drivers don't have to take their eyes fully off the road in order to receive driving instructions from their robot overlords. The demonstration model was hooked up to an Android-based phone and displayed a navigation map on the left-hand side and an animated Android robot on the right-hand side that passed on information to drivers. 'We are currently aiming for an after-market product, but we are talking with car manufacturers,' said Masaya Hashida, tech manager at Pioneer's smart vision business development department."
An anonymous reader points out another gadget shown at Ceatec: a pair of augmented reality glasses that projects information to a user's peripheral vision and weighs only 20 grams.
soooo.... (Score:1, Funny)
i can finally watch porn while driving....safely?
Well.... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but only this film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/ [imdb.com]
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I remember pondering what lesson I was supposed to learn. I'm pretty sure it was "everyone is an asshole, except that one Mexican guy". I'm sure that is applicable to my day-to-day life, though the message was a bit hurt by me pondering WHY that one Mexican guy wasn't an ass, was it an oversight by the film makers, or what it intentional? They went out of their way to paint everyone as sympathetic racists, except that ONE guy?!
Much like all the of the recent politically correct movie genre, I'm confused.
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Somehow I don't think we're talking about the same movie here...
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You are absolutely correct.
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Saw it on Sci-Fi Channel.
They made a big deal about it, and warned it might offend some people. Well it didn't offend me - I just thought it was weird. People get off because of car crashes? Ooooo-kay.
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James Spader is in EVERYTHING bad
there, I corrected it for you. It is Kevin Bacon that is in everything.
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Coming soon..... GTA5: IRL
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You need to keep both hands on the wheel, so, no.
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You nailed it. The idea sounds incredibly retarded, dangerous as all getout.
Jesus, I have trouble concentrating on reading the paper with moving flashing doodads on the page distracting me. People can't even talk on the phone without driving worse than a drunk!
This is the dumbest idea I've heard of in a
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It looks like you're trying to turn left.
Cancel or allow?
It sounds really useful (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, navigation is one obvious application of this, but coupled with a front-mounted IR sensor, it could also provide obstacle detection and highlighting during night time driving.
I wonder what they have in the pipeline!
Re:It sounds really useful (Score:4, Insightful)
an animated Android robot on the right-hand side that passed on information to drivers
Am I the only one who thought of Mr. Clippy when I read this?
P.S. /. has disabled my ability to cut and paste.
If the quote is messed up it's because for some reason
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The cute animation is indeed the worst idea since clippy. But I thoroughly disagree with your comments on GPS generally.
It's often not possible (illegal) to pull over. Meanwhile your mind can become distracted from the lower level functions of driving by the problem of trying to work out where you should be going. And stress levels can rise if you become lost or don't know if you will be late to your destination. It's far better to delegate the navigation task to a machine that can do a far better job of it
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Though people overdo - I've seen far too many times to count a car from my (small / impossible to get lost in) place, driving directly towards it on a ubermain route & short distance away, in the night, with GPS unit blasting at their eyes with its screen at full brightness.
And that's when it's easy to notice (despite not that many people having satnav in my part of the woods) / how many other times GPS units are used in a detrimental or outright dangerous way?
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or make a steering wheel with a chording keyboard in the grips so one can text/email more safely than people do now. (yes i know it'd be better if people didn't do those things, but laws aren't that effective at curbing such widespread, minor behavior.)
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There are BMW's that do that already.
F your targeting computer (Score:3, Insightful)
.
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This post quotes a porno movie?
My navigator is neither a GPS or a HUD. It's a AAA Atlas that I acquired for free, and I can hold it up in front of me if I need to.
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Cars with frikin' lasers (Score:3, Funny)
Do not look forward with remaining eye.
They got it all wrong, AGAIN! (Score:2)
Lasers should be installed on the OUTSIDE of the car, dammit!
That's all we need ... (Score:5, Insightful)
More distractions while driving. Is it too much to ask that people drive when behind the wheel?
If you NEED to use a phone while on the road please think of the people around you - carpool, use public transportation or take a taxi.
Re:That's all we need ... (Score:5, Funny)
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> I'm typing this post while driving up I-95 as we speak, and let me tell you, it's perfectly sa
Uh oh. Candlejack has taken up hitchhi
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I'm typing this post while driving up I-95
I don't think sitting in a parking lot is technically driving.
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I will say that HUD's are nice, very nice. Expensive as hell, but very nice. You're easily looking at paying 4x the amount for a windshield replacement if that ever cracks too. But yeah, too much crap? Too much of a pain, then again not enough of a distraction you're more likely to fall asleep(see the area between London and Windsor).
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Am I way off?
This seems to me that it wouldn't be part of your windshield at all.
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I've had 2 cars with HUD. Both C5 generation Corvettes, and the difference in windshield price is about 2x-3x as much for a HUD windshield vs non-HUD. I had to have the windshield replaced in my old C5 and it ran about $1500 for the HUD windshield, whereas a standard windshield was around $800 (no-deductible glass coverage is a no-brainer). Granted, these are not LASER setups, but it will still require different optical properties for the plastic layer in the glass compared to standard. Note that with curre
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The Airforce puts information in a HUD so their pilots will be distracted and perform poorly. Yup, that's it.
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the air-force doesn't have twitter on theirs
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The majority of drivers learned from someone in the family, who was never properly trained themselves.
If there was proper driver training and testing these shows [wikipedia.org] wouldn't be able to exist
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Distractions are one thing, but I would love to have a HUD in my car that displayed the information that normally requires taking your eyes off the road (such as speed and fuel levels) and which would then open the door for adding safety features (such as displaying the relative locations of vehicles nearby and thus eliminating the need to turn to check your blind spots as well as augmenting your view of the road ahead and accentuating potential obstacles such as large furry mammals that tend to congregate
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...and which would then open the door for adding safety features
I'm pretty sure that if your HUD opened your door while you were driving it would be the opposite of a safety feature...
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I think a HUD that shows just an arrow of which way you need to turn, along with a distance indicator could be fine. Maybe both could start out as fairly low-contrast and get to be higher contrast (or brighter/ more saturated colors) as you're getting closer, but there's no reason to show the top-down view of your car o
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Agreed, the lookdown view for GPS systems was a huge enhancement. I don't want want to be looking at a map while I'm driving. I want to see that my second left is where I need to go, or that the road curves ahead.
Trying to correlate a standard map view with my driving
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i think a good navigation system helps safety.
though you're not alone in this thinking and our benevolent, good intentioned, rulers/overlords are right behind you. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-08/lahood-weighs-urging-u-s-ban-on-all-driver-phone-use-in-cars.html [bloomberg.com]
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It's a matter of degrees, and how you do it.
My car has bluetooth in the stereo, so if I take a call in my car while I'm driving, the car is the cell phone and I can still drive with both hands. I've got a GPS nav attached to my window -- it's in the middle of my window, below the rear view, and not above the horizon of the hood. So, it's in my field of view when I need it, and something I can ignore when I don't
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I would rather that Pioneer simply make Car stereos and nav units that did not SUCK.
Honestly their UI is horrible at best. How people tolerate the half assed user interface of aftermarket car stereos I'll never understand.
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Navigation is a driving task. Drivers are less distracted if they delegate the task of choosing routes through unfamiliar territory to a machine.
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And I'm sure that in the future they'll have it so that it highlights the lane markets and gives you an indication where you are in the lane.
Beyond that, I think that when they figure out how to have it tell yo
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Oh Crap (Score:4, Funny)
"...an animated Android robot"
Don't be fooled. It's Clippy in disguise.
"You appear to be driving along the edge of a cliff. Can I help you with that?"
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Sounds great, looks cool, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
FTA: "The prototype uses a laser to display bright, high-contrast, full-color images on a screen that would be mounted above the dashboard, between the driver and the windscreen. To the driver the projected images would appear in the lower part of the windscreen."
Gives new meaning to the term 'distracted driving'
Re:Sounds great, looks cool, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not just people being stupid though, it's hard to drive and do other complex tasks at the same time.
If you ask me they should all the outlawed. People need to plan their routes ahead and if they get lost they need to stop and reexamine their maps.
If you ask me, human drivers should be outlawed.
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Some people were doing stupid things like that before there were sat-navs. If you've got any evidence that people do it more often when using a sat-nav, then I'm interested. But just the information that some people with sat-navs STILL do stupid things is not particularly interesting.
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FTA:
"The prototype uses a laser to display bright, high-contrast, full-color images on a screen that would be mounted above the dashboard, between the driver and the windscreen. To the driver the projected images would appear in the lower part of the windscreen."
Gives new meaning to the term 'distracted driving'
Not until Amazon.com releases a Kindle app for it.
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That will never happen, because it doesn't have the capacity to "send" you anywhere. It can only display advisory informat--wait, this is going to be wired into the car's control system? NOOOOOO!!
It should show speed / other gauges as that will b (Score:2)
It should show speed / other gauges as that will be a big help no need to look down to see your speed / look at your car gauges.
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This style of HUD has been available on Corvettes for over a decade...
It kicks ass!
Try head-up display (Score:2, Funny)
...unless your name is Zaphod.
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It's actually "Head's-Up" display, which is a shortening of the original terminology "The Head Is Up" Display.
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Ooops. The term is older than I thought. It originates with baseball and refers to all the players having all their heads up & being alert while playing. The oldest citation I could find comes from 1914.
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Fly that geek flag with pride, man.
awesome! (Score:5, Funny)
HEY what would be awesome is a 3D color display of the cars, pedestrians and roadway ahead of my vehicle.
that would be awesome!
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That's available now, but only for 8 to 12 hours per 24 hour period. Something about the planetary rotation disrupts the lighting system on a regular basis. There are also non-trivial issues with good system performance during so called "weather" events.
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For example at night, in fog, or in rain infrared and other sensors can see things that you can't. the HUD could show you were these objects are. Things like lines on the road, cars, pedestrians and even show you where they are headed. I know I've been driving a few times where I really couldn't see where I was going because fog, or rain had come in really quickly, but it was mo
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Prior art: Windshield, headlights, and wipers.
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Da-oh! (Score:2)
I, for one, welcome our robot overl...
Hey, how are we supposed to make jokes about overused memes around here?
Green Laser (Score:2, Interesting)
If they ever get a green laser on par with their red or blues, then man this display will take off and you'll see it EVERYWHERE because it will be low power, small enough and cheap
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So, does this mean that Microvision finally solved the green laser issue?
Well, last year-ish [arstechnica.com] was when researchers finally made a true green laser diode; hopefully by now that means they've increased the efficiency so that it's actually practical.
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The car is working as expected. Your wife seems to be the problem. ;-)
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Nice, but. (Score:1)
I recall seeing a mockup of a system that would actually project an image on the windshield that would appear to be a line hovering above the actual road (above the tops of the cars) tracing the route you need to take. How long till we get that? Granted, it would have to know exactly where the driver's eyes are in order to make sure the positioning is correct, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
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About freakin time (Score:3, Interesting)
The last couple of cars I bought I refused the option of a built-in satnav. Nevermind that they are way over-priced compared to portable units - the real problem I have is placement. I can put a portable unit right on the dash in front of me so I barely have to take my eyes off the road. Almost all of the built-in satnavs have their display half-way down the middle console where it is a major distraction to look at. Infiniti, and I think Volvo, used to have satnavs that popped up in the middle of the dashboard so at least the driver did not need to look down into the car in order to see the screen, but for some reason their newer models dropped that design and went to the crappy placement.
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Yeah, the built in ones are a joke -- I remember looking to replace the DVD (yes, DVD) in my wife's old car. It was a 2003 model, and to get a new DVD for the satnav would have been something like $800 or so. You could buy multiple portable devices for that. At that point, the portable ones had way more features than the bui
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I must be weird. I have a speedometer and other instruments on the dash in front of me. Above those is the windscreen, revealing the world around me.
I like a built-in satnav because it's out of the way, it isn't blocking key information sources and I can ignore it easily.
That said, my current car's satnav is built into the top of the dash, which is indeed more sensible than putting it down with the aircon controls.
(The other advantage of built-in satnav is that you also tend to get better electronics with i
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Just a thought, you'd probably be better off getting one which talks to you. And only looking at it while parked or at a red light to adjust it.
Why is that better than having one in my normal field of view?
My complaint is not that the satnav functionality distracts me,
it is that putting it outside of my normal field of view makes its use dangerous.
I'm perfectly fine with my mobile satnav sitting right there on the dash above the
wheel. In fact, it makes me a better driver because it also displays a speedometer,
further reducing the distance my eyes need to move in order to monitor operation
of the vehicle.
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I once ripped the satnav off the dashboard of my mothers car while I was a passenger and threw it at the back. She was dumbfounded when I told her that she proceeded to look directly at the satnav about once every 15 seconds despite the fact we were on a highway and were driving st
Sweet! (Score:2)
LaserDisc? (Score:2)
For about a second I thought this article was about Pioneer Prppping a new LaserDisc gadget.
I need to stop living in the past.
Why not have this sooner? (Score:1)
Why haven't we had this sooner? Seems a no-brainer to put most car display on a HUD. I'm talking basic automotive display not navigation or other distracting display. We need this NOW. Maybe more people would be more conscious of what they are doing, what the condition of the car is and gee, keep their eyes up and more on the road.
Just my $.02
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Cost. It's that simple.
That's why Cadillac has had a night-time HUD on their cars for, what, a decade now? Because at that price point, they can jam in a bit of extra tech.
The guy buying the Dodge Neon? Not so much.
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If that's due to costs, it must be largely a result of artificial product stratification / "options"...
HUD speed display is easy & inexpensive - if the car uses miles, all you need in almost all cases is two very bright 7-segment numeric displays, hidden at the top of the dashboard and reflecting in the windscreen. Status lights are even easier. Still limiting options to simple & easy ones - arrows coupled to GPS and showing how hard and in which direction (plus perhaps how far by some shrinking col
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Why haven't we had this sooner? Seems a no-brainer to put most car display on a HUD. I'm talking basic automotive display not navigation or other distracting display. We need this NOW. Maybe more people would be more conscious of what they are doing, what the condition of the car is and gee, keep their eyes up and more on the road.
Same gripe, and I'll take it further: I'd like to be able to customize the instrument panel in my Crown Vic, but there's a marked lack in aftermarket instrument clusters. If I had investment capital, I'd have been all over this years ago.
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Given the primary demographics of Crown Vics (cops, cabs, and old people) it doesn't strike me as a vehicle with a big demand for after market goodies.
Hondas with coffee-can sized exhaust pipes, however, you can buy anything you want. :-P
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You missed a big demo.
Wannabe cops.
Augmented reality glasses... (Score:2)
And some people I know doubted we will see it during the whole upcoming decade. Now, I need to figure out the best layout of body function sensors and translate their readings to a 0-100 numerical values, to be displayed in the corner. Ammo value might have some practical limits...oh well, a crowbar doesn't need it.
Augmented contact lenses would be even more optimal.
How much time in development ? (Score:2)
I'm curious as to how long this project has been in development. I remember, way back when I was going through my "pimp my ride" phase, more than once did the thought cross my mind to set up a laser graffiti system for my windshield. I figured if people can draw on walls or even buildings with that stuff, why not my own car ? I actually ordered the gadget and tried it out, but it was shooting through the windshield and was more visible from outside than in. I didn't know shit about light polarization ba
only one problem left to solve for Pioneer... (Score:2)
keeping the frikkin' sharks carrying the lasers alive behind the dash.
what could possibly go wrong (Score:1)
Blue screen in size of whole windshield?