12 ms·

Should we let cars use the road as a projection screen?

77 points by clouddrover 4y ago

ktpsns 4y ago
Just one data point from Germany: The legal situation currently makes it illegal to use arbitrary lightning signals in motorized traffic. This has many clear reasons, such as reducing stress and distraction and reserving blue warning lights to emergency vehicles, for instance. Given how traditional and cautious Germany is when it comes to new technology, I could imagine that projecting cars have a long way until getting recognized. On the other hand, Germany thinks of itself as a automotive country. Car manufactures have a lot of influence in politics.
paulgb 4y ago
Somewhat related, CitiBike trialed a setup that projected a bike symbol ahead of the bike. It wasn’t rolled out widely, but I remember thinking that it was a good system on the few occasions I happened to get one of the pilot bikes. https://www.6sqft.com/citi-bike-to-add-laserlight-projection-feature-to-improve-rider-safety/ https://www.6sqft.com/citi-bike-to-add-laserlight-projection...
- quartz 4y ago
  If I had to guess, this probably drew a lot of attention to the moving symbol projected on the road and away from the actual cyclist. ...now if they could equip the bikes with cameras to issue tickets to all the people who park in our bike lanes, THAT would be cool.
- _Wintermute 4y ago
  The TfL hire bikes in London (Boris Bikes) have this. They don't seem great, it's just some faint green laser lines on the floor that don't resemble a bike rather than what you see in those photos. If anything they're more confusing for other road users.
kube-system 4y ago
Why? There are more reliable means of conveying information. Just because someone figured out they can do this doesn’t mean it is a good idea. The road in front of the driver is an area where the drivers focus should be solely dedicated to being aware of their surroundings. Projecting other symbols only clutters the information that the brain has to process. Status indicators work better in dedicated spaces to reduce cognitive load.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Projecting map info on the road means the driver has to look at the map screen less, which increases the focus on the road ahead.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Assuming that the vehicle has empty road in front of them, at night, with sufficient contrast. Many people drive vehicles during the day, on a road with other vehicles, or other competing lighting sources. What is better is an indication system that works in all conditions, rather than requiring the driver to look different places under different scenarios. Indicator lamps placed high upon a dashboard work in 100% of driving conditions and also allows the driver to remain looking in the correct direction. The only thing they lack is marketing gee-whiz favor.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Why not use a heads-up display on the windscreen? Some automakers already do this and it should avoid most of the concerns around projecting outside the vehicle.
  - skellera 4y ago
    HUDs already exist in cars to do something very similar without potentially confusing symbols that others will see.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Use a HUD. I had a 90s Cadillac that had a FLIR HUD display. It was a little gimmicky but pretty cool and better than polluting the surroundings.
seba_dos1 4y ago
> Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction Uhm, what???
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Yeah nothing is more annoying than touch screen inputs while driving. Even my porsche has an obvious input lag and the touch screen is rather low quality. German cars aren't particularly great when it comes to electronics let alone touch screens.
  - wtetzner 4y ago
    Even without input lag, having to look at a screen to press a button is much more distracting than a physical button that can be found without looking.
t0mas88 4y ago
I don't understand how they call a head-up display a premium feature and then continue to describe matrix-led-projection headlights that are only on the high end models of premium German brands. Head-up displays are available in a relatively mid-range BMW 3 series from over 10 years ago. It's an option you have to pay for, but so will these lights be.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Yeah heads up displays have to be at least an order of magnitude cheaper to produce, if not more.
  - hendrikrassmann 4y ago
    1.3 million micro-mirrors per headlight :D God forbids we (Germany) just build good cars that get you from A to B.
    - jerf 4y ago
      That may sound weird, but it's actually off-the-shelf tech for a couple of decades now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing It's already the most common projector technology, not something new they're developing just for this. 1.3 million mirrors is actually low-resolution by modern standards.
    - woobar 4y ago
      DLP TV mirror chip from 15-20 years ago had 2M mirrors.[1] [1] https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dlp1.htm https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dlp1.htm
  - SkyPuncher 4y ago
    Yes and no. I believe this technology is an extension of selective darkening headlights. Essentially, a camera system can detect surrounding vehicles and selectively darken the lighting around them. It means you could effectively always run your high-beams since the vehicles around you won't be blinded.
buro9 4y ago
Nice. So we have some cars that rely on visual information for self-driving. And we have some cars that can project onto the landscape, modifying visual information. What could go wrong! I only have a Volvo, in the UK, and it has one of those systems that tell you the last road sign that it has seen. That information then can optionally control warnings, speed limiter, etc. I typically do use the speed limiter, it works well... until I was behind a car that had a 20mph bumper sticker on the back. Then my car kept insisting that 20mph was the speed limit. I was on a motorway. I also think of that Tesla stop light truck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7CJEQ2kz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7CJEQ2kz0 , and this https://uk.motor1.com/news/449020/video-tesla-model-3-traffic-sign-recognition-tricked/ https://uk.motor1.com/news/449020/video-tesla-model-3-traffi... , and this https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-road-self-driving-car-high-speed-mode.html https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-road-self-driving-car-hi... Plot for a future novel: Project light onto surfaces from a moving vehicle to make another car behave in a way that kills the occupants. No evidence can be found at the scene as to why the car killed the occupants.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Autonomous Trap 001 is another: https://jamesbridle.com/works/autonomous-trap-001 https://jamesbridle.com/works/autonomous-trap-001
- stickfigure 4y ago
  How about blinding the (meat) driver with a low-powered laser? If you want to murder someone, there are many options. I wouldn't bet on "no evidence" for the autonomous vehicle. It may record telemetry and video.
  - buro9 4y ago
    > It may record telemetry and video. For the novel, probably neither of the above is recorded in high enough resolution. Thinking of subliminal messages inserted into old movies here, just flashing something up for a hundredth of a second, doing it enough that a system detects something... but not enough that video filmed at 30fps really shows it, and that telemetry doesn't really capture it. All the telemetry would show is "car thought X", and the video would appear to be clean. What isn't known from is "why" car thought something.
lordnacho 4y ago
Gonna be great once the advertising industry finds out about this.
mightypirate 4y ago
corobo 4y ago
Isn't there a an odd effect where people are drawn towards what they're looking at while in motion? I'm not sure I'd be a fan of plopping something unusual on the road in front of me if there's other lanes. I'm picturing some random rubbernecker sending me flying off the road because my car decided to project a raincloud in front of me. E: target fixation is the term I was after
- trgn 4y ago
  Target fixation is apparently how many motorcyclists crash. They see the tree and then ride directly into it. The first thing they teach a rider is looking where you need to go. It doesn't come naturally at first, because it often means you're not looking in front of the bike, and have to trust physics will do its thing. That body-bike connection needs to develop over time and become instinctual, the mind needs to be taking out of the equation. It really takes time. That's why it's often a horrible idea to start learning to ride well into adulthood, it's harder to learn these embodied habits.
  - m3047 4y ago
    Depends somewhat on the bike, but yah; and personally I prefer a bike that just goes where I look.
bena 4y ago
No. The road is a shared space and it should be respected as such. We already need to reduce the lumens on headlights. And probably take out "hi-beams" altogether. Seriously, I've never been in a situation where it's made a difference worth talking about. In over 20 years of driving, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. And it was mostly to see if it would help. It did not.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  In over 20 years of driving, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. Sounds like you've never lived in a rural area with lots of deer and other critters.
  - bena 4y ago
    In over 20 years of driving, even in rural areas with lots of deer and other critters, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. If your night vision is that bad, the solution isn't to blind other drivers by turning the road into the midday sun.
    - filesystem 4y ago
      You're absolutely in the minority here. Perhaps you have extremely above average peripheral vision. I grew up in a rural area and still visit quite often. Deer jump out in front of cars all the time. It is physically impossible for me, any of my family members, or anyone I've ever known in this town to be able to see the deer off the side of the wooded areas without high beams on. High beams are not going away.
      - 2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
        Not the GP but I have similar experiences. I do have above-average night vision, though.
    - mitchdoogle 4y ago
Zigurd 4y ago
It would be good to let cyclists use the road to project onto it the safe margins for passing cyclists, and to photograph the plates of cars that do not observe those margins.
- _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
  Already been done about 10 years ago! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/oct/22/red-laser-light-bike-lane https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/oct/2...
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    I've seen that. It looks like it is no longer available.
    - _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
      https://www.amazon.com/SUNMENCO-Cycling-Projector-Taillight-Projection/dp/B07H6ZM2V2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2K0V3SW2XNKT5&keywords=bike+lane+projector&qid=1662998390&sprefix=bike+lane+projecto%2Caps%2C244&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/SUNMENCO-Cycling-Projector-Taillight-... There's a bunch of clones on Amazon now
calvinmorrison 4y ago
Why can't a simple HUD work for this? I know saab and others had HUD's for navigation over a decade ago.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
No. We need to remove all the bullshit from cars. No LCDs, no touchscreens, no heads up displays, no blinky flashy beepy distract-o-trons that take the driver's eyes off the road.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Like the undercarriage lighting that is popular in certain groups?
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Does that distract the driver? Like, as much as all the bing-y beep-y pointless shit that car manufacturers fill the car with? One of the things I hate about driving the lovely quick silent eco-friendly Renault Zoes we have at work compared to my decidedly not silent or quick 25-year-old Range Rover, is that it's like driving a Fisher-Price Activity Centre. *Constantly* there's something beeping, flashing, lighting up, switching off, chiming, popping up a message on the LCD dashboard that's bigger and brighter than my laptop screen, or otherwise demanding my attention. The dashboard in my old Landrover has got four gauges, of which the only one I need to care about is the speedometer. Even that that, with the gauge illumination turned off you're either driving at the same speed as everyone else, or if there's no-one else you're driving at an appropriate speed for the conditions. It only beeps if it feels there's something drastically wrong, rather than "oh hey there's another car quite close to you better beep and light up a bunch of stuff so you're not looking at the car that's quite close to you". The Zoe has a fantastic "eco" button that will allow it to accelerate like a bat with the squits, up to 60mph and then hard limit the speed so the guy behind you who is also trying to overtake the same lorry you've just pulled out to pass gets a nasty surprise. No brake lights no indication that you're not accelerating any more, just WHOOOOSH THUD. Fucking stupid idea. Make cars simpler. Make them safer, by taking out all the distracting "safety features". Teach people how to drive more safely.
    - drewzero1 4y ago
      I agree. I think the answer to automotive safety is not more technology or more car. Instead, we need less car and more driver responsibility. Too many people take driving for granted and don't seem aware they're piloting a two-ton death machine through a shared space. I drive a 28-year-old Saturn with zero gadgets and great rear visibility. I keep my lights on all the time to be seen, but nearly every week somebody tries to change lanes on top of me. I'm not sure if people are relying on their gadgets to tell them I'm in their blind spot, or if they just don't look where they're going, but I'm getting a louder horn before I end up wedged underneath an F250.
reaperducer 4y ago
If it can be abused, it will be abused. All it takes is one TikTok video of someone projecting their rap video on the road, and the streets will be awash with them. Or better yet — Coca Cola delivery trucks projecting Coca Cola ads on the streets in front of them, and behind. Or supermarket delivery cars projecting the latest specials on the streets for everyone to see. Or road-spam-as-a-service, where you can rent a car to project your ads on the streets. Combine it with a little bit of "AI:" Car sees someone walking their dog on the sidewalk, and projects ads for dog food at their feet. Welcome to the dystopia.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  You forgot the step where the Karens get to screechin' and the legislators get to legislatin' and we wind up with some knee jerk laws that don't really prevent the bad but curtails any development of the good.
firasd 4y ago
Seems as far as an ambient computing approach, heads-up displays (or in the future, google-glass type interfaces) make more sense cause you can update the visuals easily If you're just projecting onto surfaces seems like it will be slow and complicated to figure out what to project where Plus I'm not sure it's even the best approach for the user. Like the Terminator in the movies had little bits of info overlayed on what he saw in his visual signals .. if this info was projected onto floors, walls, roads it would be confusing
frogpelt 4y ago
This is so cool. Also I can't wait until a headlight goes out and it costs $2k to replace it.
- leetbulb 4y ago
  I recently replaced my headlight (entire assembly because it's all hermetically sealed). It was about $2000 USD. There are far more expensive.
skywhopper 4y ago
This article makes claims without any evidence. I assume they are just repeating marketing copy from Ford et al. In what world would projected symbols from passing cars help pedestrians? Turn signals maybe but the given example of warning surrounding pedestrians about slippery surfaces is laughable. And then there’s this line: “Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction”. If anyone actually ever said that, then they were just lying.
LinuxBender 4y ago
Does anyone have a link to a video of what this will look like on rainy roads, snow and ice?
mzs 4y ago
Ford's PR on this: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/08/15/ford-headlight-tech-helps-keep-drivers-eyes-on-the-road-.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/08...
dec0dedab0de 4y ago
I don't think we should allow half the headlights that are currently in circulation. Once we get height and brightness levels under control, we can talk about extras.
- anderiv 4y ago
  In my experience, factory-installed headlights are rarely problematic. The primary offenders here seem to be after-market headlight additions. People purchase and install whatever their local auto parts store has that is bigger and brighter, and rarely take the time to properly align the headlights after the upgrade. This results in light being thrown much farther and wider than it ought to be.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I hate calling for crackdowns on petty issues from police types, but this is one of those areas that I would love to see.
  - skunkworker 4y ago
    Another one is putting bulbs intended for projectors into a reflector setup without doing a projector retrofit.
  - modzu 4y ago
    that used to be true, but not anymore. many stock LEDs are bonkers bright
  - archi42 4y ago
    Around here essentially all car lights are regulated. This mostly helps with people installing such crap. Though I once discovered the inverse issue at the rear end of the car in front of me: Whoever thought a brake light should be a faint, red glimmer in completely black-tinted plastic (that's impossible to see from a few metres on a cloudy day) is either bonkers or pretty smart: I bet people actually buying these regularly need new ones. Especially considering that with many modern cars, standing behind them at a traffic light and basking in the red brake lights feels like going to an adult club. (Luckily I have radar with emergency brake assist, so except for the sound of me cursing to myself not a lot happened on the occasion).
JustSomeNobody 4y ago
And if you have not paid for this feature, it displays and ad instead! I mean, come on, we all know this is what would happen.
- Macha 4y ago
  Why let users get away with only paying once? Need to make it a subscription to capture that recurrent value stream. Make sure to communicate the price in coffees, the standard unit of nickel-and-diming. I'd drown in all those "just one" coffees companies would like me to buy
kwhitefoot 4y ago
No. It's a shared space.
dqpb 4y ago
Can we just make headlights less blinding?
beeforpork 4y ago
No.
silisili 4y ago
I for one can't wait to have direction arrows burned into my retinas by all the half wrecked and lifted vehicles that today do so with plain ol boring shapeless white light.
misterbwong 4y ago
I've asked this around a few times and I don't if it's completely dumb or somewhat viable. Why can't we put rails on top of (some parts of) freeways and adapt our cars to work somewhat like railways? Call it "smart freeways" to sell it to general public. When you merge on to the freeway, you "hook in", and the car starts to control itself. You tell it where to exit, and it takes care of merges, changes lanes, exiting, rerouting due to unforeseen obstacles, etc. Seems like it could end up with the benefits of self driving cars but with training wheels and utilizing existing tech. Cars could easily signal lane changes, merges, and generally communicate with other cars to make things flow evenly and allow vehicles to move around. You would also avoid the "last mile" issue of getting you from the freeway to the destination-that would still be up to the driver
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Actual metal rails aren't viable for a large number of factors. The least of which is maintenance due to big trucks damaging continuously degrading road around them. You'd be better off putting magnets in the road and have equipment in cars to follow them. Even then, you're no better off than existing self-driving because you have to deal with every other car on the road that doesn't support "rails".
  - misterbwong 4y ago
    Ah, yes I forgot to mention that part of the idea is that everyone on that particular "smart freeway" would be required to have the hardware to support it, no exceptions. Yes, I understand that would be quite regressive and has a host of other concerns. However, for the narrow purposes of easier, safer, and more efficient driving while on the freeway, I do still wonder if it will work.
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      Assuming your suggestion is possible, why wouldn't we just replace the road with railway tracks and move vehicles on flatbed cars instead? No one would need to change their cars. And before anyone mentions throughput, let's assume we can use custom track sizes and just have people drive into the side of a railway car, like it was a ferry. Should be able to stack cars two height.
tejtm 4y ago
No. (Betteridge) Shall we talk about the weather then?
phkahler 4y ago
For a while now I think big trusks should project (via laser scanner maybe) a large keep-out zone in front of them. My impression is part of the reason those trucks drive so much slower is their need to maintain a safe following distance, combined with cars that pass them cutting into that area. If we'd stop violating their safe-following zone they could drive faster and not slow overall traffic so much. This is not considering the speed limit often being lower for them.
withinboredom 4y ago
Ah, I thought this was going to be a out entertainment. I remember driving late at night, alone for hours to go see my parents. The interstate was empty at 2am, so I would toss an iPad on the dash with it plugged into my aux port and watch a movie. 99% of the time, I’d be looking through the reflected movie on the windshield, paying attention to the road. But those scenes that are visual-only, I could shift my focus without losing my situational awareness to see what was going on and shifting it back. Only took a few ms, but I miss those days. When I explain this to people they freak out. I’m not a big movie watcher, I like to listen to them though. So for me, it was just nice to see what was happening in those scenes where nobody is talking and you have to actually see it (you know, where the bad guy sneaks up behind the good guy and the dark music is playing). I think most people would probably actually try to watch the movie while driving, and kill themselves. Maybe that’s why they freak out. I’ve also seen people reading a book while driving (before Teslas) and that. That takes some mad skills that I’ve never gotten even after spending hundreds of thousands of miles on the road.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  Massively irresponsible.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    You must be one of those people who watch movies. I would just listen, for years. Especially when I had a passenger watching the movie. With a passenger, I can ask “what just happened?” But by myself, I’d have to look away from the road to see what happened. Putting it on the dash so I could just change my focus, without taking my eyes off the road, mind, seems way more responsible.
    - jackvalentine 4y ago
      Audiobooks, radio plays: exist. Please stop watching movies while driving your car.
      - 4y ago
cush 4y ago
No. The correct answer is No.
antoineMoPa 4y ago
Projecting arrows for navigation would be nice, but would this work during the day?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Melatonic 4y ago
I do not know why we are not just replacing all of those little tiny reflectors on freeways with with something standardized specifically for use with self driving cars. Seems like it would be a hell of a lot more reliable if those not only served as a visual indicator for humans but also a direct indicator for self driving cars themselves (could also be visual or some form of digital technology like a ranged / vehicle version of NFC, etc etc).
- LegitShady 4y ago
  because your local transportation doesn't have unlimited money to replace simple reflectors with something 'standardized' for self driving cars that aren't themselves standardized and that represent a miniscule percentage of the cars on the road. its not difficult, its just so expensive and serving a basically irrelevant portion of the road using public.
rigonkulous 4y ago
We already do. The headlights are a projection, the brake lights project, the whole car is literally designed to make transformative projections across the landscape. Resistance to the idea is just curmudgeonly churlishness. As a motorbike rider, I can say that if you can see my rays of light, you can avoid me, and that - after all - is the ultimate goal of any horizontal translation. Yes please, I want this.
JohnFen 4y ago
This sounds like a recipe for disaster. And unnecessary. Surely AR tech has advanced to the point where these road overlays can be done in a way that only the driver can see them.
burmer 4y ago
There are already too many problems with cars using roads as cars. Cars have monopolized public space in an unprecedented way that needs to be vastly scaled back.
michaelwww 4y ago
Next up: Allowing drivers to virtually driver their car with VR glasses while actually driving their car. Just think, we could eliminate billboards by making them virtual! I'm sure this would be totally safe.
AlexandrB 4y ago
> Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction but have proven controversial... Had to laugh at this. I've never heard of the concept that touch screens were intended to reduce distractions. If that was the intent, I think it has failed catastrophically.
seqizz 4y ago
Umm. No? BMW's heads-up display shows an important example: Reflect it from your front window, do not litter streets.
notsapiensatall 4y ago
Seems like a gimmick. For some years, we've had cars with HUDs that project things like speed, blind spot warnings, traffic signs, and GPS directions onto the windshield. They're great - you can see how fast you're going without taking your eyes off the road, and chuckle when it reads a 20mph speed limit sign from a side street off the 12-lane interstate that you're driving on. You also have a great way to signal your turning intentions to other people: turn signals. So why would you muck about with a car's headlights of all things to display extra information? And how much do replacements cost for those 2-million pixel/1-million-micromirror headlights?

77 points by clouddrover 4y ago

Just one data point from Germany: The legal situation currently makes it illegal to use arbitrary lightning signals in motorized traffic. This has many clear reasons, such as reducing stress and distraction and reserving blue warning lights to emergency vehicles, for instance. Given how traditional and cautious Germany is when it comes to new technology, I could imagine that projecting cars have a long way until getting recognized. On the other hand, Germany thinks of itself as a automotive country. Car manufactures have a lot of influence in politics.

paulgb 4y ago

Somewhat related, CitiBike trialed a setup that projected a bike symbol ahead of the bike. It wasn’t rolled out widely, but I remember thinking that it was a good system on the few occasions I happened to get one of the pilot bikes. https://www.6sqft.com/citi-bike-to-add-laserlight-projection-feature-to-improve-rider-safety/ https://www.6sqft.com/citi-bike-to-add-laserlight-projection...

quartz 4y ago
If I had to guess, this probably drew a lot of attention to the moving symbol projected on the road and away from the actual cyclist. ...now if they could equip the bikes with cameras to issue tickets to all the people who park in our bike lanes, THAT would be cool.
_Wintermute 4y ago
The TfL hire bikes in London (Boris Bikes) have this. They don't seem great, it's just some faint green laser lines on the floor that don't resemble a bike rather than what you see in those photos. If anything they're more confusing for other road users.

kube-system 4y ago

Why? There are more reliable means of conveying information. Just because someone figured out they can do this doesn’t mean it is a good idea. The road in front of the driver is an area where the drivers focus should be solely dedicated to being aware of their surroundings. Projecting other symbols only clutters the information that the brain has to process. Status indicators work better in dedicated spaces to reduce cognitive load.

BurningFrog 4y ago
Projecting map info on the road means the driver has to look at the map screen less, which increases the focus on the road ahead.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Assuming that the vehicle has empty road in front of them, at night, with sufficient contrast. Many people drive vehicles during the day, on a road with other vehicles, or other competing lighting sources. What is better is an indication system that works in all conditions, rather than requiring the driver to look different places under different scenarios. Indicator lamps placed high upon a dashboard work in 100% of driving conditions and also allows the driver to remain looking in the correct direction. The only thing they lack is marketing gee-whiz favor.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Why not use a heads-up display on the windscreen? Some automakers already do this and it should avoid most of the concerns around projecting outside the vehicle.
- skellera 4y ago
  HUDs already exist in cars to do something very similar without potentially confusing symbols that others will see.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Use a HUD. I had a 90s Cadillac that had a FLIR HUD display. It was a little gimmicky but pretty cool and better than polluting the surroundings.

seba_dos1 4y ago

> Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction Uhm, what???

yrgulation 4y ago
Yeah nothing is more annoying than touch screen inputs while driving. Even my porsche has an obvious input lag and the touch screen is rather low quality. German cars aren't particularly great when it comes to electronics let alone touch screens.
- wtetzner 4y ago
  Even without input lag, having to look at a screen to press a button is much more distracting than a physical button that can be found without looking.

t0mas88 4y ago

I don't understand how they call a head-up display a premium feature and then continue to describe matrix-led-projection headlights that are only on the high end models of premium German brands. Head-up displays are available in a relatively mid-range BMW 3 series from over 10 years ago. It's an option you have to pay for, but so will these lights be.

kube-system 4y ago
Yeah heads up displays have to be at least an order of magnitude cheaper to produce, if not more.
- hendrikrassmann 4y ago
  1.3 million micro-mirrors per headlight :D God forbids we (Germany) just build good cars that get you from A to B.
  - jerf 4y ago
    That may sound weird, but it's actually off-the-shelf tech for a couple of decades now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing It's already the most common projector technology, not something new they're developing just for this. 1.3 million mirrors is actually low-resolution by modern standards.
  - woobar 4y ago
    DLP TV mirror chip from 15-20 years ago had 2M mirrors.[1] [1] https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dlp1.htm https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dlp1.htm
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  Yes and no. I believe this technology is an extension of selective darkening headlights. Essentially, a camera system can detect surrounding vehicles and selectively darken the lighting around them. It means you could effectively always run your high-beams since the vehicles around you won't be blinded.

buro9 4y ago

Nice. So we have some cars that rely on visual information for self-driving. And we have some cars that can project onto the landscape, modifying visual information. What could go wrong! I only have a Volvo, in the UK, and it has one of those systems that tell you the last road sign that it has seen. That information then can optionally control warnings, speed limiter, etc. I typically do use the speed limiter, it works well... until I was behind a car that had a 20mph bumper sticker on the back. Then my car kept insisting that 20mph was the speed limit. I was on a motorway. I also think of that Tesla stop light truck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7CJEQ2kz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7CJEQ2kz0 , and this https://uk.motor1.com/news/449020/video-tesla-model-3-traffic-sign-recognition-tricked/ https://uk.motor1.com/news/449020/video-tesla-model-3-traffi... , and this https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-road-self-driving-car-high-speed-mode.html https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-road-self-driving-car-hi... Plot for a future novel: Project light onto surfaces from a moving vehicle to make another car behave in a way that kills the occupants. No evidence can be found at the scene as to why the car killed the occupants.

micromacrofoot 4y ago
Autonomous Trap 001 is another: https://jamesbridle.com/works/autonomous-trap-001 https://jamesbridle.com/works/autonomous-trap-001
stickfigure 4y ago
How about blinding the (meat) driver with a low-powered laser? If you want to murder someone, there are many options. I wouldn't bet on "no evidence" for the autonomous vehicle. It may record telemetry and video.
- buro9 4y ago
  > It may record telemetry and video. For the novel, probably neither of the above is recorded in high enough resolution. Thinking of subliminal messages inserted into old movies here, just flashing something up for a hundredth of a second, doing it enough that a system detects something... but not enough that video filmed at 30fps really shows it, and that telemetry doesn't really capture it. All the telemetry would show is "car thought X", and the video would appear to be clean. What isn't known from is "why" car thought something.

lordnacho 4y ago

Gonna be great once the advertising industry finds out about this.

mightypirate 4y ago

corobo 4y ago

Isn't there a an odd effect where people are drawn towards what they're looking at while in motion? I'm not sure I'd be a fan of plopping something unusual on the road in front of me if there's other lanes. I'm picturing some random rubbernecker sending me flying off the road because my car decided to project a raincloud in front of me. E: target fixation is the term I was after

trgn 4y ago
Target fixation is apparently how many motorcyclists crash. They see the tree and then ride directly into it. The first thing they teach a rider is looking where you need to go. It doesn't come naturally at first, because it often means you're not looking in front of the bike, and have to trust physics will do its thing. That body-bike connection needs to develop over time and become instinctual, the mind needs to be taking out of the equation. It really takes time. That's why it's often a horrible idea to start learning to ride well into adulthood, it's harder to learn these embodied habits.
- m3047 4y ago
  Depends somewhat on the bike, but yah; and personally I prefer a bike that just goes where I look.

bena 4y ago

No. The road is a shared space and it should be respected as such. We already need to reduce the lumens on headlights. And probably take out "hi-beams" altogether. Seriously, I've never been in a situation where it's made a difference worth talking about. In over 20 years of driving, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. And it was mostly to see if it would help. It did not.

reaperducer 4y ago
In over 20 years of driving, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. Sounds like you've never lived in a rural area with lots of deer and other critters.
- bena 4y ago
  In over 20 years of driving, even in rural areas with lots of deer and other critters, I can count on one hand the number of times I've intentionally turned on my hi-beams. If your night vision is that bad, the solution isn't to blind other drivers by turning the road into the midday sun.
  - filesystem 4y ago
    You're absolutely in the minority here. Perhaps you have extremely above average peripheral vision. I grew up in a rural area and still visit quite often. Deer jump out in front of cars all the time. It is physically impossible for me, any of my family members, or anyone I've ever known in this town to be able to see the deer off the side of the wooded areas without high beams on. High beams are not going away.
    - 2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
      Not the GP but I have similar experiences. I do have above-average night vision, though.
  - mitchdoogle 4y ago

Zigurd 4y ago

It would be good to let cyclists use the road to project onto it the safe margins for passing cyclists, and to photograph the plates of cars that do not observe those margins.

_whiteCaps_ 4y ago
Already been done about 10 years ago! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/oct/22/red-laser-light-bike-lane https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2012/oct/2...
- Zigurd 4y ago
  I've seen that. It looks like it is no longer available.
  - _whiteCaps_ 4y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/SUNMENCO-Cycling-Projector-Taillight-Projection/dp/B07H6ZM2V2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2K0V3SW2XNKT5&keywords=bike+lane+projector&qid=1662998390&sprefix=bike+lane+projecto%2Caps%2C244&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/SUNMENCO-Cycling-Projector-Taillight-... There's a bunch of clones on Amazon now

calvinmorrison 4y ago

Why can't a simple HUD work for this? I know saab and others had HUD's for navigation over a decade ago.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

No. We need to remove all the bullshit from cars. No LCDs, no touchscreens, no heads up displays, no blinky flashy beepy distract-o-trons that take the driver's eyes off the road.

dylan604 4y ago
Like the undercarriage lighting that is popular in certain groups?
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Does that distract the driver? Like, as much as all the bing-y beep-y pointless shit that car manufacturers fill the car with? One of the things I hate about driving the lovely quick silent eco-friendly Renault Zoes we have at work compared to my decidedly not silent or quick 25-year-old Range Rover, is that it's like driving a Fisher-Price Activity Centre. *Constantly* there's something beeping, flashing, lighting up, switching off, chiming, popping up a message on the LCD dashboard that's bigger and brighter than my laptop screen, or otherwise demanding my attention. The dashboard in my old Landrover has got four gauges, of which the only one I need to care about is the speedometer. Even that that, with the gauge illumination turned off you're either driving at the same speed as everyone else, or if there's no-one else you're driving at an appropriate speed for the conditions. It only beeps if it feels there's something drastically wrong, rather than "oh hey there's another car quite close to you better beep and light up a bunch of stuff so you're not looking at the car that's quite close to you". The Zoe has a fantastic "eco" button that will allow it to accelerate like a bat with the squits, up to 60mph and then hard limit the speed so the guy behind you who is also trying to overtake the same lorry you've just pulled out to pass gets a nasty surprise. No brake lights no indication that you're not accelerating any more, just WHOOOOSH THUD. Fucking stupid idea. Make cars simpler. Make them safer, by taking out all the distracting "safety features". Teach people how to drive more safely.
  - drewzero1 4y ago
    I agree. I think the answer to automotive safety is not more technology or more car. Instead, we need less car and more driver responsibility. Too many people take driving for granted and don't seem aware they're piloting a two-ton death machine through a shared space. I drive a 28-year-old Saturn with zero gadgets and great rear visibility. I keep my lights on all the time to be seen, but nearly every week somebody tries to change lanes on top of me. I'm not sure if people are relying on their gadgets to tell them I'm in their blind spot, or if they just don't look where they're going, but I'm getting a louder horn before I end up wedged underneath an F250.

reaperducer 4y ago

If it can be abused, it will be abused. All it takes is one TikTok video of someone projecting their rap video on the road, and the streets will be awash with them. Or better yet — Coca Cola delivery trucks projecting Coca Cola ads on the streets in front of them, and behind. Or supermarket delivery cars projecting the latest specials on the streets for everyone to see. Or road-spam-as-a-service, where you can rent a car to project your ads on the streets. Combine it with a little bit of "AI:" Car sees someone walking their dog on the sidewalk, and projects ads for dog food at their feet. Welcome to the dystopia.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
You forgot the step where the Karens get to screechin' and the legislators get to legislatin' and we wind up with some knee jerk laws that don't really prevent the bad but curtails any development of the good.

firasd 4y ago

Seems as far as an ambient computing approach, heads-up displays (or in the future, google-glass type interfaces) make more sense cause you can update the visuals easily If you're just projecting onto surfaces seems like it will be slow and complicated to figure out what to project where Plus I'm not sure it's even the best approach for the user. Like the Terminator in the movies had little bits of info overlayed on what he saw in his visual signals .. if this info was projected onto floors, walls, roads it would be confusing

frogpelt 4y ago

This is so cool. Also I can't wait until a headlight goes out and it costs $2k to replace it.

leetbulb 4y ago
I recently replaced my headlight (entire assembly because it's all hermetically sealed). It was about $2000 USD. There are far more expensive.

skywhopper 4y ago

This article makes claims without any evidence. I assume they are just repeating marketing copy from Ford et al. In what world would projected symbols from passing cars help pedestrians? Turn signals maybe but the given example of warning surrounding pedestrians about slippery surfaces is laughable. And then there’s this line: “Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction”. If anyone actually ever said that, then they were just lying.

LinuxBender 4y ago

Does anyone have a link to a video of what this will look like on rainy roads, snow and ice?

mzs 4y ago

Ford's PR on this: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/08/15/ford-headlight-tech-helps-keep-drivers-eyes-on-the-road-.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/08...

dec0dedab0de 4y ago

I don't think we should allow half the headlights that are currently in circulation. Once we get height and brightness levels under control, we can talk about extras.

anderiv 4y ago
In my experience, factory-installed headlights are rarely problematic. The primary offenders here seem to be after-market headlight additions. People purchase and install whatever their local auto parts store has that is bigger and brighter, and rarely take the time to properly align the headlights after the upgrade. This results in light being thrown much farther and wider than it ought to be.
- dylan604 4y ago
  I hate calling for crackdowns on petty issues from police types, but this is one of those areas that I would love to see.
- skunkworker 4y ago
  Another one is putting bulbs intended for projectors into a reflector setup without doing a projector retrofit.
- modzu 4y ago
  that used to be true, but not anymore. many stock LEDs are bonkers bright
- archi42 4y ago
  Around here essentially all car lights are regulated. This mostly helps with people installing such crap. Though I once discovered the inverse issue at the rear end of the car in front of me: Whoever thought a brake light should be a faint, red glimmer in completely black-tinted plastic (that's impossible to see from a few metres on a cloudy day) is either bonkers or pretty smart: I bet people actually buying these regularly need new ones. Especially considering that with many modern cars, standing behind them at a traffic light and basking in the red brake lights feels like going to an adult club. (Luckily I have radar with emergency brake assist, so except for the sound of me cursing to myself not a lot happened on the occasion).

JustSomeNobody 4y ago

And if you have not paid for this feature, it displays and ad instead! I mean, come on, we all know this is what would happen.

Macha 4y ago
Why let users get away with only paying once? Need to make it a subscription to capture that recurrent value stream. Make sure to communicate the price in coffees, the standard unit of nickel-and-diming. I'd drown in all those "just one" coffees companies would like me to buy

kwhitefoot 4y ago

No. It's a shared space.

dqpb 4y ago

Can we just make headlights less blinding?

beeforpork 4y ago

No.

silisili 4y ago

I for one can't wait to have direction arrows burned into my retinas by all the half wrecked and lifted vehicles that today do so with plain ol boring shapeless white light.

misterbwong 4y ago

I've asked this around a few times and I don't if it's completely dumb or somewhat viable. Why can't we put rails on top of (some parts of) freeways and adapt our cars to work somewhat like railways? Call it "smart freeways" to sell it to general public. When you merge on to the freeway, you "hook in", and the car starts to control itself. You tell it where to exit, and it takes care of merges, changes lanes, exiting, rerouting due to unforeseen obstacles, etc. Seems like it could end up with the benefits of self driving cars but with training wheels and utilizing existing tech. Cars could easily signal lane changes, merges, and generally communicate with other cars to make things flow evenly and allow vehicles to move around. You would also avoid the "last mile" issue of getting you from the freeway to the destination-that would still be up to the driver

kayodelycaon 4y ago
Actual metal rails aren't viable for a large number of factors. The least of which is maintenance due to big trucks damaging continuously degrading road around them. You'd be better off putting magnets in the road and have equipment in cars to follow them. Even then, you're no better off than existing self-driving because you have to deal with every other car on the road that doesn't support "rails".
- misterbwong 4y ago
  Ah, yes I forgot to mention that part of the idea is that everyone on that particular "smart freeway" would be required to have the hardware to support it, no exceptions. Yes, I understand that would be quite regressive and has a host of other concerns. However, for the narrow purposes of easier, safer, and more efficient driving while on the freeway, I do still wonder if it will work.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Assuming your suggestion is possible, why wouldn't we just replace the road with railway tracks and move vehicles on flatbed cars instead? No one would need to change their cars. And before anyone mentions throughput, let's assume we can use custom track sizes and just have people drive into the side of a railway car, like it was a ferry. Should be able to stack cars two height.

tejtm 4y ago

No. (Betteridge) Shall we talk about the weather then?

phkahler 4y ago

For a while now I think big trusks should project (via laser scanner maybe) a large keep-out zone in front of them. My impression is part of the reason those trucks drive so much slower is their need to maintain a safe following distance, combined with cars that pass them cutting into that area. If we'd stop violating their safe-following zone they could drive faster and not slow overall traffic so much. This is not considering the speed limit often being lower for them.

withinboredom 4y ago

Ah, I thought this was going to be a out entertainment. I remember driving late at night, alone for hours to go see my parents. The interstate was empty at 2am, so I would toss an iPad on the dash with it plugged into my aux port and watch a movie. 99% of the time, I’d be looking through the reflected movie on the windshield, paying attention to the road. But those scenes that are visual-only, I could shift my focus without losing my situational awareness to see what was going on and shifting it back. Only took a few ms, but I miss those days. When I explain this to people they freak out. I’m not a big movie watcher, I like to listen to them though. So for me, it was just nice to see what was happening in those scenes where nobody is talking and you have to actually see it (you know, where the bad guy sneaks up behind the good guy and the dark music is playing). I think most people would probably actually try to watch the movie while driving, and kill themselves. Maybe that’s why they freak out. I’ve also seen people reading a book while driving (before Teslas) and that. That takes some mad skills that I’ve never gotten even after spending hundreds of thousands of miles on the road.

LegitShady 4y ago
Massively irresponsible.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  You must be one of those people who watch movies. I would just listen, for years. Especially when I had a passenger watching the movie. With a passenger, I can ask “what just happened?” But by myself, I’d have to look away from the road to see what happened. Putting it on the dash so I could just change my focus, without taking my eyes off the road, mind, seems way more responsible.
  - jackvalentine 4y ago
    Audiobooks, radio plays: exist. Please stop watching movies while driving your car.
    - 4y ago

cush 4y ago

No. The correct answer is No.

antoineMoPa 4y ago

Projecting arrows for navigation would be nice, but would this work during the day?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Melatonic 4y ago

I do not know why we are not just replacing all of those little tiny reflectors on freeways with with something standardized specifically for use with self driving cars. Seems like it would be a hell of a lot more reliable if those not only served as a visual indicator for humans but also a direct indicator for self driving cars themselves (could also be visual or some form of digital technology like a ranged / vehicle version of NFC, etc etc).

LegitShady 4y ago
because your local transportation doesn't have unlimited money to replace simple reflectors with something 'standardized' for self driving cars that aren't themselves standardized and that represent a miniscule percentage of the cars on the road. its not difficult, its just so expensive and serving a basically irrelevant portion of the road using public.

rigonkulous 4y ago

We already do. The headlights are a projection, the brake lights project, the whole car is literally designed to make transformative projections across the landscape. Resistance to the idea is just curmudgeonly churlishness. As a motorbike rider, I can say that if you can see my rays of light, you can avoid me, and that - after all - is the ultimate goal of any horizontal translation. Yes please, I want this.

JohnFen 4y ago

This sounds like a recipe for disaster. And unnecessary. Surely AR tech has advanced to the point where these road overlays can be done in a way that only the driver can see them.

burmer 4y ago

There are already too many problems with cars using roads as cars. Cars have monopolized public space in an unprecedented way that needs to be vastly scaled back.

michaelwww 4y ago

Next up: Allowing drivers to virtually driver their car with VR glasses while actually driving their car. Just think, we could eliminate billboards by making them virtual! I'm sure this would be totally safe.

AlexandrB 4y ago

> Touchscreens were intended to reduce the level of distraction but have proven controversial... Had to laugh at this. I've never heard of the concept that touch screens were intended to reduce distractions. If that was the intent, I think it has failed catastrophically.

seqizz 4y ago

Umm. No? BMW's heads-up display shows an important example: Reflect it from your front window, do not litter streets.

notsapiensatall 4y ago

Seems like a gimmick. For some years, we've had cars with HUDs that project things like speed, blind spot warnings, traffic signs, and GPS directions onto the windshield. They're great - you can see how fast you're going without taking your eyes off the road, and chuckle when it reads a 20mph speed limit sign from a side street off the 12-lane interstate that you're driving on. You also have a great way to signal your turning intentions to other people: turn signals. So why would you muck about with a car's headlights of all things to display extra information? And how much do replacements cost for those 2-million pixel/1-million-micromirror headlights?