News You Can't Use: How Cars Will Read Your Mind in the Future

While camera and phone technology have surpassed even the wildest and most optimistic dreams of futurist movies like 1984 car technology, specifically in relation to hovering and/or flying, continues to stagnate. Sure, we've figured out how to affix artificial scrotums to our comically over-sized working class sports cars and I'm sure some Teutonic gathering somewhere is figuring out how to make a slightly faster engine or render SUVs less deadly, but the big leap forward seems to be as a elusive as coming up with a clever one-liner to use on a car show babe that she hasn't heard a million times already.

"No, I don't come with the car." "No, you can't have a look another that hood." Etc.

With the amount of time drivers spend in their cars -- 20 hours per week on average, according to J.D. Power -- interactive technology such as smartphone integration, automotive apps and autonomy have become increasingly important.

Meanwhile personal autonomy is at an all time high as well. It's almost obscene how much freedom I have. Well, if you'll excuse me I have to spend the equivalent of a full day each week staring at someone's bumper, doing parking lot speeds on a highway and ineffectually raging in between total capitulation to my miserable fate.

Industry experts shared their predictions on how emerging technology will influence the future of cars during the Connected Car Expo at the L.A. Auto Show on Tuesday.

You could have a phone or camera in your steering wheel!

Maggie Hendrie, interaction design chair at the Art Center College of Design, said the key to car connectivity is the way people interact with their vehicles.

Sure, let's hang out with an art school victim when we're at a righteous car show. While you're doing that I'm gonna go get shot down by bikini babes and kick it with Germanic engineering teams.

Think of the technology in Spike Jonze’s movie “Her,” for example -- a unique experience where an algorithm was able to anticipate a user’s needs.

Maybe a reference to a movie that two dozen people actually saw will help explain this. If it's anything like the Stephen King movie "Christine" I'm really not interested.

The cars of the future need a transparent, intuitive interface, Hendrie said.

It'll be like those totally rad see-through backpacks!

Technology, she said, should manage the small transactions people make in their daily lives.

We'll have the computer punch the wheel and make those obscene gestures for you. This will free up valuable time to openly weep in existential despair.

The next step in car connectivity is bringing the journey inside the car, directing a passenger’s attention away from their video games or apps to the world around them, said Mary Ann de Lares Norris, chief operating officer of Oblong Industries.

This new app or video game will direct your attention away from apps and video games.

If you’re driving past a castle, for example, the passenger should be able to instantly pull up information about the landmark.

Not a lot of castles here in middle America. Sorry, car.

This type of technology would be similar to what’s used in conference rooms today -- using wands to control pixels across computers, displays and operating systems, similar to Xbox’s Kinect.

Kinect can't even handle the basics of vidiot gaming, but I'm sure it will work fine when you're manipulating 3000 pounds of Oriental machine. Oops, it can't detect my hands. Time to crash into that arsenal.

At the core if this, she said, is changing the conversation from “Are we there yet?” to “Did you know?” 

Constantly hearing the same three facts about corn over and over have really improved this drive across America's Middle West. A computerized wise-ass was my co-pilot.

The future of interactive technology relies heavily on the car understanding the driver, said Bryan Biniak, global vice president and general manager of Microsoft.

You don't know the Real Me, Honda Prelude. Also, I've got no interest in applying constant "patches" and "updates" to my malfunctioning ride, Mr. Microsoft.

"Ladies, could you please move? You're blocking my view of the engine."

If a driver is running late, for example, the car should know to adapt to the circumstance. One way to integrate this experience is through audio recognition, he said.

"Computer, I'm late. Please be as reckless as possible."

If a driver’s children are screaming the backseat, the car could know should know to switch the programming from loud music to trivia or a joke.

Or maybe inject them with some sort of paralytic poison.

The car should also slowly learn the driver’s personality, anticipating whether she would look for the cheapest gas station or the closest one when it’s time to fill up.

The idea that gas prices will one day vary wildly from one station to the next is a bigger fantasy than anything else in this article.

The vehicle would be able to take a grocery list and order it from Amazon or from Whole Foods, giving the driver time to handle other errands, Biniak added.

"Yo, car, get me some books or whatever."

“To get to the soul of a car and passenger, you need to know what is important in day to day circumstances,” he said.

Assuming you still have a soul, of course.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

I want a car I can afford.

COMPUTER: "Failed to connect to intelligence system."

Some people's minds are Urban and some are Rural, whereas mine is in the Outskirts of Absurdity.

"NO, I CANNOT RUN THAT GUY WITH THE 0BAMA BUMPER STICKER OFF THE ROAD."

Great. When I decide to get comfortably numb my car will take care of everything. I can hardly wait!

Check Out My Books! Have Your Car do the Ordering!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: The Contact Lenses That Could Do Away With TV Screens

We're on the cusp of another major victory in the long war against stupid old bring-down reality. No, I'm not talking about some exciting new CIA funded hallucinogen, I'm talking about electronics in your eyes! It's still in the experimental use rabbits because they can't cry or make effective fists stage, but there's every reason to believe a Huxley-style nightmare world might still beat out the Orwellian one, although it's a tight race.

Contact lenses that allow the wearer to see high-definition virtual screens are to be unveiled in Las Vegas next week.

In this case I hope what happens in Vegas does, in fact, stay there.

Dubbed iOptik, the system allows the users to see projected digital information, such as driving directions and video calls.

No sitcoms, no care.

Also, how come we have "video calls" as predicted in 1950s futurist movies but the flying car technology continues to stagnate? Who even wants video calls? Here's my weary face to go with my weary voice. Yay.

The tiny 'screens', which are the invention of Washington-based group Innovega, sit directly on a users' eyeballs and work with a pair of lightweight glasses.

You mean you aren't stuffing your eyes with all kinds of crazy nonsense? I feel bad for you, son. Me, I've got glasses, tiny screens, eye buds, assorted wires, you name it.

Together, they provide an experience equivalent to watching a 240-inch television at a distance of 10 feet, according to Innovega's chief executive Steve Willey.

Or to put it into simpler terms: "Whoa, the colors. I'm freaking out!"

They can be worn on their own and only function with the iOptik software when a user looks through the company's paired glasses.

Whether they can help you keep track of the visions in your eyes or even see the light that's right before those same eyes is not specified. These are the features I'd actually want.

The system can work with smartphones and portable game devices to deliver video - or switch to a translucent 'augmented reality' view, where computer information is layered over the world we know it.

Don't worry, you can hook up all your other marginally useful Chinese gimmicks to it!

Is this some kind of allegory?

Crucially, the device can be worn while moving around in a similar way to Google Glass.

Because you're going to want to do lots "moving around" while in a electronics induced coma.

The contacts are due to be previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show and promise to provide a much more immersive experience than other head-work wearable devices.

The days of writing driving directions on the inside of a sack and then pulling it over your head and trying to drive may be over.

Microsoft and the University of Washington have also been working on similar projects that seem more like a prop in movies such as Mission Impossible 4.

Yeah, that and eight inch elevator shoes.

In 2012, they created a prototype of a hard augmented reality contact lens capable of receiving radio signals and transmitting them to the brain through optical nerves.

Sadly, the appeal of watching the radio proved limited.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

Sounds excellent! So we will be able to drive a vehicle and concentrate on a screen that is projected on our eyes! Very safe!

Anybody remember "Max Headroom?" Blipverts!

Meet George Jetson.

And there's idiots who will pay for this!

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.