By Andrew Liszewski
At the 2008 Automotive Engineering Exposition that was held in Yokohama, Japan, Toshiba showed off a new use for their Visconti technology which is already being used in Honda’s Intelligent Night Vision System. But instead of making the road and other objects easier to see at night, this application makes it easier for drivers to see other vehicles around them, and gives them a better idea of how close or far they actually are.
The vehicle’s side mirrors are replaced with cameras, while a couple of LCD monitors mounted inside show the live video feed. While replacing mirrors with cameras is nothing new, the Visconti software goes one step further by calculating the distance to the cars in other lanes around you. A series of lines are then superimposed on the LCDs to indicate the other vehicles, and will change color from green to yellow to red to make it easy to tell how close they are at a glance. While I doubt we’ll be seeing this technology included in cars anytime soon, it’s nice to know that automotive manufacturers are always looking for new ways to distract us while we’re driving.
[ Toshiba Uses Monitors as Side Mirrors ] VIA [ Gearlog ]
