Toyota creates augmented reality passenger windows
updated 06:50 pm EDT, Tue July 26, 2011
Enables passengers to "interact" with scenery
Motor Europe's Kansei1 Design Division, working with the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), has developed a prototype interactive display that enables a car passenger to interact with the passing scenery. The technology, called "Windows to the World," transforms a side window into a transparent touchscreen that can magnify, track or even audibly name a passing object. The passenger can use hi fingers to manipulate the view.
Toyota and CIID have incorporated five ideas into the prototype. The first is "Drawing in Motion." A passenger can trace a passing object with his or her fingers. As the real world image moves from view, the traced image will follow along and then disappear with the real image.
A second activity is zooming. A passenger can use his/her fingers to outline and then create a magnified image of the real world object. A third app can identify the object both audible and visually, spelling out and saying that objects name. A fourth app can measure and display the distance to that object. The final app, "Virtual Constellations," would use the car's sunroof at night to display information on the stars in the skies above.
The "Windows to the World" concept is being demonstrated at the Our Future Mobility Now project sponsored by the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association.
