Gadgetory

now if you know my video reviews on cnet you know I'm not a huge fan of 3d building rendering to me it's like it's not quite enough his little matchstick buildings or they look like kind of what's really out there but not really look I go out I candy to me but that may be changing check out this new system from Audi which they call their 3d navigation system in the sense that it is fully rendered as you drive in a way that has much more reality than we've seen on navigation systems before look at these buildings now assuming that that was the city that you know those have enough detail in them enough surface rendering that you should be able to actually recognize them not kind of recognize it which to me is just distracting I want this or I want nothing when it comes to building rendering here I think I really could get an idea of where I am especially in a strange city I've not been to before I could look around say oh there are those buildings I know where I am notice this off ramp here check that out they've rented it so precisely you can see little kinks in the turn so you really can get an idea are you in the exact same place that you think you're supposed to be it really just adds a lot more visual depth and accuracy that you can work with now let me show you another technology they're working on that I've often been on head-up display this head up display mocked up here for display purposes of course you wouldn't have this in your car is an augmented reality technology really laying things out in the world out the windshield not just right here like some sort of a fixed projection let's take a look okay check this out at the bottom you see information like you've seen on a head-up display before that's not revolutionary but look at those lane lines and look at that navigational arrow coming up this is augmented reality it's actually placed in three dimensions out in the road in front of you so you get a sense of where things were supposed to happen not just that they're supposed to happen you also get some nice convenience for the focal length of your eyes instead of always looking back and focusing on a plane two feet in front of you you're basically looking out at the road like you always would less eye strain less refocusing makes driving safer and makes the information as you can see here a lot more relevant it's integrated into the world you're looking at out the windshield and finally Audi is getting very close to putting in a full digital video instrument panel like you see here and this sort of thing allows your instrument panel you can see the gauges are kind of moving out of the way right now to make room for other information it allows the real estate to be flexible so that the thing can be contextually emphasizing what matters at that moment now some of these are farther in the future than others that fly over 3d building rendering is not far away they say neither is the video instrument panel that augmented reality heads up there might be a few years down the road but you can see where things were going to finally get the inside of the car to catch up with a lot of consumer electronics we're already is