Gadgetory

this is the BMW tent here at CES 2016 and behind me we've got the BMW I vision future interaction okay it's a little awkwardly names but it's a concept car based on the Spyder that's a little bit more than the typical concept car that you might see at an Auto Show the first thing most people notice about it is the fact that there's no doors but that's actually not the point at all it'll have doors in the future and you have to get inside to fully realize that this is not you know your Grandpa's car with push-button transmission in fact it has almost no buttons inside it at all nor is it the couch on wheels concept that you might expect from other automakers who are attempting to make well you know the autonomous car of the future a vision future interaction is about a user experience so obviously there's a lot of technology in this car but it doesn't necessarily need to be visible with that I think very often people mistake that technology has to be there or has to be celebrated in a certain way but they forget that it also introduces complexity to the user so in a nutshell what BMW is trying to do here is fuse the right pieces of technology with their existing strength the actual experience of operating the machine with that said one of the most forward-looking things about it to me was actually the seat design the second I sat in it with someone else the most natural thing for me to do based on the the shape and orientation of the seats was rest my arm on the center armrest and have a casual conversation I mean how amazing is that which isn't to say that inside the car there isn't some really really cool technology the first thing that stood out to me was of course the dual displays there's a two layer display so that's a transparent display on top of a more traditional LCD display directly in front of the driver as well as a large super wide panoramic display that extends all the way from the driver's side over to the passenger side that can actually be controlled with motion sensors on the driver's side or two banks of motion sensors on the passenger side as well as buttons that are integrated into the steering wheel as well as the side of the car over on the passenger's side but there's more to them than meets the eye and the information displayed on them is not static the displays they stand for information when we think about information we have to think about relevant information relevant information to the driver and to the passengers in the car and that means that for example different driving scenarios kind of asked us to deliver different information to the driver so an autonomous driving mode you might have the display in front of you with pertinent information about nearby cars for example on the foreground display with the route actually displayed in the background since you're not operating the vehicle anyway so it's a kind of secondary importance and then the panoramic display well hey that might be making full utilization of its entire width width you know suggested callers for someone that you like chatting with when you're driving and it can connect to your phone which is pretty cool so it can bring up the best suggestions so you're not navigating through a bunch of deep menus and it might have hey you like media information for both of you and your passenger are you compromising the ultimate driving experience by putting in this autonomous technology we would never compromise the ultimate driving experience in the car this is one of the driving states that we will stay true to and and also deliver it in the future manual driving mode whoa hey you don't want distractions right so that panoramic display might shrink all the way down to just a very small display and then the one that's in front of you well now all of a sudden hate your routes in the foreground because you kind of gotta follow it right and then in the background you might have secondary information like a topographical map so you can really get the most out of your experience now right now in the concept the HUD is actually not active so the display that comes up right on the windshield but I mean in the future who knows what we're gonna see with stuff like that you know driving assist like training modes right so you can take your corner a little bit faster a little bit better and the car can actually coach you through it like you would do in a videogame today but the story here is actually deeper than the car and BMW is also showing off some really cool Internet of Things stuff around there open mobility cloud with the idea that the car becomes more than just a car and more of a more of a digital hub so the dental they've got is actually surprisingly cool with this smart connected mirror concept that they've created running through a theoretical demonstration that shows what life might be like with a connected home and a connected car so in the mirror you can actually see your agenda for the day and all you got to do is you grab your key fob it takes us out of that as your confirmation and you walk out the door the car once you grab the fob actually pulls itself out of the garage which opens itself positions itself in the correct orientation on the road in front of you since the climate control so it's comfortable when you get in and boom off you go you arrive at work you get out of the car and this is where it gets really cool yet again you gesture at the car okay you found a parking spot cool pull into that parking spot car does it completely by itself really neat too keen feature then when you're done you walk off to work and whether you work you know a 1 minute walk from your car whether you're a lot further from your car it's got this bump detection feature that combined with their overhead view allows you to see a live view of what's going on near your car and actually sends you a push notification on your phone if someone bumps it so you can be like okay hey I need to make sure that everything's ok and my car isn't in you know full-on disaster mode right now then at the end of the day you use a smart device so in the demo they were using a smart watch you go ok ok I'm ready to signal you you signal the car to come out of the spot you get in it drives you home or you drive it home hey whatever the choice is totally yours you park it in front of the house don't bother pulling into the garage go inside put your key fob in the mirror and boom car parks itself and the mirrors like hey so you don't have any appointments until whenever so I'd suggest you use solar power to charge the car that's the most economical way and you can be like they'll actually hold on I have an unscheduled thing that I need to go do right away charging as fast as you can it costs a little bit more but hey it's important to me very freakin cool stuff I think what is very important to understand is that cars are becoming more intelligent in the future they can take over certain tasks maybe tasks that we don't particularly enjoy about driving so when we sit in traffic the car can actually do certain things we're not necessarily enjoying and we have time for other things so basically this concept car shows to you that there's different scenarios that make the full drive experience a better one that was awesome thank you so much and a huge thank you to BMW for allowing us to come and have an early look at what they've got going on here at CES 2016 and I mean by the look of things on the sound of things well into the future as well