Gadgetory

you guys might remember the video that BMW sponsored us to do last year at CES with the mirrorless I ate that thing was freaking unreal and well they have done it again so behind me is the BMW I inside future this is like our kind of radical reimagining of the role that and the automobile is going to play in our lives in the near to mid future so autonomous driving is upon us at this point here at the show BMWs showing off autonomous five series prototypes that are using ultrasonic front radar rear camera front camera and what BMW is calling an HD map to safely navigate to your destination this is combined with a kind of fleet learning that I wouldn't have dared to dream of even two to three years ago so BMW is not only using their own cars to recognize and modify changes to the route like say for example a construction zone but they're actually actively working with other OEMs to ensure that everyone is using the most up-to-date information so that means even little details like how long you can expect to sit at a red light you can frisk in countdown timer can be accurately predicted in this way and there are additional layers of intuitive convenience that can be refined as we move into the future so Siri and Alexa have been joined by prototype Cortana integration through the open mobility cloud and through that same network connectivity paradigm you could even do things like order chocolates on Amazon on the way to a visit with Grandma and have the driver me to Midway so you don't even have to take an extra five minutes to go into the store to get them and valets in parking lots I mean even multi-level parking lots or it would be pretty darn difficult to use GPS navigation for example valleys could be replaced by robots that guide autonomous cars to a berth and then don't ask for a tip for their trouble but naturally you need a very different kind of car to get the most out of this idea and that is where the sculpture as they're calling it they've been very firm with me do not call it a car do not call it a prototype do not call it a concept it's it's a sculpture it's an idea so the interior design has been dramatically altered instead of bulky dashboards even kind of futuristic feeling stuff like LCD monitors and cool-looking illuminated buttons BMW envisions a much more open and spacious alternative this would give the driver in the front seat passenger room to relax and stretch out an autonomous motor even enjoy a movie with a similar level of comfort to home they even allow the passengers to have different audio experiences with what they're calling sound curtains so these are speakers in the headrest and the seat that are only audible when your head is within a very small zone and they even include active noise cancellation in the sound systems so whatever music your passenger is listening to is completely inaudible to the driver which is great if you have very different tastes in music from your passengers or say you want to get on a conference call with someone and the passenger doesn't want the music or their movie to be interrupted of course though you still need to interface with the car in driving mode BMW is still a driving company so this is really cool and the engineer who showed it to us was super awesome they designed a holographic display with gesture sensing and haptic feedback okay so the holographic display is visible only to the driver so you see buttons just floating in the air in front of you it's pretty trippy gesture control is handled by intel realsense technology so the car knows when your finger is over a button but the craziest part and this was what the engineer actually had worked on and she was like really proud of this it's freaking awesome is the array of ultrasonic transducers or source or speakers that feels like a mild tingling sensation on your finger when you push down on a button or interact with the holographic display it is really cool you kind of have to try it and I'm sorry that you guys can't you'll just have to take my word for it in the back is kind of like a living room on wheels I mean obviously this is I won't use concept phase this is sculpture phase stuff that we're looking at here and while cork is perhaps a realistic sustainable natural material to use in the future moss probably won't make it into a finished product anytime soon but the idea of having a tablet enabled 4k projection screen in the back of the car to watch movies or like a bookshelf where I can pick something out get comfortable and relax and read while the car takes me wherever it is I need to go is amazing especially for people like me who don't really suffer from motion sickness in the back of vehicles or while reading so autonomous cars cannot come soon enough for me