There have been several blogs from various members of the PC Pro team about the joys of sat-nav recently. First I gushed about the ease with which I drove 1,400 miles in a couple of days, and barely got the map out once. Then Darien got all excited about the beat-the-ETA game everyone inevitably ends up playing to liven up long journeys.

But this… well. This is just brilliant.

According to CNN, General Motors is developing a windshield that “combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to take what’s happening on the road and enhance it” for ageing drivers.

So in the fog they’ll see a laser-projected blue line marking the outside edge of the road they’re on, and it’ll even enhance and outline objects like animals, pedestrians or trees to reduce the possibility of accidents in poor visibility conditions. And if they’re speeding, a pink outline will highlight speed limit signs to attract their attention.

But let’s be honest here, it’s not just old people who’ll love this. I’ve already had the odd scary moment where I’ve drifted off into a trance and found myself actually driving based on the curves on my sat-nav rather than watching the road. If that route can instead - by some sort of hook-up with a sat-nav - be beamed on my windshield, I’ll never have to look at a map again. It’ll be like those bits in Terminator and Robocop where you see through their computer eyes and everything’s pointed out for you. Idiot-proof navigating.

And just think of the benefits: that’ll leave me totally free to concentrate on beating that all-important ETA.

Tags: driving, navigation, old people, robocop, sat-nav, terminator

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.