Your Car Will Soon Sense If You're Tired Or Not Paying Attention 178
cartechboy writes "Distracted driving is a large issue, and it's getting worse as we become more entangled with our technology. To help combat this growing problem Volvo is showing off new technology that allows the car to sense when a driver is tired or not paying attention. The system bathes the driver in infrared light that can pick up the driver's position and eye movements. If the driver becomes inattentive or begins to drift off to sleep, it will alert you. Besides the safety aspect of this system, it will also be able to recognize the person sitting behind the wheel, allowing the car to tailor itself to that person's stored preferences. Further, it will be able to adjust the vehicle's exterior lighting in the direction the driver is looking based on the detected eye movement. Volvo's quick to note the system can't photograph the driver. People, the future is coming, and your vehicle is going to be watching you."
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Remember kids, Ford owns Volvo (and Jaguar, and some others)
That was true about a decade ago. Ford sold Volvo to a Chinese company is 2010 [wikipedia.org] and sold Jaguar to an Indian company in 2008 [wikipedia.org].
So, when you hear "don't worry it won't photograph you", just keep that in mind.
Keep what in mind, then? That they used to own Volvo and Jaguar? I'm not sure how that is relevant.
Re:Great! (Score:1, Informative)
True enough. But when the car company's terrible media center software causes a buffer overflow in the memory shared by this system and it the sensor to think that I'm now my wife and it will move the seat to far forward and I won't be able to properly drive the car. CRASH!
Think that isn't possible, clearly you haven't driven a Ford built in the last few years. My uncle bought a new Ford Torus SHO and when you pushed a certain sequence of buttons on the radio while the car was at a red light (i.e. in 1st gear and not moving) the car would shift to reverse without indication. The only way to tell it had happened was to see that the backup cam was suddenly displaying on the review mirror. To get back out of reverse you had to put the car in neutral then back into first. Needless to say my uncle returned that car and now has an Audi.
I don't think I'm going to be buying a car with one of these new infotainment systems until they start physically separating them from the drive by wire systems.