

Ask HN: How would you reinvent telematics systems for cars? - cars4fun

Google Wave attempts to answer the question of what e-mail would look like if it were invented today.<p>Given that I work in R&#38;D at a major car manufacturer, I've asked myself the same question of in-car telematics systems. We now have things in the car like speech recognition, image recognition, GPS, and Internet connectivity. Yet virtually the only thing I use in the car on a daily basis is AM/FM radio.<p>What are some of your ideas (while keeping safety in mind) for seamlessly connecting the driver and passengers with these cool new technologies that are available today?
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soc
What is really needed is to have all vehicles, roads, lights, and stop signs
linked together.

For example, a car should refuse to let the driver proceed thru a light/stop
sign unless it's clear. Imagine all the money that would be saved from
property/medical damages.

~~~
cars4fun
This is definitely in the works. The biggest problem is convincing the
countless local authorities to upgrade their existing traffic systems to
support a technology that's not in the market yet.

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stonemetal
You would have to be smarter about it than wait for local gov. Vision systems
that can read street signs. etc. OCR on street signs should be pretty easy
since they use High contrast simple fonts.

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cars4fun
OCR doesn't solve the problem of blind corners. In fact, even the current
preemptive braking systems depend on radar, which perform poorly around
corners.

~~~
stonemetal
Who said anything about blind corners? I would think it cool if like my GPS
system my car knew the speed limit(and reading street signs in combination
with storage would allow it to be correct, up to date and cover more roads
than my rinky dink GPS system). sure it wouldn't know the speed limit the
moment I turned a corner if it just relied on ocr but it might catch a speed
limit sign I missed.

Right now all the telematics stuff is broken in to pieces you could do a lot
of neat stuff if they were better integrated. You could use that preemptive
braking stuff to decide I am in traffic on an interstate an find a new
route.(Hint if the speed limit is sixty and I am with in a few feet of the guy
in front of me and my current speed is below 5mph I am in traffic and the gps
system should reroute me.)

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yan
Don't know how useful or practical this will be, but I noticed anything
sitting on my dash is clearly reflected on my windshield. Placing a HUD screen
on top of the dash, close to the windshield defroster vents pointing up,
flipped horizontally, and focused on infinity can get your current
speed/fuel/etc without taking your eyes off the road.

~~~
cars4fun
Lexus has this in production:
[http://lexusenthusiast.com/2009/01/20/lexus-2010-rx-heads-
up...](http://lexusenthusiast.com/2009/01/20/lexus-2010-rx-heads-up-display-
hud/)

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bayareaguy
How about just opening up the documentation necessary to service or modify the
mechanical and microprocessor-based systems in my car and then putting that
into a kindle-like device? I'd much rather have something that would help me
diagnose, maintain and modify my vehicle then something like a GPS. I'd also
want to subscribe to service that would keep this documentation up to date.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Traffic situation. I live out in the sticks so I don't know about recent
construction in the city & 'burbs. The result is that often when I go into the
city, I get stuck in traffic that I would have known to avoid if I were still
living there.

GPS that would display streets with level of congestion would be excellent.

