Cars that recognize the driver via a pocket-dwelling key fob will soon be old hat. Gizmag brings news from the Tokyo Motor Show of Hitachi's biometric steering wheel. The helm's sensors reads the veins in the driver's fingers. The system can then be configured for security, so that only an authorized user can start the car. (Have fun at valet parking.) But wait, there's more! The biometric boffinology can also be set-up so that each finger triggers a different response from the on-board computer. Your index finger could activate the sat nav system. Your pinkie could control presets for the seat, mirrors and sound system. Future applications could even include authorizing automatic payments for drive-thrus or music downloads. Talk about high touch…
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If you caress the wheel gingerly, does Ravel’s Bolero come on the speakers?
What do we do with customer cars in for service? Let them drive them onto the lift? No insurance coverage if they do!
“Hey man, I’m way to high to drive right now, can you go move my car so I don’t get a ticket? –oh wait, crap, I have that new-fangled ingition system”
… a few minutes later
CRASSSSHHH “oh my god my baby!!!”
it has been proven that you are 15x more likely to hit a baby or small child on a bike when you are high.
^The Dave Chapelle skit on driving when high is the best.
Pray tell, what would the middle finger activate?
@Mud: The horn.
Freeman and Mud:
I almost spit soup at a perfectly good Dell keyboard because of that. Thanks for the laugh.
A lot of the car ads today feature push button on/off ignition; I don’t get why this is a feature. What is so hard about insert key in slot, turn until car starts, release?
That’s great. Now the bad guys won’t steal my keys, they’ll chop off my fingers.
What happens when you are wearing gloves?
This *is* a case where the consumer is broken. We get more and more useless, weight-gaining, energy-sucking, complexity-inducing fluff because buyers decline to refuse it. Or worse, consumers elevate technology-because-we-can features to pointless differentiating reasons to choose one car over another “because it’s cool.”
The consumer can put a stop to it. Or slow it down. Or drive common sense into the vehicle designers to plant the message that innovations must earn their place. No one else will. But of course when validation is exclusively delegated to “the market,” the notion of personal responsibility or initiative fades to black.
Phil
Valet to Car Owner: Sir, you need to leave your index finger with me.
car jackings are about to get a lot more nasty!