Toyota Patents Winking, Laughing, Crying Car 484
theodp writes "If the patent system ain't broke, don't fix it: The NY Times/IHT reports that four inventors working for Toyota in Japan have won a patent for a car that they say can help drivers communicate better by glaring angrily at another car cutting through traffic, as well as appear to cry, laugh, wink or just look around." The article goes on to describe "...a car with an antenna that wags, an adjustable body height, headlights that vary in intensity and hood slits and ornamentation designed to look like eyebrows, eyelids and tears."
Doesn't this increase the danger? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh great (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't this increase the danger? (Score:4, Insightful)
And looking in the rear view mirror at the driver behind you is going to take less time some how?
So instead of alternate fuels... (Score:1, Insightful)
Then again...
Most needed expressions... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Oops!
2) New to area.
3) I'm completely lost.
4) Medical emergency.
5) Learner
How many times are we angry with people who just happen to be dealing with one of the above and who we would easily forgive if we knew as much?
Road Rage (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The future is here! (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmmm, Is This Good? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, whatever.... (Score:5, Insightful)
or making them safer (fundementally instead of bigger and heavier)
or better communication integration for the ever-pressed-to-the-ear cell phones
or better collision avoidance systems
or making headlights that can be "ub3r" that don't blind everyone on the road
Yeah, making sure the car has emotions and becomes more distracting is a stellar idea. Yesh.
Closely related (Score:5, Insightful)
how does that work? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What I want to know (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, what an awful idea. Yes, let's pay attention to the emotions of the cars around us. Because even after the advent of cellphones, food from drive-throughs, stereos, GPS devices, and in-car LCD screens - we're still paying WAY too much attention to our driving situation.
- David Stein
Re:Automobile voice chat (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, when you commute you're traveling as part of a community of drivers. I think that having the ability to convey a limited set of phrases ('go ahead', 'thank you', 'sorry/my bad') would be beneficial. Pre-programmed voice macros would solve the problem: give people the ability to transmit, but enfore curteous phrasing. As soon as you open it up to allow people to say anything, it's likely to lead to more road rage.
Re:Doesn't this increase the danger? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, possibly, but if someone is trying to communicate with you, it may be the best way anyway. Think about it. Would you rather they flash the lights, honk the horn or wave? You will spend more brain cycles trying to parse these messages. Generally, an interface that uses ingrained brain 'hardware' to communicate is usually better than teaching everyone that signal X means Y.
You may remember that we had that article on Facetop [unc.edu]last week, where you can use your existing hand-eye coordination 'hardware' to drive the pointer. That sounds like really stellar UI. This is similar in that it would use humanlike social cues to communicate. (Then again... social cues? I must be new here.)
The only problem I'm seeing is that the facial expressions that a car can make are probably nothing like actual social cues, and that they would not be similar enough to trigger expression recognition code in your brain. Who knows.
Re:Yeah, whatever.... (Score:4, Insightful)
These are the Japanese we're talking about here, not the American auto industry. Their cars are the most gas-efficient mass-produced cars you can get in the US. They're making some larger SUVs, but only because that's what Americans want to buy. You can still buy a high-efficiency Civic.
>or better communication integration for the ever-pressed-to-the-ear cell phones
Have you seen the Acura's Bluetooth integration?
>or better collision avoidance systems
So we can have every slashdotter bitch about how that takes away from their control and they can't trust an automated system to do their avoidance for them?
>or making headlights that can be "ub3r" that don't blind everyone on the road
Yeah, what's up with that? We want lights that put out tons of visible light and throw it out far, but that won't blind anyone who looks at them. Is that so hard?
Personal contact (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't this increase the danger? (Score:3, Insightful)
On a side note, I'd like to the car do this automatically, without the driver having to flip a switch or push a button, kind of like Suki's car in 2 Fast 2 Furious (albeit hers was only on the dashboard LCD, not outside the car).
Re:What I want to know (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars are already designed to try to clue you in to what the driver is thinking - for example, brake lights, turn signals, horns, etc. Communication of intent between drivers is critical while on the road. Now, some of this is more what the driver "feels" than what they are planning, but I doubt it would *hurt*. The more attention you pay to what's on the road ahead of you, the better.
Tailgaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, the danger from tailgating is that they might rear-end you (duh). If you slowly reduce your speed this greatly reduces the risk of a high-speed read end collision while simultaneously giving them a great incentive to stop tailgating. They're doing it because they think it'll get them to their destination faster. I simply make it clear to them that they'll NEVER get there if they insist on tailgating me.
In my experience, most people get the hint and back off.
Re:What I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)
But are you? Instead of paying attention to all of the cars, you're paying more attention to one particular car. And it's not guaranteed to be a car that's important to your driving situation - it could very well be a car on the opposite side of the road.
One of the other posters wrote it best: as you look in your rear-view mirror at the guy behind you, whose car is making a frowny-face, you're likely to rear-end the guy ahead of you.
Or, look at it this way: You're spending less time thinking about driving, and more time thinking about our ephemeral human interaction with the other driver.
- David Stein
Re:Doesn't this increase the danger? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What I want to know (Score:2, Insightful)
"Bite my shiny metal ass"
I'm one of those road warriors who holds an extreme grudge against Honda teens, Lexus dinks, and every other idiot who fails to realize that:
a. you're just a sack of meat, $$$ or not
b. other people are sacks of meat too
c. cars are tougher than sacks of meat
When someone consciously pulls a stupid stunt near me, I take it as a threat to my health and well-being, and react accordingly. Getting the finger is getting off easy, in the street or a bar it would have been a severe beating.
Re:What I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)
----
How to Make Programming Fun [blogspot.com]
Re:Un-obvious???? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's get this clear: Yes, car's have been portrayed as having emotions lots of times.
That is not original.
What is original is proposing this as a real technical solution to an actual problem, as opposed to simple anthropomorphy.
Since human faces have been drawn forever, I suppose the idea of Chernoff Faces [wolfram.com] would be obvious too. It is not.
Re:What I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)
Odds are, the answer is 'No'.
People don't spend their time expressing emotions to strangers unless they have a reason for it, and when they do, there's generally a good reason for it, and it's generally either appreciated or causes a desired interaction. That's the nature of communication in crowds.
This would, more than anything, encourage *good* driving. There have been many times where, when I've been in a big pack of cars and desparately needed to get over, another car went out of their way to let me over. Such behavior, in direct human interaction, generally receives a "thank you" or a smile, but there is no way to do this in your conventional car (cars can pretty much only say "Hey!" - the implied meaning of the horn). For all the person knows, their action went unappreciated.
The "thank you" or smile aren't functionless.
Yeah lets take no personal responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)
But if this word's new meaning stems originally from usage by homophobic males who used their negative connotations with gay people to give power to a new insult, than it is clear that using this word is an insult to gay people (regardless if it is intended to be by any particular speaker). Every time the word is used in a negative way, it reinforces the idea that there is something bad or contemptible about "gayness".
But for you to just say "blame society" is an ignorant avoidance of the fact that each of us can and should be responsible for our own vocabularies - and be mindful of the affects of various word choices on those around us.
People often use the word "girl" in a negative way - "don't be a girl". This is another example of word usage that creates and reinforces both a negative stereotype and negative connotations of being a certain type of person. What subtle (or not so subtle) affects does this have on girls images of themselves, and on women as they grow up?
Our word choices can often show our deep prejudices, as well as foster these prejudices in those around us and those growing up under us.
Re:What I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't laugh (Score:2, Insightful)