We all know the feeling: driving on a highway, at 120km/h+, when suddenly, you find yourself stuck behind a slow moving truck.
You sigh, take a deep breath, and then gently swerve to the right to try and see if the road is clear for you to pass the damned truck. Whilst mostly this works, and you can time your pass efficiently, it is nevertheless quotes dangerous.
How cool would it be of you could just see through the truck or bus in front of you and then make youor quick exit? Well, if thi snew gadget is anything to go by- you CAN!
As incredible as it sounds, a Portuguese scientist has come up with an invention that literally makes you see straight through the car in front of – almost like an X-Ray.
Michael Ferreira, from the University of Porto in Portugal has developed this technology being called “See-through system”.
The See-Through System works by tapping into the visual data being recorded by the forward-facing webcam that some cars/trucks/busses have installed on their windshield.
Then, if you have a similar system in your car, the webcam then streams the feed from the car in front of yours’ webcam and projects it onto a transparent LED screen built into your windshield.
This viewpoint then helps you judge the oncoming traffic from the view of the car or bus or truck in front of you.
Check out what it would look like if you had the system in your car:
Sound too good to be true? Well it’s true; but that doesnt mean it may have some complications. Many critics have raised the question on whether the streaming would be in real time, and if, incase it lags, how it would benefit the driver.
However, Ferreira has a answer to that: “…tests show that the latency isn’t more than 200 milliseconds, which translates to about 10 meters at high speed and won’t make any difference with safety in real-world driving” he said.
Either way, this might be the one safety solution for driving the world has been waiting for. Ferreira even tested the system out himself, and you can see it in action in the video below:
What are your thoughts on this X-Ray technology? Safe or silly?
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
