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Companies like Tesla and Google have their eyes on self-driving cars. But while humans are still behind the wheel, General Motors is turning to eye-tracking, facial recognition tech to make the streets a bit safer. The Financial Times reports GM is planning to install machines in about half a million cars that will track drivers’ eye and head movements to […]
More than 30,000 Americans are killed in highway crashes each year, but experts believe that death toll could sink to zero as safety improvements continue and autonomous cars hit the road. A sign of that possibility will come with the release of a new study next month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which […]
Google caused a stir earlier this year when it unveiled a self-driving car without a steering wheel or pedals for braking or accelerating. But Google’s goal of an autonomous car is bumping up against new testing rules from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
Drive on a city’s streets at night and you’re guided by artificial lights: glowing traffic signals beckoning you forward, the headlights of a car trailing you, a sign warning of work ahead. Artificial lights may soon guide your car, too: In the quest for cars that understand the world around them and respond intelligently, a […]
A combined forward collision and lane departure warning system available on the Honda Accord is reducing insurance claims, a new HLDI analysis shows. The results are even better than expected based on previous studies of such technology on luxury vehicles. In the first real-world study of a crash avoidance system on a high-volume, nonluxury vehicle, […]
Backup cameras have become ubiquitous on all varieties of cars– from the most affordable subcompacts to the priciest of exotics– but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just issued a long-awaited ruling that will make the technology legally required on every sub-10,000 pound vehicle by May of 2018. “Safety is our highest priority,” U.S. Department […]
Researchers at Duke University–which has quite a track record in this field–have built a lens-free imaging system, which uses metamaterials to create the aperture needed to take a picture. Then, through math wizardry, an image is generated as it gathers the information. This is different from a traditional, lensed camera, which gathers the image after it has been snapped. The idea […]
Experts predict that our cars will one day routinely “talk” to one another with wireless communication devices, possibly preventing huge numbers of traffic accidents. On Tuesday, the world’s largest study of connected car technology launched in Ann Arbor, Mich. The technology is designed to help drivers avert all sorts of common dangers on the road. […]
An early crop of advanced crash avoidance technologies includes some clear success stories when it comes to preventing crashes, insurance claim analyses show. Forward collision avoidance systems, particularly those that can brake autonomously, along with adaptive headlights, which shift direction as the driver steers, show the biggest crash reductions in the studies by the Highway […]