Steering a car with a wheel too easy for you? Challenge yourself with the eyeDriver, a new technology that lets you direct a vehicle using your eyes.
When we say challenge, by the way, we do mean challenge. Imagine catching pedestrians out of the corner of your eye, which then directs your attention to them. Guess what the car will do? Run straight at them, of course. Can you avert your eyes just in time to spare their lives?
The eyeDriver was recently presented at the Berlin Tempelhof Airport, using a Dodge Caravan called Spirit of Berlin. At the current state of the technology, it allows the vehicle to run at up to 31 mph, all while being steered using one of the driver’s eyes. Yes, even a pirate with one glass eye can get it to turn.
Created by Raul Rojas, an artificial intelligence researcher at Berlin’s Free University, and his team from the Artificial Intelligence Group, the Spirit of Berlin’s features doesn’t end there. To keep accidents (like running over an ice cream truck that distracted you) at bay, the car can also drive on its own, using an onboard hardware setup, consisting of a GPS, cameras, lasers and scanners. So once it detects you’re actually about to hit something, it can clamp the on brakes. Sure, you’ll probably take forever driving this way, but that’s the high-tech way, dawg.
In fairness to Raul and his crew, this type of technology just might be the kind of thing that allows incapacitated individuals to drive. Imagine rigging a motorized wheelchair with the same eyeDriver hardware and someone with no use of their limbs should easily (well, not that easy) be able to make their way around town. Pretty awesome, right?