Toyota Endo - just a hologram?

Toyota has said precious little about the Endo concept city car it plans to show off at Frankfurt next month, but judging from the few pics the company has released, the little two seater has a full-width, holographic dashboard. The possibilities for information display are endless, even if the concept would have to be watered down to accomodate a passenger airbag. When can we have one for real?

New cat out of the bag

Interesting snippets from the formal launch of Jaguar’s new alloy-bodied XK.
“Inside the cabin the minimalist instrument cluster houses two prominent round dials either side of an advanced high-resolution colour display based on thin-film transistor technology. This display is split into several zones showing vital information such as gear selection, cruise control information, low tyre pressure warnings and satellite navigation instructions, depending on market.” This screen is in addition to a 7-inch display, mounted rather low in the centre console, which offers touch-screen control over ventilation, audio, navigation and telephone settings. No sign of a head-up display, however, despite Jaguar’s boasts of technological leadership. (In fact, as Car Design News notes, the console as a whole looks a generation adrift of its up-to-the-minute rivals.)
Jaguar parent Ford is also crowing about the XK’s braking system, which promises to be more responsive as grip begins to run out during those moments when you wish you’d started braking yesterday.
“Unlike conventional digital ABS systems used on many cars, the all-new XK’s ABS system can vary the brake pressure at each wheel using analogue valves in the hydraulic control unit. This gives more refinement to the hydraulic pressure control and allows drivers to benefit from increased steering input during heavy braking.”
The first digital refers to the on-off-on-off action of conventional ABS. No doubt the analogue valves are still commanded by a digital control unit.
Update: Parts maker Continental points out that it has developed analogue braking control components for use in both ABS and stability control systems, and that these are fitted to six-cylinder versions of the latest BMW 3-Series.

Audi Q7 stops smartly too

Audi’s upcoming Q7 softroader will be the first production car to get stage 2 of Bosch’s Predictive Safety System (PSS), according to the German parts supplier. Last month Auto IT blogged about PSS in the context of VW’s new Passat Estate, which offers only stage 1 PSS - using the forward-looking adaptive cruise-control radar to work out when a collision looks possible, and then rapidly readying the vehicle’s braking system for an emergency stop.
The Q7’s stage 2 system then goes further, alerting the driver that it’s time to stomp on the middle pedal. Called Predictive Collision Warning, the second-stage system generates a “short but noticeable” braking pulse, and tugs the seatbelt tensioners tight.
Handily, the Q7’s adaptive cruise control will work right down to zero in stop-start traffic, apparently. This should help inattentive drivers from needing all the PSS braking cleverness in the first place.

Hacking your hybrid

An Associated Press article appeared in a number of publications this week, reporting on the owners who aren’t satisfied with the economy of their standard model hybrids and who are turning to a spot of DIY.
A group of California-based tinkerers have plonked extra batteries in a Prius’s boot to create what they call the Prius+. Their conversion extends the capabilities of the already thrifty Toyota by adding the ability to charge from the mains while at rest. This can apparently achieve around 80mpg, with a relatively minor increase in the owner’s domestic electricity usage.
Meanwhile, University of California professor Andrew Frank runs Team Fate, a research group that has reportedly achieved up to 250mpg using modified standard vehicles. Frank lives up to his name when it comes to his thoughts on the automakers’ research priorities:

They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff... They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."

Microsoft aims to "follow that cab!"

Researchers at Microsoft have clearly had an epiphany, probably while watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
According to a new US patent application, spotted by New Scientist, the company aims to borrow the movie’s visual amalgamation of real life and cartoon imagery and to mix it with head-up displays, TomTom-style GPS navigation, and Human PacMan.
The latter might require a bit of explanation...
Human PacMan, as developed by boffins at the University of Singapore, is a real-world, 3D version of the old arcade game. In the arcades, PacMan was a hungry little yellow disk confined to a 2D maze. In Human PacMan, people take the place of the little yellow guy, donning computerised goggles that superimpose virtual objects, rewards and dangers onto their view of the real world.
In Microsoft’s innovation, drivers needing navigation assistance will not have to follow audio instructions, or glance at an animated map on the dashboard. Instead, a ghostly, computer-generated car will be superimposed on the driver’s view of the real road ahead. To get to the right destination, the driver simply follows the animated car.
To distinguish the illusory vehicle from real cars, the patent suggests that the image should be user selectable so that it might stand out. So, for example, a driver could choose to follow a yellow taxi when in London, or a black cab in New York.

What wheels may come

BT futurologists Ian Neild and Ian Pearson have stuck their necks out and made some brave predictions about the world over the next 50 years. Along the way, they may have invented the world’s very worst graphical user interface. However, visitors that persevere with the perverse presentation – made up of scrolling, disappearing sine-waves spotted with points of interest – may find the information intriguing.
For visitors who find the experience as entertaining as dentistry, below are the most relevant automotive predictions and rough dates:

• 2006: Pollution monitor chips built into cars
• 2008: Cars with automatic steering
• 2011: Speed controlled automatically
• 2011: Hydrogen fuel on UK forecourts
• 2015: Oil consumption peaks
• 2021: Fully auto-piloted cars

Big Blue plans artificial passengers

Big business computer company IBM has just begun a series of podcasts, aimed primarily at shareholders, and the first topic covered is of particular interest: The Future of Driving.
If you are willing to endure a few unsubtle boasts about IBM’s skills - the podcast is aimed at investors, after all - the 20 minute discussion is well worth a listen.
Jim Ruthven of IBM’s Automotive Software Group and Dr Roberto Sicconi, an IBM automotive interface expert, talk about how computers will affect cars from all perspectives: design, manufacturing, usage and insurance.
One particularly interesting segment dwells on the near-term arrival of in-car systems built with speech interfaces. These will deliver what Sicconi calls artificial passengers, automated systems that are able to assist the driver, to assess the driver’s emotional state, and also to be aware of external conditions:

Sicconi: Some of our customers have asked to be able to dictate emails and send them out... If you pass a certain speed, I would advise people not to do it. So if you have information about the speed of the car, it may say, “This service is not available at this time.”
Ruthven: Heading into a hairpin turn, on a wet, slick street, is not the time you want to get the email that says your stocks just went down 15 percent. That’s a bad thing...

Bluetooth welcomes eavesdroppers

When you specify Bluetooth on the options list, chances are you aren’t asking to give other drivers the option to listen in on your conversation, or to comment on your driving skills via your own stereo speakers. But according to wireless security research group Trifinite, that’s exactly what you could get.
Trifinite researchers have shown that almost no hacking skills are required to patch into the Bluetooth facilities of some common vehicles, using nothing more sophisticated than a Bluetooth-equipped laptop and a directional aerial. With this meagre kit, a hacker in another car can pass himself off as an in-car phone, tapping into the speakers and microphones normally used to provide hands-free facilities.
Apparently the weakness lies in the way that manufacturers set up the Bluetooth gear. In an attempt to baffle as few legitimate users as possible, makers typically specify a very simple passkey - a code that you have to input to securely link up two Bluetooth devices, like a combination lock.
As Trifinite has learned, in many cases this combination lock has effectively been set to 0000, leaving the system wide open.
Not all vehicles use a preset passkey, and it’s worth finding out about passkey settings when considering Bluetooth kit.

Self-steering Honda

Road testers from Channel 4’s 4Car web site and from What Car magazine, among others, have driven a Honda Accord fitted with the Honda Intelligent Driver Support (HiDS) system first announced at the 2003 Tokyo Motor Show.
HiDS is a two-part package: Intelligent Highway Cruise Control (IHCC) is a modern, radar-regulated cruise control system; while Lane-Keeping Assist System (LKAS) is a more advanced variant of the lane-departure monitors that are now appearing on the options lists of most makers.
While most lane assistants merely give a warning when a lane marking is crossed, LKAS is much more proactive. It links to Honda’s electric power steering and actually does most of the work required to keep the car in its lane. It provides 80 percent of the steering input needed, as long as bends in the road don't exceed the gentle curvature common to motorways.
Why not 100 percent? According to What Car, “The driver must apply at least 20 percent of the steering effort to ensure they are still safely and legally in control of the car.”
4Car’s tester was keen, suggesting that the system helped the driver to concentrate on events well ahead of the car.

After just an hour behind the wheel, I found myself relaxing and learning to trust it. You don't worry so much about the positioning of your car within the lane, which allows you to focus on other things. Like signs of erratic driving from the car half a mile ahead, or mobile speed traps.

Conference to ponder cars of tomorrow

Those interested in the confluence of cars and computers, who can spare a couple of days in the middle of September, and who have a couple of hundred quid burning a hole in their pocket, should be aware of an upcoming seminar. The Connected Car conference will be held in Cambridge, UK, on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 September. It promises to “bring together researchers and industry experts in technology, economics, law, policy, regulation and business models”.
The agenda looks good. Auto IT will report back from the event in due course.

Will drivers need antivirus?

Ever since BMW’s iDrive system debuted in 2001, using Microsoft Windows Automotive software as its base, pessimists have been predicting the appearance of viruses in cars.
Earlier this week CNN carried a Reuters report on the topic, suggesting that the proliferation of Bluetooth mobile-phone interfaces in cars will hasten the dreaded day when the first automotive worm strikes. The story quotes research chief Yevgeni Kaspersky of respected Russian antivirus specialist Kaspersky Lab:

Sooner or later the hackers will find the vulnerability in the operating systems of on-board computers and ... will definitely use it.

From this dire warning, the report then goes on to be a little over-optimistic in its assessment of the worst-case scenario, suggesting that future drivers might face “an annoying trip to the repair shop or having to reboot the system”.
Things could get a lot worse than that.
Consider that the latest BMW M5 has selectable software control over stability systems, engine power output, suspension set-up and steering assistance.
What if a virus got into the system and didn’t do anything obvious - just lurked there, unnoticed, waiting for a moment of emergency, when the stability system kicks in to correct an over-keen, high-speed manoeuvre. What if the virus then switched off the stability control, increased the engine output, softened the dampers and then started fooling around with the power steering? Occupants of the car could easily end up dead.
That may sound far-fetched, but today many hackers are professional criminals, into blackmail for financial gain not idle vandalism. The author of such a virus would be targeting the car’s manufacturer, not the hapless driver. But that would be small comfort to those on the receiving end.

Digital Car

Widely respected dead-tree purveyor Car magazine is this month using the Zinio Express system to deliver a taster of its September issue.
Zinio Express allows a browser to display a tweaked PDF version of a paper product - these days most magazines are sent to the printers as PDFs, so the electronic and paper versions ought to look identical.
Zinio is a US-based firm specialising in electronic publishing. As well as Zinio Express, it also supplies dedicated Zinio Reader software to sit on your Windows or Mac OS X desktop and let you read the full version of quite a few magazines from around the world – once you’ve paid your subscription charges, naturally. The Reader downloads issues while you’re not looking, as soon as they are published. (Zinio subscribers can select the September Car taster-issue here).
The Zinio files are doused in all kinds of copy protection, so you can’t just send the issue on to a hundred friends, although you can pass each one on a couple of times, apparently.
Anyway, Car is strangely absent from Zinio’s list of available automotive titles, so perhaps the September flyer is a taster for punters and publisher alike.
There are probably plenty of Car readers - particularly in the US - who would jump at the chance to get the full issue in bits and bytes for around a dollar a time, if the Zinio prices of Car & Driver and Motor Trend are anything to go by.
Let's hope the current experiment is a success.

New Civic looks funky inside and out

Honda today unveiled the production version of the new Civic. It looks very similar indeed to the concept shown off at the Geneva motor show earlier in the year - including the busy-looking butt that makes do without a rear wiper.
The interior looks as highly stylised as the exterior.
An image on the Honda site reveals the double-deck dashboard of what is presumably the top-spec Civic. It shows a high-mounted numeric speedometer, and beneath that an instrument cluster featuring a large tacho flanked by temperature and fuel gauges, with a small trip-computer and information display in the centre of the tacho. However, the entire lower cluster looks a heck of a lot like a computer-generated image of analogue clocks. There may in fact be a large, trapezoidal LCD screen immediately behind the steering wheel, capable of switching between conventional clocks, navigation information, and perhaps an infra-red night-vision system or reversing camera. The upcoming Mercedes S-Class simulates analogue clocks using a multi-function LCD screen in just this fashion.
Behind the dash, the complement of electronic gizmos is suitably full. As well as ABS with Electronic Brake force Distribution (EBD), all new Civics will also get Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) - a safety system that controls throttle and brakes to help prevent over-enthusiastic drivers sampling the Civic's performance when travelling backwards through a hedge.
Front seats are fitted with double-action seatbelt pre-tensioners and active head restraints.
Honda UK says the new hatchback will be available with four different powerplants, including a revamped IMA hybrid power unit, even though the European launch press release talks only about 1.4 and 1.8 litre petrol and 2.2 litre diesel powerplants. It looks as though hybrid fans will have to wait for more details...

Update: Newer images of the Civic instrument panel shower that the tacho is, sadly, a conventional analogue dial, but the dashboard design theme would certainly suit a central, multipurpose LCD panel. Perhaps Honda is thinking ahead.
New hybrid Civics are now expected in the UK in May, five months after the conventional variants.

More lamps and lane alerts

German headlamp maker Hella makes swivelling, corner-illuminating lamps for nice new Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz cars, among others. Last month it launched a not-too-bright retrofit option for owners of older cars who might feel a little left out. Rather than gently shifting the beam of the main units, however, Hella’s DynaView Evo2 uses two fixed additional lamps that point to the left and right, when suitably bolted to the front bumper. When the driver indicates, the appropriate light is switched on to shed some light on the upcoming corner. A yaw-sensor also activates the left or right unit when it senses that the car is cornering (yaw is a sideways rotation and has nothing to do with yawning, even if this item is a bit dull). At up to 25mph. And, er, that’s more or less it.
More interesting is Hella’s Lane Change Assistant, a radar-based safety system designed to warn about vehicles sitting in a driver’s blind spot, scheduled to first appear in production cars - no doubt of the Germanic sort - from next year. Hella’s web site says that the radar unit will work “independent of darkness, soiling and weather conditions.” Which is handy given that soiling is quite likely if you’re the kind of driver that switches lanes without looking.