A Honda scientist speaking at our annual GPU Technology
Conference illustrated a vision of the future of driving that
looked like a scene from ‘Minority Report.’ Victor Ng-Thow-Hing,
of the Honda Research Institute, in Silicon Valley, showed early
designs of augmented reality displays that seem to “paint”
imagery on the driver’s windshield to aid navigation and reduce
accidents. Ng-Thow-Hing said elderly drivers often have issues
judging the speed of oncoming vehicles. So, the Honda team
developed a design that puts icons over approaching vehicles to
help drivers make better decisions on when to turn. The system
can also virtually “paint” the road to provide a visual aid to
drivers. For example, at an intersection the road would appear
green in front of the vehicle and red in the path of oncoming
traffic. Ng-Thow-Hing said that with the media attention around
Google’s autonomous vehicle, every major car company is working
on self-driving cars. But since autonomous cars are still years
away, there are plenty o