Hasta La Gadget!

[CEATEC 2013] Some folks absolutely love driving, whether it is in the morning or at night, as it offers a rather therapeutic feeling. The thing is, driving is no longer fun whenever you get stuck in a traffic jam, as it would certainly cause your blood pressure to boil (and hopefully, your car’s radiator will not experience the same thing). Other people, however, do not like driving at all, and for some of us who have no choice but to be behind the wheel even after a long day at work, there is a risk of having drowsiness take over. Fujitsu hopes to prevent such a thing from happening with their real-time drowsiness detection technology that would hopefully prevent the driver from nodding off.

How does Fujitsu’s Sleepiness Detection Sensor work? Well, the driver would wear a wireless heart rate sensor around ear, where data will be sent over to a monitoring data center. Once the level of drowsiness is analyzed based on the pulse fluctuations, the driver would receive a warning. Will it be able to lower the number of accidents caused by drowsiness on the road? Hopefully. After all, prevention is better than cure, and in the case of a MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident), some cases do not come with a second chance.

Fujitsu Sleepiness Detection Sensor original content from Ubergizmo.

Me, riding the Winglet…

We’ve reported about the Toyota Winglet earlier this week but since then, I have been able to test-drive one of those cool personal electric vehicle, so here are my impressions: at a very high level, it’s like a Segway, which you may or may not have seen in the real world, but it’s fair to say that most people would naturally be inclined to draw that comparison. It’s the same idea, but the designs are quite different: the Winglet is smaller and would probably beat the Segway in terms in slalom and sharp turn, while Segway may be better for uneven surface and rougher environments. (more…)

Test-Drive: Toyota Winglet Mobility Device original content from Ubergizmo.

Given how complex cars are, repairing one is not exactly an easy task and with every new model that is released, mechanics will have to familiarize themselves with the newer models and technology that is being used if they hope to do a good job of repairing it, but what if that job could have been made a lot easier? Well Volkswagen is hoping to do something about that and has since unveiled an iOS augmented reality app called MARTA, which is short for Mobile Augmented Reality Technical Assistance. Basically this app has been designed specifically for the Volkswagen XL1 concept car and what it does is that it walks technicians through the repair or service.

The app will be able to let technicians know the sort of jobs that can be performed on the vehicle, as well as what are the types of tools needed in order to accomplish them. The goal is to allow those working on the vehicle a faster way of identifying things that need to be worked on quickly and more accurately, meaning that mechanics who work on the car have no excuse to gloss over an identified problem area as it will be pointed out by the app itself. It sounds pretty cool although we’re not sure if this can be applied to all vehicles in the future, but in the meantime you can check out the app in action in the video above to get a better idea.

Volkswagen Demonstrates MARTA AR App To Help With Repairs original content from Ubergizmo.

After developing an augmented reality car manual for the Audi A3 and similar software for wearables like Glass, Metaio certainly knows a thing or two about the AR space. It’s no surprise then, that Volkswagen has collaborated with Metaio to develop an augmented reality iPad app for the 2014 XL1 hybrid diesel that debuted earlier this year. Called MARTA (Mobile Augmented Reality Technical Assistance), the app uses the iPad’s camera to view the internals of the vehicle and label the various parts and elements so that VW service workers will know what they’re working on.

MARTA also shows step-by-step instructions on how to repair and replace certain components, right down to which direction mechanics should be facing. You can even use the app to test out different design elements like a new hood or a different color. And just in case all that AR doesn’t prove to be useful, the app provides a good ol’ fashioned text service manual as well. Seeing as the MARTA is an AR app for a very limited edition vehicle, we don’t expect it to be of much use outside of certain VW specialty shops. Still, it’s yet another sign that incorporating augmented reality into digital car manuals just makes sense.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: Psfk

Source: Volkswagen

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