RE: Pioneer Unveils 'Augmented Reality' Sat-Nav

[Xenocide]

I read "scouter" as "scouser" at least twice.

[LuS1fer]

I think "Scouser mode" targets wheels you might like to pinch and the nearest supplier of bricks.

[Nickellarse]

"Prime Cruising" or "Cruising for Prime"?

If might even tell you if the rozzers are hiding out in your favourite catting areas...

[mig25_foxbat2003]

How much do the maps look like the maps of the original Grand Theft Auto? And are all the better for the fact...

[M666 EVO]

Even K.I.T.T didn't have this tech. Or did he?

Neat - I want one, NOW!

[Stu R]

Pretty amazing tech, and IMO the start of some seriously impressive navigation systems being developed. Can't wait to see them widely available.

[LuS1fer]

can wait as I now find people are so lazy they will use the sat nav to get them to the shops and can't stop looking at it or playing with it. With a virtual reality screen, it will mean even more time spent not looking at the road but gawping at the marvellous technology.

[nouze]

Surely some tuners will come up with an HUD version soon

[filski666]

This is new?? Sure I saw this on one of those Clarkson around the world programs when he was in Japan.....but that was years ago! - How is this different?

edit - having done a bit of googling, maybe all it was back then was a nice graphic like this one


and it improved with age in my mind like a fine wine!

Edited by filski666 on Wednesday 11th May 08:02

[Beardy10]

It needs a mode to help the discerning gentleman spot pedestrians that he might want to take a lingering look at as he drives past....obviously need some fairly sophisticated algorhythm to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

[iain1970]

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

[300bhp/ton]

Nice idea conceptually, struggle to believe it actually works though. As every other augmented reality software seems to be all marketing pith rather than ability.

Also what's the point in knowing a traffic light is green if you aren't close enough to see for yourself??? What do you do with this information?

Not too mentioned that TomTom and all the others seem to totally fail at understanding the British road network and how roads are used, or even what are or aren't roads. Then this one will stand no chance.

[Morningside]

Clever idea and quite old. I think Google has something very close to this last year but I suppose this is the first all-in-one module.

Googles version (and iPhone I think) can also mark places of interest and your 'buddies'.

One thing that I do fear about the unit is that we all know, give it a year and some dozy dick will crash into a line of children at a bus stop and the unit will be blamed (watching that instead of road) and then they will ban all sat-navs.


My addition to it? A flashing floating arrow pointing out all the speed cameras.

[Twincam16]

iain1970 said:

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

I find constant bleeping, flashing, chirruping electronic intrusion extemely annoying. I find it a much calmer way to navigate to take a look at a map beforehand, jot down the roads I'll be using and slip them behind the sunvisor, then keep the map in the car just in case I need to refer to it. Keeping an eye out for roadsigns is hardly taxing.

I'm amazed at the number of people who just get the postcode of where they need to go, don't bother looking at a map, jump in the car, type it in and off they go. They may see maps as 'archaic', but the truth is, if you read a map, at least you know where you're going. If you rely on the satnav, only it knows where you're going, so if, for whatever reason, it breaks or fouls up, you really are lost with absolutely no way of navigating yourself at all.

The only places where I've found satnav useful are abroad where all the roadsigns are in foreign languages, but even then I'd plan the route on my Road Atlas Europe and probably only use a satnav to navigate round city centres.

It really is staggering how many people are willing to lose their independence to technology. All the skills and instincts we've learned over the years seem to be relegated to electronic gadgets for the sheer sake of it and now we just let them bully us along. Switch them all off or break them and some people (smug urbanites with stripped-down lifestyles relying on a few gadgets to replace absolutely everything in their lives) will be reduced to the state of a helpless child.

Pathetic. NOT progress.

[LuS1fer]

Sat navs have been responsible for sending me off on wild goosechases in the wrong direction and I've lost count of the motorway exits I've missed as you can't see it very well and can't hear it unlesss you don't play music. Paper maps rule - just list the roads on a piece of paper and follow signs.

[Twincam16]

LuS1fer said:

Sat navs have been responsible for sending me off on wild goosechases in the wrong direction and I've lost count of the motorway exits I've missed as you can't see it very well and can't hear it unlesss you don't play music. Paper maps rule - just list the roads on a piece of paper and follow signs.

Precisely. It's a much calmer, more ordered way to navigate.

For example, on Sunday I am driving to Peterborough. My route will be: A6 to Sparrowpit, A619 to Chesterfield, A617 via Mansfield to Newark, A1 southbound to Peterborough. Four instructions, four road numbers and place names to memorise, jot the order down and mentally tick them off one at a time.

If I didn't bother with any of this and just punched PE2 into a satnav, it would bark a new instruction and flash a new arrow at me every five minutes with the frantic insistence of Nicky Grist.

I'm often called upon to drive groups of friends and relatives long distances as I don't mind that kind of driving, and they see the lack of satnav and say 'how do you know where you're going?!'

Because I read the map. Daft thing is, had they been driving, they wouldn't actually know and all it'd take would be one misheard instruction from the TomTom and they'd be quite comprehensively lost, especially if they ended up stuck in a one-way system, or on the wrong bit of motorway.

Also, after reading this, I don't trust satnav companies with my information at all:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8480702...

For the same reason I don't trust Apple or Sony.

[nouze]

iain1970 said:

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

Surprised you didn't write this post on a typewriter. Why, it's so much less hassle than firing up a computa.

[Twincam16]

nouze said:

iain1970 said:

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

Surprised you didn't write this post on a typewriter. Why, it's so much less hassle than firing up a computa.

Don't be silly. There's a difference between the act of typing (and typing on the internet), and abrogating an important skill to a little black box.

To me, the notion of 'progress' is not something that in any way curtails independence, and by independence I mean 'not being dependent on other people and things to get through life' - the very thing that makes us adults.

[Dagnut]

iain1970 said:

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

Try driving in London when you don't know you're way around. I defy anyone to come to London without ever having driven there before and successfully navigate your way around, what are you going pull over at the side of the road and keep looking at a map and using street signs?
That would work well in rush hour traffic, very safe.

[Morningside]

Dagnut said:

iain1970 said:

I find reality so much more useful when driving. Also, what's so difficult about looking at a map before you set off and planning your route? How many people who have Sat Nav in their cars actually NEED it?

Try driving in London when you don't know you're way around. I defy anyone to come to London without ever having driven there before and successfully navigate your way around, what are you going pull over at the side of the road and keep looking at a map and using street signs?
That would work well in rush hour traffic, very safe.

Well, thats how I got on in 1987. First job. Deliver this box of paper in cenral London and here are the keys to the van. Took a while but got there in the end.

Just as dangerous as these people who seem to look at the satnav screen rather than use common sense.

Case last year of a man who took a right turn onto a railway line. I mean, what a tt.