Mercedes Debuts Augmented Reality Display

There is that tipping moment in a conversation, where all possible use of words has been exhausted, and we are left gesturing madly, using are hands and limbs in an often vain attempt to get a point across.  Or so it sometimes goes.

Body language, gesturing, pointing, leveling our hand in the air, palm down, to convey a perceived value of mediocrity(or to demonstrate the physics of aerodynamics), these all have their place in our day to day interactions.  Up until this point we have tended to use our gesturing skills on the human occupants of our environment, but now Mercedes Benz is bringing it into the realm of the human-car interaction, and they are doing it via the emerging technology of Augmented Reality.

Augmented reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.  Or to put it another way, it is the point in our technological development where we make practical use of combining the real world environment with computer characters, interactive programs and apps, and 3-Dimensional scenes.

Mercedes is bringing this technology into the vehicle cockpit, debuting their Dice Concept (Dynamic & Intuitive Control Experience, an interactive dashboard that is controlled by the drivers hand motions) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  Dice allows you to access navigation tools, find out what and who is inside of the buildings as you drive by(and see their yelp rating), scroll through a seemingly endless quantity of apps, and gather any other desired piece of information, all with a mere wave of the hand.  The video at the bottom of the page will explain it all, or at least look really cool in the attempt.

While the presence of this technology in production vehicles is still a few years away, Phoenix Valley automotive and tech enthusiasts can keep an eye tuned to Vroom and to regional auto shows for updates on DICE’s progress on its path to production.  Phoenix Valley drivers can also stop by any of their local Phoenix Valley Mercedes Benz dealers to view and test drive any current production model vehicle.