Saw this article on the bbc

my comments indented.

Smart dashboard watches while you drive

One day you might have another passenger behind this By BBC News Online technology correspondent Mark Ward

Almost since cars have had back seats, motorists have been plagued by the hectoring advice of back seat drivers.

But soon car drivers could be praising rather than cursing those nagging voices as IBM scientists develop an artificial passenger to help drowsy drivers stay awake and on the road.

its called resting often or public transport, why reinvent the wheel?

The artificial passenger can analyse speech for signs of sleepiness and is programmed to ask startling questions to provoke drivers in wakefulness.

How startling? "My god your your ugly?"

If all else fails the dashboard will squirt cold water into the face of a driver to keep them concentrating on the road ahead.

That'll go down well with the leather seats! And what about people

with contact lenses?

Sleep signs

New Scientist reports that Wlodek Wlodzimierz and Dimitri Kanevsky at IBM's Thomas J Watson lab in New York are creating the software surrogate that will lurk in a modified dashboard monitoring what a driver is doing.

how long till we get this into windows? "I'm sorry I think you must

be falling asleep visiting sites like that one, try this MS site instead!"

Drivers that nod off while at the wheel are thought to be responsible for causing up to 30% of road traffic accidents according to figures from the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne, Berkshire quoted by New Scientist.

ooh quotes of quotes, nice.

The artificial passenger will work out if a driver is in danger of falling asleep by initiating conversations and monitoring responses. The conversational cues are created by consulting a profile of a drivers likes and dislikes stored by the smart software.

Boy would it be buggered if you get a nerd behind the wheel? can we

get computers which are capable of holding a debate on the merits on OS's?

Responses to provocative questions by the artificial passenger are analysed to see if your response is slow or the intonation of the speech is slurred, perhaps reflecting how fatigued a driver has become.

And If I ignore it, its sprays me with water, "You will talk to me"

And people who have speach impedements? don't sound to great a tech to me?

As well as listening to responses the passenger uses a camera to watch the mouth of a driver and fine tune its speech recognition system.

And If I am deaf? or unable to speak? what happens on the way back

from getting a filling!

If a response indicates a driver is getting sleepy the artificial passenger has several options available to rouse them. It could wind down a window to let cold air circulate, sound a buzzer and perhaps even use a spray to dash cold water into the face of a driver to wake them.

See above comment on contact lenses, also what if its raining/snowing

outside?

Other possible actions include changing radio station, or telling jokes in a bid to jerk a drowsing driver into wakefulness.

"OI I was listening to that" <distracted changing station back>

crunch. As for the jokes, wont be funny they will be far to PC!

The two scientists are reportedly talking to car makers about adopting the artificial passenger. "If this is something people want, it's doable within three to five years," Dr Wlodzimierz told New Scientist.

oh bugger, we're doomed.

Thanks

D

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