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The Headlight of the Future Is a Laser

posted by martyb on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the blinded-by-even-more-distant-oncoming-traffic dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Bloomberg:

Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter. Shuji Nakamura is not most people.

The Nobel Prize-winning illumination scientist has spent the past five years developing a laser-based lighting system. His company, SLD Laser, says the new design is 10 times brighter than today’s LED lights, capable of illuminating objects a kilometer away while using less power than any current technology. And unlike a regular, dumb headlight, the laser can potentially be integrated into current and forthcoming driver-assistance systems.

Do headlights need to be brighter?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:18AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:18AM (#787198)
    Perhaps it would be a good invention right now, as long as you use a grid of adaptive glass segments (the inner layer of the windshield) that are more transparent than a typical welder's glass. When the car gets illuminated by headlights, the computer calculates the beam path by seeing the light source(s) via an external camera and detecting your eye position and orientation. The grid cells at the point where the light beam crosses the windshield are darkened as necessary. The rest of the windshield remains transparent, and you see the road.
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday January 16 2019, @07:14AM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @07:14AM (#787274) Journal

    Or we could just mandate not using aircraft landing lights as headlights.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Kalas on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:24AM

      by Kalas (4247) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:24AM (#787336)

      Nah, seems easier to just outlaw functioning eyeballs.