https://insideevs.com/news/794295/chinese-ev-headlight-movie-projectors/
Huawei showed off the newest version of its headlight tech, XPixel, at the Huawei Qiankun Technology Conference at the Beijing Auto Show last week. The headlights now have the ability to project a full range of colors like a giant movie projector mounted to the front of the car. That means the ability to park your car and use the nearest wall to watch your favorite show or movie like it's some sort of personal drive-in movie theater.
The actual XPixel tech that Huawei is using to underpin the new full-color projection feature has been around for about three years now. Vehicles like the Huawei Stelato S9 already use it, and what's particularly cool is how the tech is neatly tied into the car's driver assistance features— meaning that it can help to assist with lane changing by showing a guided path, or even direct pedestrians when to cross in front of the car. It's can also project interactive games for kids (like hopscotch).
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @09:49AM
As if they deliberately want to jump the shark.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jasassin on Wednesday May 06, @10:13AM
It's about time they come out with some "Back To The Future" kind of tech!
Let the "Evil Dead" blood ensue all over the wall.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday May 06, @10:39AM (13 children)
There really needs to be better regulation of vehicle lighting, defining the allowable spectrum, power per unit area of the luminous element, total lumens, and beam form/coverage. To include bicycles and electric scooters as well.
The extremely bright luminous elements that dazzle oncoming drivers and pedestrians are dangerous: coupled with the automated headlight dippers that dip after they have detected the bright lights of oncoming cars, it means I routinely get dazzled by cars on full beam coming round corners. What happened to the courtesy of dipping your lights when you saw the lumen of oncoming vehicles? People got lazy. My car has an automated dipper: I don't use it.
Furthermore, there is very good research that shows that flashing lights are less easy to locate than steady lights. You might notice a flashing light better - but you can't tell where it is! Cycles should have non-flashing lights as their main lighting, possibly augmented by a low intensity flasher. The same applies to brake lights that unintentionally strobe (poor driver design that don't PWM at a high enough frequency) - they are very distracting.
Get off my lawn so I have room to shake my fists at the clouds while shouting at them!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @10:59AM (6 children)
But if that's used as an excuse to make them even brighter it means that when they get it wrong, people get even more dazzled and blinded...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday May 06, @12:06PM (3 children)
I might have dreamt it, but I think I saw a system that had a passive IR camera system to detect warm bodies/other vehicles and a multi segment LED illuminator that dimmed the segments that were calculated as illuminating the warm body/other vehicle. Horribly complicated, bound to go wrong or out of calibration, and likely expensive.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Thursday May 07, @01:54AM (2 children)
It's a lot easier to do what Subaru does and just position them so the headlight is aimed in the direction that the wheels are pointed at and at a height that's appropriate for the speed. Unless you're extremely short that shouldn't result in the headlights ever be in your face, and by law should be aimed low enough not to blind other drivers. And the last bit is the typical issue, when I looked it up, I couldn't work out what the law actually required in terms of aiming the lights.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday May 07, @08:06AM (1 child)
Maybe Subaru got the idea from Citroën?
The directional headlights of the Citroën DS and SM, from 1967 [laventure-association.com]
I would love to drive a DS for a while. And an SM. I have driven a borrowed CX Safari for a long motorway trip, which was an interesting experience.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Thursday May 07, @01:49PM
Quite possibly, it's not exactly a novel idea, I think the main thing that's changed is the technology to do so conveniently.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @01:21PM (1 child)
Sure, because your eyes only see the section right in front of them and light doesn't scatter or reflect. That's not how any of this works.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07, @12:38AM
Does that enlighten you? Or you aren't bright enough yet?
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday May 06, @01:07PM
I was hesitant to try my automatic high beam feature but it's extremely sensitive and works much better than most cars. Very distant oncoming cars trigger low beams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 06, @04:34PM
>Get off my lawn so I have room to shake my fists at the clouds while shouting at them!
I had a hard time not reading this as:
Get off my lawn so I have room to shake my fists at the clouds while shooting at them!
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 06, @07:50PM
In general, the super-bright headlights are a classic case of "good for me, bad for everybody else", and those who use them are basically saying "I've got mine, screw y'all!" Not coincidentally, I've noticed a strong correlation for them to be used either with sports cars or big trucks.
Flashing lights at night especially are really a collective-action problem: If one person does it to signal some kind of actual hazard somewhere, that can be genuinely useful for calling attention to it. If a lot of people in the same section of highway all do it, you've now taken away what visibility might be present to distract everybody with flashing lights in all directions as far as the eye can see.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @08:03PM
LEDs are a good thing, handled badly. Like some lotto winner, we've squandered the efficiency on too many gaudy, flashy, and tasteless things. Maybe this will calm down at some point. Maybe we can get rid of PWM entirely since the efficiency gains aren't really that great and when things move you see flickering trails... although simply going to a higher frequency would fix that I suppose. Then of course there's the spectrum. If you've got glasses like I do with a high enough index or refraction you notice the blue part of the spectrum coming out of a lot of things. I'm not sure if this is inherent in LEDs producing narrow bands of light vs. incandescent producing full spectrum. Then of course there's the LED replacement for this lamp I have that was designed for a 12V incandescent spot. The problem? The LED doesn't draw enough power so the power supply freaks out and starts flickering visibly. It's right at the edge too, so it happens if the room is a little bit on the warm side otherwise it will stay OK for hours until the circuit itself provides enough heat to trigger it! So yeah... I'm inclined to just smuggle incandescent lights from Nevada rather than tear the power supply out and negate the UL listing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lentilla on Thursday May 07, @04:19AM (1 child)
I may be about to make myself extremely unpopular... I use flashing lights when cycling. Other road users immediately pick out "ah, cyclist" (and from a much greater distance, too) but you are quite correct, it is hard to locate flashing lights with great precision. Which means other road users exercise caution when passing cyclists, perhaps even slowing down if required!
Now before I get lambasted completely for this, I offer three items in defense of cyclists using flashing lights:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday May 07, @10:05AM
The problem is that it is difficult to pick out your trajectory. Most car drivers don't care. As a cyclist myself, I wear high visibility clothing, and have reflectors on the bike - including the pedals, which have a very distinctive motion when seen by being illuminated from behind by another road user. You get much the same effect with reflective and fluorescent bands velcroed around your ankles - a kind of modern version of the classic bicycle clip.
When I am not cycling, I see the high intensity strobes used by cyclists, on both front and rear lamps - so high intensity that they leave long-lasting after-images and ruin night vision.
You want to be seen and recognised: wear reflective (and preferably fluorescent as well) clothing - it needs no batteries. Black lycra is hard to see at night.
If you want to flash, use a lamp that cycles/modulates its intensity from high to low, but never fully extinguishes (or have two lights, one steady, one flashing). That way, the intensity modulation triggers the human visual system that 'something moving' is there, and the continuous light allows the visual system to determine some trajectory information, picking you out from a stationary background. Our visual system has not yet developed to follow flashing lights. Note that marine COLREGS [bluewatermiles.com] never specify a flashing light alone on a vessel. Lighthouses and buoys do flash - but they are stationary. Cyclists often are not.
Aircraft [boltflight.com] have position/navigation lights that are continuously lit (Red port, Green starboard, White rear), and in addition, at least one red Beacon (flashing) light the top of its fuselage that indicates if it is in operation (including on the ground - large aircraft might have an additional one on the bottom), and white high-intensity Strobe lights (one on each wingtip), only used when airborne. Again, never flashing lights alone.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_light [wikipedia.org]
If you want drivers to give you more road-space (a) wobble and (b) don't wear a helmet - (a) and (b) are backed by research*. As for helmets, this Danish study published in 2021 [orbit.dtu.dk] shows that for single-bicycle crashes there was no increase in severe injuries associated with not wearing a helmet. There was a decrease in slight injuries.
The difference in severe injury probability with helmet use was nil. The slight injury probability decreased, providing exactly the increase in probability of no injury - in other words, the helmet is not going to protect you at allfrom concussion or skull fracture. It will protect you from abrasions and minor lacerations.
I am well-used to the concept of needing to cycle 'defensively'. There are times when I might, formally, have 'right of way', but I have no wish to prove myself 'dead right'.
As for drivers being poor at giving space, I suspect they are actually quite good at it, but don't know (or maybe don't care) what sufficient space is. In my motorway driving, almost all people who overtake me cut into the safe-stopping distance of my vehicle. Everyone should know what it is, but almost invariably my 'smart' cruise control system flashes a warning and slows down my car to leave a safe distance in front. Drivers tend to view cyclists as slow-moving traffic that is not a threat to them (either physically, or to their wallet) so are not inclined to leave the necessary space.
I love cycling, but I do need to assume that other road users are out to kill me, usually out of ignorance, but occasionally out of malice, when they want to 'punish' me for the transgression of using a bicycle on 'their' road.
As fellow cyclists, we might have differing views, but I'm glad we both cycle.
*Not necessarily good research.
https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/22155/3/FullText.pdf [brunel.ac.uk]
As for wobbling: can't find the paper now, but in essence, if the overtaking driver can't predict your trajectory because you are wobbling, they tend to give you more room. Which is the argument you made about using flashing lights at night: if the driver can't easily determine your trajectory, your expectation is that they become more cautious.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @10:45AM (1 child)
Someone will accidentally play a porno in full public view.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Snotnose on Wednesday May 06, @01:38PM
Accident my ass. Someone will play a porn as the local high school gets out. And it won't be a high school kid, it will be a 40 something creeper.
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Ingar on Wednesday May 06, @12:00PM (11 children)
This is just another tech that allows the user to turn a quiet public space into their personal cinema.
Take your TV crap somewhere else.
Love is a three-edged sword: heart, soul, and reality.
(Score: 4, Funny) by namefags_are_jerks on Wednesday May 06, @01:04PM
It's all good until the randos you're trying to impress by showing THE GAME with your awesome car in a public space, come up and sit on the bonnet to watch it..
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday May 06, @02:25PM (7 children)
I wouldn't call anywhere a car is a "quiet public space". Public space, sure, quiet, not likely.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 06, @04:39PM (6 children)
From my perspective, this looks more like something to use in your own private space, like projected on your garage door - possibly from the inside while idling the engine so you can watch your favorite movie while giving yourself carbon monoxide poisioning...
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07, @12:41AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Thursday May 07, @01:38AM (2 children)
possibly from the inside while idling the engine so you can watch your favorite movie while giving yourself carbon monoxide poisioning...
Only if you drive one of the old, obsolete, last century fossil burners. You can heat the inside of your garage with a modern car's heater. Monoxide is SO last century... and expensive as hell with that maniac in the White House.
I don't think the Chinese even make those old things any more. America is really behind the times with everything. Shameful, we used to be #1 with everything, now we can't break the top ten list in anything except guns.
My dad's big brothers fought a world war against men like Donald Trump and his cabinet when he was a teenager.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 07, @02:13AM (1 child)
>and expensive as hell with that maniac in the White House.
I agree, orange puddin' and his whole crew need to be evicted. However, in the greater scheme of things, we were hovering around about $3 before the recent foolishness, an inflation to $5 isn't even a doubling. Bushy Jr. took us from $1.50 per gallon up to $4 with his little adventures - that would be like $8 today, almost what they pay in France...
>now we can't break the top ten list in anything except guns.
About that:
https://www.newsweek.com/germany-overtakes-us-in-ammunition-production-capacity-11886409 [newsweek.com]
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday May 11, @02:15PM
Under Bush it went from $1.05 when Shrub took office to $5.50 here in Springfield. I heard it was $7 in California. It's $4.99 here, now. And it will keep going up until the strait is opened.
Under Nixon, it was 25-30¢ when I went to Thailand in the USAF in 1973 and 75¢ wen I got back a year later (on the day he resigned). I expect it to hit at least $6, maybe by the election. Glad I have an EV, but those diesel prices...
My dad's big brothers fought a world war against men like Donald Trump and his cabinet when he was a teenager.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Thursday May 07, @03:15AM (1 child)
Not sure the chemistry necessary to make your lithum-ion EV outgas carbon monoxide, but as I learned in grade school, everyone should be allowed to dream.
I wonder what are the possibilities of retrofitting my lawn tractor with these headlights? lawn tractor gif [share.google]
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 07, @11:19AM
It's a traditional ritual, they could just crack open a cylinder of compressed CO with the windows rolled up. Call it the Kevorkian package.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Wednesday May 06, @06:20PM
Other than obvious ideas of harrasing people (which can and will be done with any technology or technique), why does it matter so much? Not only is this a crappy way to actually watch movies, you can take a projector in a car right now and watch movies where ever just as badly, if you want.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 07, @01:23PM
But its CHEAP
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-allow-adaptive-driving-beam-headlights-new-vehicles-improving-safety-drivers [nhtsa.gov]
This has been around for MANY years if you want to use lasers or high power LEDs you need fancy dynamic aiming. The feds (and some states) will let you shine incandescent/halogen bulb headlights into peoples eyes but they drew the line at lasers and super-power LEDs and you needed insane mechanical linkages so you don't, like, hit a pothole and blind a low flying aircraft or oncoming traffic.
Literally until this morning I never considered how they'd likely do it... there's massive TV projector infrastructure so just use a pile of sensors and a FPGA and have the HDMI TV projector blast a white spot on the ground in the correct spot.
Meanwhile two other effects:
People both inside and outside the company will hack the projectors to play video games and movies on walls for the LOLs and other funny ideas like the hopscotch thing
The manufacturers can make sealed headlight units that last decades and only cost hundreds so this will be a huge profit maker for them, design it to leak and fill with water slowly enough that it'll be ruined in a couple years, then stop selling replacement parts or only sell them for $5K a piece and watch the money roll in. Then again this is Asian and I don't know if they've mastered enshittification like the USA, legacy detroit specifically.
(Score: 3, Funny) by epitaxial on Wednesday May 06, @01:04PM
Best we can sell you is a 3 ton behemoth that sucks down $5 a gallon gasoline.
Only a matter of time until you can get your very own 6000 SUX https://www.hotcars.com/robocops-car-the-6000-sux-details/ [hotcars.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06, @02:11PM
Would this count as public performance? Presumably most consumers would not be licensed for that. I am thinking of music licenses but I would think movies have similar restrictions.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday May 06, @03:13PM (1 child)
That's purposed for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Chinese EVs now can communicate with UFOs, in a machine-machine protocol.
Either that, or... advertising.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Wednesday May 06, @11:26PM
Scan the QR code at the end of the headlight advertisement to put your car in Drive.
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Wednesday May 06, @06:10PM (2 children)
to drive-in movies. You can watch dirrefent 2 movies with the lights and 3 and perhaps 4th in some on the internal panels.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday May 06, @07:08PM (1 child)
You mean like in the 80s when everybody who was anybody aspired to own their very own video wall so they could watch lots of different channels simultaneously, or one chopped up by loads of bezels?
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Deep Blue on Thursday May 07, @02:33PM
Sounds like fitting comparison. I wouldn't know that much, i was still very young in the 80's. I was happy with 1 tv and a Commodore 128 to draw smiling frog and play Pitstop on.
(Score: 4, Funny) by oldeschool on Thursday May 07, @03:51AM
Wile E. Coyote will use it to project a tunnel on a wall...