Built-in cameras are now standard issue with cell phones. Could they someday become a common feature in your car? Automakers are starting to offer, for instance, backup cameras to augment or maybe even replace rearview mirrors. Toyota, meanwhile, is experimenting with placing a camera on the steering column--as a safety feature--to track the driver's eyes and face so that the onboard computer can sound an alarm if it thinks the driver isn't paying attention to obstacles in the road.
Along those latter lines comes the eye-tracking system EMR-9, pictured here, from Japan's Nac Image Technology. It's just a research tool for now, helping automakers suss out how a driver watches the road (or not) as they work on ways to prevent accidents. One can only speculate whether we might at some future date don similar goggles every time we get behind the wheel, just as we all now buckle our seatbelts. (You do buckle up, right?)
Photo by Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP
