Israeli Students Develop Smart Windows Apps For Backseat Car Passengers

You may remember us covering Samsung’s smart window a few days ago where you could check up your Twitter feed and surf the web among other things. Well, another form of the smart window technology has appeared, this time it’s designed for the backseat of your car.

General Motors (GM) Research and Development challenged students and researchers from the FUTURE Lab at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel to come up with new ways to help rear seat passengers, particularly children, have a better experience while they’re on the move. The result was the Windows of Opportunity (WOO) Project, which created new ways for passengers to be entertained and educated while they’re travelling in-between destinations.

Because the project based its work on psychological studies that found car passengers often felt disconnected from their environment, the Bezalel students created concept apps to be displayed on the car windows. Some of them included Pond, an app that allows passengers to stream and share music with other cars on the road; Spindow, an app that allows passengers to peek into other users’ windows around the globe in real time, and Otto, an animated character that responds to real-time car movement, weather and landscape.

Speaking about the project, GM’s R&D lab group manager for human-machine interface, Tom Seder said:

“Traditionally, the use of interactive displays in cars has been limited to the driver and front passenger, but we see an opportunity to provide a technology interface designed specifically for rear seat passengers…Advanced windows that are capable of responding to vehicle speed and location could augment real world views with interactive enhancements to provide entertainment and educational value.”

So far there aren’t any plans to introduce these smart windows to future vehicles, but if any company decides to produce them, the technology is there for them to get started. When they do, expect the days of drawing shapes from the condensation that forms on your car window to be numbered.