We can see it now. A police officer pulls over a Pep Boys-customized Chevy Cavalier that's been having a hard time staying in its lane. The officer asks the driver if he's been texting. "No," he says, "Just playing Angry Birds on my rearview mirror."

While the automotive aftermarket has never shied away from facilitating driver distraction, this new rearview mirror kit from online retailer Chinavasion pretty much takes the prize. It contains a 4.3-inch touchscreen, GPS, Bluetooth, an SD card slot, a wireless rearview camera, an internal camera, and a DVR for recording video from either camera. Oh, and frighteningly enough, it also features some pre-installed games. (Although we don't know for sure, we doubt Angry Birds is actually included.)

The Chinavasion mirror just slips over your car's existing rear-view mirror, meaning installation hassles should be minimal, so pretty much anyone with $199.86 can order one and be on their way towards causing an accident in no time.

By Jeff Sabatini

Safely Cross the Street With An App That Watches For Traffic
Realizing that we'll be perpetually distracted by smartphones, researchers have created an app that uses their built-in camera to automatically check for oncoming traffic, making crossing the road while talking on the phone a less dangerous endeavor.

The app, appropriately called WalkSafe, was developed by researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Bologna in Italy. Using the camera on the back of the phone, it's able to detect oncoming cars as far as 164 feet away using image-recognition algorithms sophisticated enough to deal with the motion and blur of from a moving phone. When a vehicle is detected approaching at thirty miles per hour or faster, the phone vibrates and an audible warning goes off, letting the distracted user know they have to get out of harm's way.

WalkSafe doesn't completely guarantee your safety, though. In fact, in its current form, the audible alarm is probably the last thing you'll hear when you get hit by a car. So the researchers are not only hoping to speed up its performance, but also improve its ability to spot cars at a greater distance, giving the user more time to get out of the way. And there's the obvious limitation of it only being able to monitor traffic in one direction. Maybe the audible cues of an approaching car's engine could be used to make this app effective in both directions, as long as the vehicle isn't traveling faster than the speed of sound. Alternately, we can all just remember what we were taught as kids and just look both ways before crossing the damn street.

BY ANDREW LISZEWSKI

Alcohol testers in every car? Congress is considering it. Pioneer aims to beat Siri in the car, Ford Sync update to be mailed to you on a USB drive, and another step toward in-car streaming ubiquity.

Autoliv is preparing to roll out an upgraded night-vision system next year that can identify large animals such as deer, cattle, or horses in the road.
The Sweden-based safety equipment supplier has production contracts for its third-generation night-vision unit, but it did not disclose its customers. Autoliv's current night-vision customers include Audi, BMW, and Rolls-Royce.

Automotive night vision has been on the market for a decade, but has yet to break out of its niche. Part of the reason is cost. In 2000, General Motors introduced a Raytheon-designed system in the Cadillac DeVille, an option that cost consumers $2,250. After an initial burst of interest, sales tailed off. GM stopped offering the system in 2004. Will Cadillac revive that technology?

"It's something we are familiar with, and it's something we've looked at," said Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell. "Will we have a night-vision system? Not necessarily soon." Japanese automakers also have shown interest. Lexus rolled out a night-vision system in 2002 on the Lexus LX 470, and Honda introduced its own version two years later in the Legend, although it isn't sold in the United States.

Autoliv's current system, introduced in 2008, costs automakers less than $1,000 per unit. But a big improvement in sales could come when Autoliv develops a less costly version of its far-infrared night-vision camera. If a fourth-generation version is approved, it could be available in about five years at a cost to automakers of $300 or so, said Stuart Klapper, managing director of Autoliv Electronics' night-vision program. If automakers were willing to buy large numbers of units, the unit price would decline and night vision could enter the mass market, Klapper predicted. "We are definitely in discussions with all the mainstream manufacturers," Klapper said. "We are targeting that number [$300 per unit], but we haven't made a final decision about a fourth-generation unit."

Niche product
Perhaps the most aggressive promoters of the technology have been BMW and Mercedes-Benz. In 2005, the two luxury brands unveiled two types of night vision--active and passive infrared--and both subsequently added a pedestrian detection function. Mercedes-Benz chose an active infrared system from Robert Bosch, so named because it emits a beam of infrared light 164 yards in front of the vehicle. As the light reflects off an object, a camera captures the image and the motorist sees it on the navigation screen. BMW chose Autoliv's system, which is considered to be passive because it does not emit a beam of infrared light. A camera mounted in the grille detects tiny temperature differences among objects in the road, and the motorist sees the thermal image on the navigation screen. A pedestrian or animal appears as a yellow image on the vehicle's navigation screen, and the motorist gets a warning 2 to 4 seconds in advance if the vehicle appears likely to hit it.

by Automotive News