The designers drawing up the future of the auto industry have a problem. Cars are learning to drive themselves, but for the near future, they'll rely on the onboard human to do some of the work. Whether it's traffic signal that have crapped out, snow hiding the lane lines from cameras, or kittens playing in the intersection, the real world will continue to stump robots.
Problem is, humans are godawful backups. As they learn to trust their autonomous systems more, they'll pay attention less. And that means the car must be ready to wrest its human's eyes away from their phone and onto the road, so they can figure out what needs doing.
Beeps and blinking lights on the dash can be tuned out, buzzing seats can be ignored. A flashing steering wheel is harder to miss. At least, that's the thinking at Autoliv. The automotive safety parts supplier showed up at CES this month with a prototype wheel that senses the driver's touch, and communicates through LEDs. As you'll see in the video above, 10 and 2 may not matter anymore, but the wheel isn't giving up its role as interlocutor between human and machine just yet.
