back to article Fujitsu imagines adjusting your rear view mirror for better hearing

Fujitsu Ten, the Japanese giant's automotive outfit, has developed technology that turns sheets of glass into speakers and thinks it could be used to help drivers talk on the phone without disturbing passengers. The company recently built the glass into what it's called an “automative superdirective speaker” that it packed …

  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    ""We have not yet decided when to commercialize the technology,"

    Meaning : "The CIA is very, very interested in buying our patent outright and we're waiting on the final figure before we decide not to go public".

    Okay, gratuitous trolling aside, this is clearly spy tech that is at the limit of magic. On the other hand, it's weird enough listening to half a conversation when you hear someone else speaking on a phone but can't make out the words. This is going to be an order of magnitude above that. Suddenly the driver starts speaking out loud, and nobody is answering. Not to mention the potential for quid-pro-quo when the passenger thinks the driver is talking to him.

    It really sounds like neat tech, but I'm not convinced the car is the place to use it.

  2. Bronek Kozicki

    I wonder how is the sound quality

    If it can be made very good, I'd like such speakers - for a computer.

    1. Duffy Moon

      Re: I wonder how is the sound quality

      It would not be very good. Probably quite a restricted frequency range, especially lacking lower frequencies. That might not matter for voice communication, but it won't do a decent job reproducing music.

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: I wonder how is the sound quality

        "It would not be very good. Probably quite a restricted frequency range, especially lacking lower frequencies. That might not matter for voice communication, but it won't do a decent job reproducing music."
        The small size of the rearview mirror would restrict lower frequencies, but the quality would be quite high. A couple of decades ago, a friend played with driving glass sheets somewhat larger and the results were stunning. Unfortunately, glass's physical characteristics change with time (it stiffens) and the lower cutoff frequency would change. The rate of change varied dependent on how much use the speakers got.

  3. smudge
    Holmes

    Nothing new

    Pah! My previous car had a sound-activated vibrating mirror.

    Kraftwerk's live album, in particular, could make the rear view look like an Impressionist painting.

  4. Mystic Megabyte

    Ultrasound

    For the American market they'd have to attach some warnings:

    "People in the mirror are bigger than they appear"

    "Your dog is now deaf"

  5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Are they going to turn the interior of the car into an anechoic chamber? The sound is going to bounce round and the passenger will hear it anyway. Or is this intended for extremely noisy cars?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Neat technology, but...

    Current research suggests that the use of hands free kits is distracting enough to drivers to be contributing to accident rates. My employer is taking this seriously enough to be telling employees to turn off their phones when driving.

    If there are other people in the car, they *should* be making/receiving the phone call instead of the driver.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Neat technology, but...

      "If there are other people in the car, they *should* be making/receiving the phone call instead of the driver."

      If use of the hands-free distracts the driver then listening to one end of the call, telling the passenger what to say or even conversing with the passenger when not on a call is likely to be at least as distracting.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Neat technology, but...

        "If use of the hands-free distracts the driver then listening to one end of the call, telling the passenger what to say or even conversing with the passenger when not on a call is likely to be at least as distracting."

        Good point, but I think this depends on the participants. I believe that part of the problem is that the far-end participant is not engaged in the experience of being on the road, in motion and in traffic. This lack of visceral awareness diminishes their ability to converse with sufficient deference to the driver's need to allocate attention appropriately. A passenger might mediate appropriately. Or not.

        When I speak to my wife, who has a long daily commute, while she is driving I try to keep this in mind and thus keep the conversation superficial and short. Particularly, I expect interruptions and inject pauses deliberately. I'm not in the car; I can't see what she is experiencing.

        I use the phone when I drive, but only for short duration calls of minimal distraction. it is uncomfortable enough that I believe I maintain enough self-awareness to assure a decent margin of safety. IMO, it is complacency and overconfidence that kills. I know it is a risk, one among many.

  7. Alan Brown Silver badge

    "the use of hands free kits is distracting enough to drivers to be contributing to accident rates. "

    In the same way that eating whilst driving is distracting to drivers. In one crash I'm aware of (dead straight road car crossed centreline and went under a truck), when cut out of the vehicle, the driver's hand was still grasping the sandwich that was on the passenger seat.

    Similar crashes have happened when drivers have turned around to admonish kids in the back seat, or turned to talk to the passenger int he front seat.

    It's worth noting that driving tests do not test for susceptability to this kind of distraction, nor is any training about it givn. I tend to be MORE paranoid when using my hands-free kit and refuse to handle calls which require any degree of concentration beyond "yes, no, maybe"

  8. my fingers stuck

    magic cars

    i want one of those american cars you see in many films and tv progs, where the driver can turn round for upto a minute to see if a car is following..

    ps. the talking mirror will be a great boon for girlies.. " mirror mirror in the car whos is the vainest of them all "

  9. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    help drivers talk on the phone without disturbing passengers

    If I was a passenger in a car and the driver suddenly started having a conversation with what appeared to me to be nobody I'd be fairly disturbed.

  10. Christoph

    So what's new?

    The driver can already use a Bluetooth earphone so the passenger doen't hear the other side of the conversation.

  11. Joe Harrison

    Only works if the driver is a dog

    If the special mirror beams an ultrasonic wave at the driver I can well understand that it will be inaudible to the other passengers. Unfortunately it will be inaudible to the driver as well.

    I suspect that something was lost in editing; there used to be some promising technologies offering audible sound from interference patterns generated at the intersection of two otherwise-inaudible ultrasonic beams.

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