Infotainment in the post-autonomous future

We recently published a list of essential infotech features you really want in your very next car. But what about the car after that?

What technologies should we expect to see inside our vehicles in the not too distant future? You know, when we are all sound-asleep in our autonomously driven cars as they cruise down those super-smooth highways of tomorrow land.

Some of the following we already see at the high-end or exotic end of the market, some are found only in concepts or on drawing-boards and some are probably yet to be realised in any realistic way.

First up, expect to see more ambient light features as well as screen glass within the cockpit of vehicles. Beyond the Tesla 12.0-inch display, future car interiors will benefit from flexible display surfaces possible once the wonders of Graphene make it to the mass market.

Expect our interiors to reflect our artistic designs, with personalised themes enabled to give us everything from woodgrain to carbon-fibre and many other garish abominations to impress or horrify our passengers along for the ride.

Researchers have enjoyed recent success with mind control, enabling our brain to manage the vehicle controls through the power of our thoughts.

Maybe that is a long way off for production vehicles, but there could be some merit in having head restraint-mounted brain monitors to check the driver's alpha waves. There has been success in detecting drowsy drivers in this fashion, in order to create a "take a break alarm", but let's take it a step further and control other fun aspects of our vehicle.

Changing the radio station could become a hilarious family battle of wills; dipping the lights for oncoming traffic could be done at the speed of thought and the in-cabin climate will be set to the dominant mind's selected temperature.

While cars may not read our minds in the immediate future, they most certainly will get an idea of a driver's state of mind by reading facial features.

Are we too sleepy or angry to get behind the wheel? Facial Recognition technology might prevent the car from starting in a similar way to alcohol breathalyser car immobilisers do today. Perhaps keeping a clown mask handy in the glove box may help. It's not like the car failing to start will put you in a better frame of mind, after all.

Actually the facial recognition or brain-wave monitoring could help in ensuring the driver is alert while on those long highway trips, raising an alarm if the eyelids droop.

2016 is bound to be the year of VR (Virtual Reality), and while most of this home bound tech is unlikely to get far from the PC or gaming console, there is some merit in VR's close cousin, AR or Augmented Reality making its way outside.

Likely to be experienced in production Fords in the not-too-distant future is an interface with your 'wearable' devices (pictured), such as Apple watches and Google Glass uploading biometric data for the car to keep the driver safe.

Whether it is another attempt by Google to give us the Google Glass or the imminent emergence of Microsoft's HoloLens there is great potential for untethered augmentation of our driving experience.

Already we see an increasing head-up display (HUD) emphasis with cars appearing on the road; manufacturers see the benefit in safety by keeping drivers' eyes on the road, and presenting certain information projected unobtrusively onto the windscreen.

AR can take this further allowing information to be presented as needed and always in an appropriate position, wherever the driver's head is at.

Volvo is already on board with the HoloLens in the automotive industry, albeit not from behind the driver's seat, instead concentrating on the HoloLen's ability to present interactive holograms as part of the sales and feature presentation process.

But why not take it to the road, where location-based safety information, warning lights or even subdued or enhanced information based on where the driver is looking could be presented discreetly to the visor?

As autonomous driving technology makes its way into cars, infrastructure and legislation, so will the personal in-car assistant.

Now there will be nowhere to hide from the office as our in-car assistant directs the car to our next appointment, reads out and automatically answers email, selects news stories according to our personal profile preferences, pays bills and purchases pre-selected or suggested items on sale online.

Let's face it, those hours spent behind the wheel are unproductive hours according to our masters.

This is possibly a bit on the whacky edge of the spectrum, but drone technology is improving at a rapid rate, so why not vehicle launched drones to help determine the conditions ahead?

Sure, we have traffic congestion alerts now beamed into certain satellite-navigation systems, but imagine how cool it could be to have an eye in the sky giving you an idea of the best way ahead in real time?

There would be a backlash from those operating the booze buses, but for those times when gridlock seems impassable or you can see that the mother-in-law's car is parked at home, a personal hovering camera would be invaluable.

Finally, not so much on the infotainment side of things but on the security of our rides, is it possible that bum-detection immobilisers could hit the mainstream? The shape of our derriere determining our destination?

Probably not, but it makes a nice way to finish up our thoughts on near-future in-car tech.

Further reading:
Top 10 infotainment essentials
Mind control car project is go
WA RAC reveals brain-powered car
Microsoft Hololens
Japanese bum-detecting car security
Ford developing wearable driving interface