(Image via Technische Universitaet Muenchen)

I did not know how to turn off the change oil light in my car, it was not in the manual. What did I do? I checked youtube for the answer. Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TU) and Audi are about to bring a video manual you can talk to on all new model Audi cars.

The Avatar-based Virtual Co-driver System (AviCoS) is a animated avatar that can give the driver, or anyone in the car, detailed information on the vehicle using "natural-language dialog." Simply ask a question, and the system will deliver the answer. AviCoS uses an AI that can analyze complete sentences and answer using audio, images, or video on a embedded screen in the car. The avatar can also visually guide the user through the car, or point to areas of interest.

If the user is unfamiliar with a certain feature of the car, the touch screen lets the user enter the "Touch & Tell Mode." The user touches the area of the car where more information is needed, the avatar provides all the background information. While driving, all animations and graphical outputs are suppressed to avoid distracting the driver. However, voice communication will still work. " Overall, AviCoS provides comfortable and interactive access to multimedia content that goes far beyond the information contained in printed manuals. The self-explanatory system can be used without training, making it easy to get familiar with the operation of a vehicle," said TU Institute for Business Informatics' Dr Michael Schermann.

The development team stated that the next step is to sense the drivers mood through elevated speech patterns or tone of voice. When angry, the animations are suppressed.  In a time a difficulty, I would not care to see flashy animations, I suppose.

Eavesdropper

Here is a perfect example of, "I can not believe this has not been done already."

Aalto University in Finland is testing the use of hybrid technology in non-road, mobile industrial machinery. Think Prius versions of cranes, bulldozers, tractors, and diggers. Their concept is to capture of the energy from the work being performed by each machine that is lost when in operation. Like in hybrid cars, deceleration, braking energies are being absorbed as well as energy from such tasks as lowering a load. For the record, no one has attempted making hybrids in this area.

Head researchers Professor Jussi Suomela spoke of the impetus of the project, "These heavy duty machines are operated for long periods of time, so by the end of the day emissions and fuel consumption have added up. Being able to target them is a significant improvement." From recent experimental data, Suomela has show that involving such combustion/electric hybrids in work machinery has the potential to save 50% of the fuel costs in stand alone operation, and even more if the system is plugged into the power grid.

Now it is not a question of can it be done, but when can it be implemented. Great work, Aalto University.

Eavesdropper