The buzz from Tokyo: Toyota's brainy new Insect
| Sponsored by |
| » | ||
| » | ||
| » | ||
| » | ||
| » |
Reprints
Print
Respond
Toyota wants to generate some buzz with its latest concept vehicle, a tiny one-seat electric car called the Smart Insect. The gull-winged ride is supposed to embody all that is next-generation about onboard information technology.
Toyota showed the flea-sized four-wheeler at the CEATEC electronics trade show last week outside Tokyo. Among its features:
• Facial recognition technology that authenticates the vehicle's registered driver to clear the car for driving.
• Motion detectors that enable drivers to operate functions with gestures, such as opening doors with a wave of the hand.
• A "virtual agent" that learns to predict the driver's behavior and programs settings for such things as vehicle navigation, fog lights and the audio system.
• Smartphone content that can be accessed with voice commands.
• Locks and climate control that can be operated remotely through cloud computing from a person's home.
Early versions of some of these technologies already are on the market -- and judging by their performance so far, perhaps Insect is a good choice of names: These new systems often are full of bugs.
Toyota, of course, has a different explanation for the name. "Insect," it says, is an acronym for "information network social electric city transporter." And Toyota says the moniker aims to "convey an image of a small insect that flies around on large wings, in the same way as the vehicle freely navigates through and uses an information network."
