Windows of Opportunity; a project for GM to turn car’s rear windows to interactive displays

General Motors is in attempts to nurture up an interactive experience for backseat passengers in its cars. With the aim, the car maker plans to transform the rear windows of its cars to interactive touchscreens. On a project of the automaker, the Future LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel has conceptualized a suitable technology, called the Windows of Opportunity (WOO) system for the rear windows of cars.

GM's Windows of Opportunity

The WOO system has been developed with a goal to turn the boring backseat journey to an interactive one. The system will help passengers get involved in some brisk activities on the rear windows. The advanced touchscreen rear windows will let passengers check weather statuses, have a real-time peak into the outside scenes and amazingly to interact with passengers in other cars on the road.

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GM's Windows of Opportunity

An interactive program designed to revolutionise back-seat travel in future General Motors vehicles.

The developers converted the rear windows to multi-touch and gesture-sensitive displays using EyeClick’s motion and optical sensor technology. The students have presented a fully functional prototype of the technology to the R&D of General Motors.

The American car maker, however, doesn’t have any immediate plans to launch the system on its cars. The company looks for the designers to expand the technology with more sophisticated feature before inclusion in its cars.

The prototype of the interactive rear window is with a pick of useful apps. Foofu is an app that will allow passengers to draw various shapes and designs on the window as the car moves on. Otto depicts an animated pal on the screen to respond to real-time updates on weather status, car performance and the surrounding landscape.

The Spindow app will help passengers enjoy real-time peek into the outside scenes. Pond is an app meant to help passengers share and stream music files with other car passengers on the highway. General Motors is obviously looking forward for many more capabilities with the interactive rear window technology.

Indeed, it is not impractical to bring features like image viewing, web surfing, e-mail checking and gaming into the rear windows of the car. Whatever, the company is yet to take a final decision on implementing the system on its new products. Meanwhile, General Motors revealed that it has many more similar projects to reinvent the experience of passengers in backseats of its cars.

In fact, the new technology is a bit revolutionary. It heralds the thing that the tedious backseat journeys are just to have an end. In future, people can travel in cars with some entertainment. Until now, the use of interactive displays has been confined to the driver and front passenger in a car. So it is a great opportunity to provide an interface for rear seat passengers also, says Tom Seder, manager of the GM Research and Development lab group for human-machine interface.

Via: CarAdvice/Engadget/SmartPlanet