Augmented Reality could give drivers some much-needed X-ray vision

I have written several posts about Augmented Reality and how cool it is, but I’m sure that most of you are wondering what it is good for, other than some entertaining special effect.

All that is about to change as Yaser Sheikh of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has figured out a way that Augmented Reality can save lives.

Just watch the video to see what it is about, and you will see how useful AR technology could be. Haven’t you ever had to make a left turn into a blind corner? Wouldn’t it be handy if you knew that there was a car coming? An accident could be prevented.

The technology uses two cameras in order to make this X-ray vision trick possible. One camera has to be placed around the corner, and the other would have to be in the automobile that the user is driving. From there, the two images are synced together, super-imposed, and the driver can now see through walls. I am assuming that the driver wears some specialized helmet or has a display on their dashboard.

I suppose that the proper implementation of this tech could rid the world of blindsiding accidents as we know them. Howerver, using AR technology like this could flood the driver with multiple images that could make make one doubt what is reality, and what is augmented reality. Still, I think that drivers could get used to it, maybe.