BMW’s Future Predictions! – CES 2016
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,484 words · ~7 min read
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this is the BMW tent here at CES 2016
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and behind me we've got the BMW i Vision
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future interaction okay it's a little awkwardly
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named but it's a concept car based on the spider that's a little bit more than
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the typical concept car that you might see at an auto show the first thing most
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people notice about it is the fact that there's no doors but that's actually not
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the point at all it'll have doors in the future and you have to get inside to
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fully realize this is not you know your grandpa's car with push button
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Transmission in fact it has almost no
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buttons inside it at all nor is it the couch on Wheels concept that you might
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expect from other automakers who are attempting to make well you know the
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autonomous car of the Future Vision future interaction is about a user
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experience so obviously there's a lot of technology in this car but it doesn't
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necessarily need to be visible um with that I think very often
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uh people mistake that uh technology has
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to be there or has to be celebrated in a certain way but they forget that it also
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introduces complexity to the user so in a nutshell what BMW is trying to do here
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is fuse the right pieces of Technology
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with their existing strength the actual experience of operating the machine with
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that said one of the most forward looking things about it to me was
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actually the seat design the second I sat in it with someone else
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the most natural thing for me to do based on the the shape and orientation
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of the seats was rest my ARM on the center armrest and have a casual
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conversation I mean how amazing is that which isn't to say that inside the car
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there isn't some really really cool technology the first thing that stood
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out to me was of course the Dual displays there's a two- layer display so
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that's a transparent display on top of a more traditional LCD display directly in
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front of the driver as well as a large
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super wide panoramic display that extends all the way from the driver's
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side over to the passenger side that can actually be controlled with motion
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sensors on the driver's side or two Banks of motion sensors on the passenger
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side as well as buttons that are integrated into the steering wheel as
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well as the side of the car over on the passenger side but there's more to them
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than meets the eye and the information displayed on them is not static the
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displays uh they stand for information when we think about information we have
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to think about relevant information relevant information to the driver and
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to the passengers uh in the car and uh
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that means that for example different uh driving scenarios kind of ask us to
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deliver different information to the driver so in autonomous driving mode you
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might have the display in front of you with pertinent information about nearby
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cars for example on the foreground display with the rout actually displayed
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in the background since you're not operating the vehicle anyway so it's of
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kind of secondary importance and then the panoramic display well hey that
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might be making full utilization of its entire width with you know suggested
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callers for someone that you like chatting with when you're driving and it
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can connect to your phone which is pretty cool so it can bring up the best
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suggestions so you're not navigating through a bunch of deep menus and it
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might have hey like media information for both you and your passenger are you
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compromising The Ultimate Driving Experience by putting in this autonomous
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technology we would never compromise The Ultimate Driving Experience in the car
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this is one of the driving states that we will stay true to and and also
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deliver it in the future in manual driving mode well hey you don't want
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distractions right so that panoramic display might shrink all the way down to
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just a very small display and then the one that's in front of you well now all
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of a sudden hey your Root's in the foreground because you kind of got to follow it right and then in the
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background you might have secondary information like a topographical map so
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you can really get the most out of your experience now right now in the concept
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the HUD is actually not active so the display that comes up right on the
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windshield but I mean in the future who knows what we're going to see with stuff
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like that you know driving assist like training modes right so you can take a
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corner a little bit faster a little bit better and the car can actually coach you through it kind of like you would do
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in a video game today but the story here is actually deeper than the car and BMW
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is also showing off some really cool internet of thing stuff around their
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open Mobility cloud with the idea that the car becomes more than just a car and
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more of a more of a digital Hub so the demo they've got is actually
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surprisingly cool with this smart connected mirror concept that they've
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created running through a theoretical demonstration that shows what life might
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be like with a connected home and a connected car so in the mirror you can
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actually see your agenda for the day and
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all you got to do is you grab your key fob it takes that that as your
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confirmation and you walk the door the car once you grabb the fob actually
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pulls itself out of the garage which opens itself positions itself in the
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correct orientation on the road in front of you sets the climate control so it's
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comfortable when you get in and boom off you go you arrive at work you get out of
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the car and this is where it gets really cool yet again you gesture at the car
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okay you found a parking spot cool pull into that parking spot car does it
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completely by itself really neat see
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feature then when you're done you walk off to work and whether you work you
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know a one minute walk from your car or whether you're a lot further from your car it's got this bump detection feature
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that combined with their overhead view allows you to see a live view of what's
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going on near your car and actually sends you a push notification on your
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phone if someone bumps it so you can be like okay hey I need to make sure that
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everything's okay and my car isn't in you know full-on disaster mode right now
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then at the end of the day you use a smart device so in the demo they were using a smartwatch you go okay hey I'm
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ready to Signal you you signal the car to come out of the spot you get in it
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drives you home or you drive it home hey whatever the choice is totally yours you
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park it in front of the house don't bother pulling into the garage go inside
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put your key fob in the mirror and boom car Parks itself and the mirror is like
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hey so you don't have any appointments until whenever so I'd suggest you use
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solar power to charge the car that's the most economical way and you can be like
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no actually hold on I have an unscheduled thing that I need to go do right away charge it as fast as you can
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it costs a little bit more but hey it's important to me very freaking cool stuff
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I think what is very important to understand is that cars are becoming more intelligent in the future they can
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take over certain tasks maybe tasks that we don't particularly enjoy about
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driving so when we sit in traffic uh the car can actually do certain things we're
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not necessarily enjoying and we have time for other things so basically this
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concept car shows to you that there's different scenarios that make the full
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drive experience a better one that was awesome thank you so much thank you for
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coming and uh a huge thank you to BMW for allowing us to come and have an
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early look at what they've got going on here at CES 2016 and I mean by the look
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of things and the sound of things well into the future as well