[catalogia]

> They could parallax though, so that doesn't seem like the best argument.

I've never seen parallax emulated with head tracking that didn't have piss-poor latency issues. Not to mention poorly configured kalman filters that seem to always do too little or too much smoothing. These systems are fine for cute tech demos but don't belong in safety-critical applications involving multiple tons of steel moving at 100+km/h.

Before replacing mirrors in cars, why not start with making a TV "window" that actually works. Prove the technology in a real world application that isn't safety critical, then we can talk. If it's ready for use on highways, then it should be easy to mount a TV on a wall and provide a convincing experience of actually looking out a window.

[dandelany]

This. A “transparent” A-pillar (the bit separating your windshield from driver’s side window) would be a good start, and if it worked well, it’s a feature I’d pay extra for.

[scrumper]

Absolutely. Big thick A pillars have increased survivability in crashes (embedded airbags, stronger structure) but that doesn't come for free - they cause some accidents (hiding bikers, also cars when pulling out of junctions).

I'd love to see a transparent A pillar but I can imagine the parallax issues (talked about in other comments here) would make them a bit weird.

[pro_zac]

Volvo made a concept car with glass A pillars and no B pillars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_SCC

[scrumper]

That was interesting, thanks. Good to see how much of its safety features are now common (blind spot assist, adaptive cruise control etc.) And, given this thread, amusing that the wikipedia article doesn't pick up on the A pillars.

[__MatrixMan__]

I've never seen head tracking applications at all, and I'm not surprised that they're underwhelming, but I hope the state of practice gets better because it would be really cool to have an AR setup where metadata is projected onto the windshield and windows such that it lines up with the driver's perspective.

Imagine a thousand foot tall semi-transparent google maps pin, resting lightly on the head of the person you're picking up, visible for hundreds of miles but only to those who are interested.

[catalogia]

The sci-fi tech I've wanted for years is a liquid crystal windshield that blacks out a small circle over the sun from the driver's perspective while leaving the rest of the windshield clear. Driving west in the evening or east in the morning, I wager a lot of people have had this idea at some point.

I have no idea if it will ever become feasible, but I sure hope it does.

[astatine]

This. Not just the sun, but more annoyingly, opposing headlights in the night. Technologies to avoid blinding opposing drivers are not adequate. We could do with technology to assist those who are on the affected side.

[xaedes]

Material sciences could bring a solution:

Transparent material that becomes opaque to bright light (something like gamma < 1, gain < 1) in the direction of the light. So each point of the material is transparent or opaque depending on the viewing angle and respective directed light flow through it.

I think such a material could be engineered.

[FPGAhacker]

I've had the exact same thought. I expect it to happen eventually, or some other tech will render the issue moot.