'Carcade' Turns Passenger Seat Into Real-Time Gaming Experience
Berlin-based designers have developed an in-car video game prototype that records the outside environment as a car moves, integrating features to create an 'Asteroids'-like experience on a laptop. Don't worry, in this case, it's the passenger who plays the game on his or her laptop. With the help of a window-attached film camera that captures the landscape as the car cruises, the program translates real-time action outside into a rendered gaming experience on screen in which players maneuver a spaceship and try to shoot space junk. (In other words, if the car speeds up, then the spaceship speeds up, and so on.)
Kudos to the designers of the Carcade System, Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Martin Kim Luge and Korbinian Polk. The execution of a videogame that captures objects in the environment while you drive is laudable. It's certainly an entertaining alternative to sitting and staring out the window while your buddy drives , but the application is misguided.
The trend in car safety, after all, is in the prohibition of all distracted-driving activities (text-messaging, talking on your phone, etc). As a driver, it might be distracting having your wing man tripping on a computer-game that simulates the real environment. "Dude, I just crashed into the space-McDonald's!" This is what the safety-experts might characterize as a triggering activity that causes a cognitive-distraction, thus impairing driving-performance. For more on the emerging "distracted-driving" field see : International Standards Organization NHTSA [From Universität der Künste Berlin via Boing Boing]
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