Volvo's XC90 SUV uses three cameras: one for backing up and two for monitoring the blind spots to either side of the car.

Cameras can be used to check for vehicles that are destined for a collision, telling the car to deploy air bags or tighten seat belts. The Hyundai Move in Japan uses this application, he said.

Another forward-looking camera can check if a driver is unintentionally drifting out of a lane, using an algorithm that factors in speed and how sharply the steering wheel is being turned to distinguish between unintentional drifting and deliberate lane changes.

Yet another front-mounted camera could keep an eye out for oncoming night traffic, automatically switching headlights between dimmed and high beams.

A camera mounted on top of the steering column can monitor the frequency and duration of a driver's blinks to guard against drowsy driving. If blinks become too rapid or protracted, the car can sound an alarm to jolt the driver awake.

An internal camera can help identify passengers to control how air bags should be deployed--for example, with less force when protecting children.

Another camera could let parents watch their children bicker in the distant reaches of a vast van or SUV.

Ninety-one percent of Americans believe sending text messages while driving is as dangerous as driving after having a couple of drinks, but 57 percent admit to doing it, a poll released on Tuesday said.

The Harris Interactive survey commissioned by mobile messaging service Pinger Inc. found 89 percent of respondents believe texting while driving is dangerous and should be outlawed.

Even so, 66 percent of the adults surveyed who drive and use text messaging told pollsters they had read text messages or e-mails while driving. Fifty-seven percent admitted to sending them.

Dr Anselm Blocher - a researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence who is co-ordinating the project - said the ad hoc communication system could mean that drivers found out about dangers or jams ahead much more quickly than they do now.

For spotting dangers and jams, the system would use data from sensors that were likely to be fitted to cars, bikes and trucks in the future, Dr Blocher added.

For example, cars could spot oil on the road by combining temperature readings with wheel traction information, he said.

A wheel slipping on the road even though the temperature was not low enough for frost or ice would suggest oil or another slippery substance was present.

Once a car detected this sort of danger, information about it would be generated and passed down the line of vehicles approaching the patch of oil.

The first wave of intelligent robot cars, capable of understanding and reacting to the world around them, will be tested this November in a competition run by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Scientists are developing vehicles which will not only be driven by robots independently, but will be able to operate in a simulated city environment.

"In the past it was sufficient for a vehicle just to perceive the environment, said Sebastian Thrun, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University.

"The new challenge will be to understand the environment. The robot must be able to recognize another car, to understand that it is moving and that it will interact with it as it gets closer."

In an interview at the Reuters Media Summit in New York, Karmazin said the mobile video, likely to be available in 2008 model lines, would be geared toward young viewers sitting in the back seat.

Shares of Sirius rose 11 cents to $4.26 after his remarks. The stock is still down about 36% this year, hurt in part by concerns about industry spending on programming and the auto industry's woes.

"We have three content deals that are very close to being finalized. I don't know if they will be done by CES, but that is what we are shooting for," he said, referring to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. "We will have video in the rear seat of the car up and running."

Sirius has touted the possible launch of such a service for years. In 2004, it said it would offer video services by mid-2005, adding at the time that the timing depended on automakers' wishes rather than Sirius' capability. It later said TV service would launch in '06.

Over the course of their investigations, the company's team of engineers, cyberneticists, mathematicians, computer scientists and psychologists is testing out a variety of methods for detecting driver fatigue as soon as it sets in. One of these techniques is the eye-blink observation method: an infrared camera directed at the driver's head permanently monitors the eye-blink frequency, enabling microsleep to be detected the instant the eyes stay closed for a certain period of time. A warning signal sounds in the car's cockpit in response.

In order to obtain objective indicators of fatigue, other physiological readings such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) are used. Yet another method is based on the analysis of dynamic driving data, such as steering or braking characteristics. One of the systems triggers an alarm if the driver does not move the steering wheel for a prolonged period of time.

Most road accidents caused by over-fatigue occur in the early hours of the morning between 0200 and 0600 as well as in the afternoon, according to studies carried out by insurance companies in Germany and the Swiss Advisory Agency for Accident Prevention. As well as fatigue, this fact can also be attributed to our biorhythms, as the human body is programmed for sleep and recuperation at these times. Human performance levels drop rapidly after 2200, reaching their lowest point between 0300 and 0400. Performance levels do not return to their maximum until the morning, which is the best time of day for long journeys.

If drivers suddenly feel tired, there is only one solution: take a break. Drinking coffee, cola or energy drinks only serves to boost concentration levels briefly and can often leave drivers feeling even more fatigued when the effect wears off. A brisk walk in the fresh air, on the other hand, can often be far more beneficial. However, when it comes to combating fatigue as effectively as possible, nothing can beat a good sleep.

First available on vehicles in 2004, the convenience and safety of HotShot has catapulted the product to a highly desired feature by most drivers, according to research from J.D. Power and Associates. According to the research, 69 percent of drivers surveyed expressed interest in having a system like HotShot on their next vehicle. They ranked it higher than features currently in series production such as Satellite Radio, Navigation, and Rear Seat Entertainment systems.

"Half a million motorists now enjoy the convenience, comfort and safety of HotShot in every season and under all driving conditions," said Microheat President and CEO Gary Pilibosian. "The system automatically removes snow, ice, bugs and road grime from windshields in under 90 seconds with the push of a button."

Introduced commercially in 2002, HotShot features a patented cycling technology that intelligently heats fluid to an exact temperature and sprays the fluid at a precise time interval to quickly and efficiently remove snow, ice, bugs and road grime from vehicles. The all-season, all-weather system can be activated at vehicle start-up and maintains hot fluid for use by drivers on demand during normal driving conditions.

The acclaimed HotShot has been the recipient of numerous awards including: Finalist in 2006 PACE Awards, celebrating product and process innovations; Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Excellence in Emerging Technologies Best Practices Award; Popular Mechanics deemed it the "Outstanding Achievement in New Product Design and Innovation;" RoadStar Magazine and Newport Publications awarded Microheat in 2004. Microheat's CEO Gary Pilibosian was named Automation Alley's 2006 Emerging Leader.

Moller foresees a future where skycars routinely zip around taxis or personal vehicles.

"You will be able to get in your skycar, drive it electrically to a vertiport, two or three blocks from your home, program in your destination, and go directly to that destination with being involved in the process," Moller said.

The M-400 and several earlier prototypes have already flown, but only on a limited basis and not very high or very far.

But no one doubts the technology exists to produce a flying car. The challenge is to make it safe to operate, and that means turning the driver into a passenger.

"As you know on the ground most of the accidents are due to operator error so you have to pull that out of the equation in the air," he said. "You just have to computerize it."

Vehicle alert
This system alerts drivers to the presence of vehicles moving too fast at blind intersections. For example, if the system determines that a car is approaching a driver too fast from the left, a buzzer will sound and a voice recording will call out: "Car approaching from left." At the same time, an image of an approaching vehicle will appear on the driver's CARWINGS navigation screen.

The system will also alert a driver when is detects that he or she approaching a stop sign or red traffic light too fast.

Speed alert
This system warns drivers when they are speeding in a school zone. As soon as a driver passes the speed limit in the area, a buzzer will sound and a voice recording will warn: "School ahead. Watch your speed." An image of a school zone sign will also appear on the driver's navigation screen.

Dynamic route finder
This system informs drivers of the quickest route to their destination using probe data collected from mobile phones of CARWINGS subscribers, including taxi owners, as well as vehicle data collected by mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo.

Hurtling through a wetland of intrigue and speculation, this unnamed all-terrain vehicle was last spotted in February 2005 speeding around Belarus. With six balloon wheels and what looks like a mighty drive train, this amphibious creature could give you another way to coast from your island home. Although the manufacturer promised to have them on the market by summer 2005, we're still waiting here in the states. If I were you (and extremely rich), I'd call that brother-in-law in the CIA and see what information you can buy.

The Hoboken garage is one of a handful of fully automated parking structures that make more efficient use of space by eliminating ramps and driving lanes, lifting and sliding automobiles into slots and shuffling them as needed. If the robot shuts down, there is no practical way to manually remove parked vehicles.

In the days that followed, both sides dragged each other into court. Robotic accused Hoboken of violating its copyright. "This case is about them using software without a license," said Dennis Clarke, chief operating officer of Robotic Parking, in a telephone interview last week.

At the same time, Hoboken accused Robotic of setting booby traps in the code, causing the garage to malfunction. Then Robotic accused Hoboken of endangering its business by allowing a competitor into the garage.

In the meantime, many of the garage's customers simply couldn't get their cars out.

"The technology is doable right now," says Carsten Bergmann, a VW lab manager. (Of course, getting the right data to the right car at the right time calls for fiendishly complicated threat-detection algorithms that are far easier with four cars than with hundreds of them.)

General Motors has gone one better than VW with a demonstration DSRC-equipped Cadillac CTS that stops itself to avoid accidents. Its enhanced stability-control system predicts where it's headed—like, into the rear end of another DSRC car stopped in the middle of the road—and prompts the onboard computer to apply the brakes without any input from the driver. The effect is very cool. It's also a little spooky, and many doubt that live-free-or-die Americans will ever sign off on fully autonomous vehicles.

Luckily, engineer Tomiji Sugimoto and his team at Honda R&D are working on a human-machine interface that will keep drivers in the loop. Head-up displays are a no-brainer. But Honda is also developing what's called haptic feedback, such as shaking steering wheels and pedals that vibrate.

"We're talking about a system that acts like a backseat driver," Sugimoto says. Except it's a backseat driver that's always right.

It is being provided under contract to Verrus Mobile Technologies, a Vancouver company that has already signed up commercial parking lots and cities in Canada, the U.S. and Britain.

Verrus gets paid through a 30-cent surcharge paid by the driver, which it calls a convenience fee, on each parking transaction using the service.

The approximately 8,000 city meters are not changing except for new decals with a meter number on them. All Vancouver meters will have decals within a few weeks.

Motorists can call a city phone number, provide the number of the meter and order exactly as much time as they need, up to the normal limit of the meter. That means no more plugging a dollar or two into the meter when you intend to stay only 15 minutes but you're short of exact change.

Gas Station TV, based in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, has been testing its service for several months in Dallas with TV monitors installed above gas pumps that show short clips of news, weather and traffic, and, of course, advertising.

This fall, the company plans to expand the program to a total of 100 gas stations in Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, all owned by Murphy Oil USA, which operates filling stations at Wal-Mart stores.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC will sell ads for the screens and also provide local news, weather and other programming for the screens, mainly from ABC's locally owned or affiliated television stations.

David Leider, a former marketing executive at Yahoo Inc. who is the company's chief executive, says they are focused on making the programming useful to users and tailored to the average length of time it takes to fill up with gas - about 4 minutes.

Not surprisingly, the TRG ratings show that vehicle manufacturers that tend to sell luxury vehicles are including more safety and entertainment features than economy car maker Hyundai, which ranked last.

However, Lincoln, and Volvo's appearance along with Ford at the bottom was a bit of a surprise. Dodge and Toyota, and Chevy, which have vehicles at a wide variety of price ranges all were in the middle of the pack.

Despite our regular jabs, social networking has legs. So it makes great sense for companies to look at social networking sites as both an advertising and content venue. One of the finest examples we have seen, is a new site called CarSpace. Launched by auto comparison site, Edmunds.com, CarSpace is a social network for auto enthusiasts who like to write about cars, chat about cars, blog about cars, post and search for pictures of cars, repair or customize or wash and wax their cars, and generally meet share personal profiles to meet like-minded souls. eStrategyOne thinks CarSpace is an outstanding idea, and we will race you anytime.

Cruising slowly up a suburban street in Regensburg, southern Germany, it did not take long for the test car - a BMW estate - to spot a space.

Having worked out the geometry, Parkmate made a reassuring melodic chime, which tells the driver to stop and let the car steer itself into the gap. Then, as if by magic, the steering wheel turned and the BMW sidled inches past the car next to it and into the space - before hitting the kerb and mounting it.

In fairness it was a very low kerb.

Attempt number two was similar to the first. One interested spectator was the owner of the blue car at the back of the space.

Volkswagen AG's American unit on Friday said it is working on a prototype vehicle which features Google Inc.'s satellite mapping software to give drivers a bird's eye view of the road ahead.

The two companies are working with the graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. to build an in-car navigation map system and a three-dimensional display so passengers can recognize where they are in relation to the surrounding topography.

Volkswagen of America Inc., working through its Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, in Silicon Valley, is working on other advancements, including automatic personalized information updates for the navigation systems.

According to media reports this week, Ford hopes to have something to show by 2008 as part of the company's celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Model T. The desired end product reportedly will be a fully recyclable car based somewhat on the Model U concept from 2003. Its recyclability will stem from the fact that it will be completely easy to disassemble; all parts not reusable in automaking will be biologically based materials.

Ford is said to have put together a team of its most inspired personnel to pursue the green-car idea. Company sources have indicated that the project may include vehicle parts as well as the actual cars themselves in a pursuit of more lightweight, safe, strong, cheap, and environmentally sustainable vehicles.

What this means to you: Eat your heart out, Toyota. Ford is going for perhaps the ultimate statement in environmentally conscious automotive design.

Driver-Monitoring System
Instead of just watching for hazards on the road, Toyota's latest precrash safety system is turning its attention to the most likely cause of an accident: you. This spring, Lexus models in Japan will be available with a camera mounted on the steering column that uses facial-recognition software to determine whether you're watching the road. If not, and the front-mounted radar sees you're getting too close to something, it will flash a light, then beep and tap the brakes if you persist in rubbernecking.

Spot Detection
To prevent drivers from smashing into what they can't see, two as-yet-unnamed automakers will include Valeo Raytheon's blind-spot detection in 2007 models. The system's 2.4-GHz radar sensors will be mounted in the rear bumper and won't be affected by the elements. When a vehicle is in a driver's blind spot, an LED in the sideview mirror will light up. If the driver turns the steering wheel anyway, a beep will warn him of the hidden danger.

An onboard radar system, automated acceleration and braking controls, and a night-vision display are among the features that Mercedes describes as the most advanced available in cars today.

The Distronic system's 24-GHz radar sensors initiate the car's acceleration and braking according to a preset speed and distance from a car in front of you. While creeping along in stop-and-go traffic, I didn't have to apply either the brake or gas.

******

The function took some getting used to. After setting the system to maintain a distance of about 170 feet from cars in front of me, it took a lot of nerve not to apply the brake manually when I was humming along at over 90 mph and saw that traffic had come to a dead stop just a few hundred feet away. But in time I learned to trust the Distronic system enough to force myself to keep my feet flat on the floor while the car gently decelerated from high speeds to a dead stop -- without plowing into the car ahead of me.

The MIT concept car is a complete re-think of vehicle technology. For a start, there is no engine, at least in the traditional sense. The power comes from devices called wheel robots. "These are self-contained wheel units that have electric motors inside," says Mr Chin. "The interesting thing is that the wheel can turn a full 360 degrees so you can have omni-directional wheel movements. You can rotate the car while you're moving, any direction can be front or back and you can do things like crabbing or translate sideways. It's almost like you imagine yourself driving a computer chair."

The wheel robots, complete with their own suspension, remove the need for a drive shaft and even the engine block, freeing up designers to make new use of the space in the car.

"Essentially the car will comprise four wheel-robots plus a customisable chassis," says Chin. "The frame can be built specifically for each customer."

Add wafer-thin, programmable displays that cover the interior and exterior of the car like a layer of paint, and you have a vehicle that can be customised at will. "You can imagine signalling being not just a static signal light but something more dynamic," says Mr Chin, who suggests the words "reversing" or "turning left" could roll across the car's body to declare the driver's intentions. "From a heating and cooling point of view, you might want your car to be darker or lighter depending on weather. On the interior, you can customise your dashboard for each person. If I'm an elderly person, I probably want a very large speedometer so I can see it; if I'm a race-car driver, maybe all I want is a tachometer."

The former maths and technology teacher has designed a speed hump which rises up out of the road when a speeding driver approaches.

The offending motorist will feel a small thump as they hit the bump, reminding them to go slow.

Sensors to instruct the hump to raise can be set to react to different speeds, operate at different times and can even be set to ignore speeding emergency vehicles.

The invention could mean the end to driving down a clear road late at night and being forced to break for a series of speed humps. Gywn Harvey, from Wales, said he came up with the idea ten years ago when he accidentally hit a speed hump too fast.

The new service, called OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics, will be featured exclusively in vehicles made by General Motors Corp. It will automatically perform hundreds of diagnostic checks on key operating systems: the engine and transmission, antilock brakes, air bags and OnStar itself.

The vehicle is automatically programmed to send the results through e-mail, along with maintenance reminders based on the vehicle's odometer reading and remaining engine oil life.

The service will be offered free to most 2004 or newer GM vehicles already carrying OnStar. GM expects to have OnStar in all of its vehicles by 2007.

The rear view system now available on nearly every model in the Nissan range eliminates the worst blind spot during reversing i.e. what's beneath your rear window. But there's a second blind spot along both sides of the car. To eliminate this, side mounted cameras need to be fitted as they have been to the Presage model on sale in Japan since June 2003. Now Nissan is testing front mounted cameras. Even more amazing is that the driver sees an image on the dashboard mounted monitor as if he or she were looking down onto the car. It also shows up everything around it.

Cameras mounted at the front and rear and on both sides take pictures of the surrounding road surface, which are synthesized by an image processing technique into one view that is shown on a central display. The system is especially helpful when parking, enabling the driver to steer easily and precisely into a parking space. It also eliminates any fear of running over the neighbour's prized belongings or posts or animals or anything else for that matter.

Invented by a police officer, the PowerFlare safety light is your best friend in the dark. Whether you're using it on the road instead of old-fashioned flares or taking it with you on a hike, this innovative new product is for you. PowerFlare safety lights feature the latest in LED light technology, emitting light in all directions (can be seen for miles at night). Each PowerFlare unit is about the size of a hockey puck yet is strong enough to withstand being run over by trucks at highway speeds.

In Pacific Grove, Calif., parking meters know when a car pulls out of the spot and quickly reset to zero -- eliminating drivers' little joy of parking for free on someone else's quarters.

In Montreal, when cars stay past their time limit, meters send real-time alerts to an enforcement officer's hand-held device, reducing the number of people needed to monitor parking spaces -- not to mention drivers' chances of getting away with violations. Meanwhile, in Aspen, Colo., wireless "in-car" meters may eliminate the need for curbside parking meters altogether: They dangle from the rear-view mirror inside the car, ticking off prepaid time.

Gates and Bill Ford Jr., Ford's chairman and chief executive, said high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions will set car companies apart from their competitors.

Eventually, Gates said, there could be a car that wouldn't let itself crash.

"That absolutely should be the goal,'' Gates told several hundred participants of the Microsoft Global Automotive Summit at the automaker's suburban Detroit campus. "The embrace of technology will be the key for the leaders of the industry.''

The fingertip frenzy isn't just about luxury cars, either. Sure, the $73,750 Range Rover SUV offers 10 buttons or toggles, not including the horn. And the $49,100 Acura RL sedan has 16, in addition to two thumb paddles for manually changing gears. But Toyota's humble — albeit fully-loaded — $26,040 Prius gas-electric hybrid sedan includes 15 places to mash a thumb into the steering wheel.

Automakers say the buttons help motorists keep their fingers on the wheel instead of having to fiddle with dials and knobs on the dashboard, making driving safer.

A $1.3 million study by New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (funded by federal and state highway officials) links GPS data from participating vehicles into a central database and spits back data on traffic patterns. A driver with the right equipment gets realtime warnings if he's about to enter a congested zone, and can then route around it. Sounds great, but we can’t help but wonder: if everyone's connected, and they all follow the same prompts to avoid congestion, won't the traffic just hit them all when they adjust their route -- and again, when they swerve to avoid the jam they've just created?