Ford patent describes the digital backseat driver you never wanted
By Tim Stevens 
posted Mar 11th 2009 7:04AM
posted Mar 11th 2009 7:04AM
We're a long way from Ford and Microsoft's EVA and her soothingly monotone stream of helpfulness, but it seems Ford is already prepping her for a dose of... feeling. The company has filed a patent called "Emotive Text-to-Speech System and Method" describing a system that can not only simulate emotion when reading out directions and describing traffic problems, but could also detect the emotion of the operator of the car and interact with them in ways designed to, oh, soothe a little road rage. The avatar is said to "appear to become frustrated" if the driver is a lead-foot, and may say "Your driving is hurting my fuel efficiency." Or, if a driver is going too fast, the dash-bound assistant could turn blue, ask what's wrong, and suggest a more direct route to their destination. It all sounds terrifically annoying, and we can only hope this disembodied nag will be a little easier to deactivate than 2001's HAL -- and a little less prone to singing, too.[Via Autoblog]
EVA was creepy at best.
Eeeeeeevaaah!
What they should be developing is a sophisticated augmented reality projection onto the windshield, side windows and possibly mirrors. This would then be used to simulate driving really fast when the car itself is travelling at the speed limit, so that everyone could get the freeling of speeding without anyone actually achieving it.
And then "helpers" like this one would swoon and admire you for being such an excellent driver at these ridicolous speeds instead of nagging about fuel economy. Make driving more like NFS or GT, making cars run more efficiently and protecting pedestrians better.
I should patent this.
I can't imagine the master chief would drive a ford.
What would he drive, a Honda Civic?
The Veyron?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4660115890703519062
M1A2 Abrams. The gas mileage might suck, but atleast you can drive over most anything in your way.
He would be a true American and drive a Toyota.
Not unless Ford manufactures the Puma.
Master Chief is not going to buy some jap crap. Most likely a Hummer lol.
I wonder how it can detect the emotion of the operator. Getting emotions from voice? In a noisy car environment? No waaay!
Or just getting data from the accelerometer, kind of "usually he speeds up... slower"? ))) Or maybe they are going to stuff the car with dozens of sensors? 1 word - eXpensive.
As long as they don't make it like Guilty Spark then we're fine.
/Halo nerd
"Hmmm hhhmm mmmm"
Each shotgun shell in the Library could mean the difference between life and death, but I still couldnt resist shooting that humming asshole once in a while.
@ tcc3
LOL! Couldn't agree more with you...annoying little bugger....
Assuming this will give terrible directions, they should also feature the addition of a "socket" somewhere, and just call this a replacement girlfriend.
if she says it in a sexy voice, i might listen
Thanks Ford, but I already have a wife for that..
Sounds like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide..
the Emotive Text-to-Speech System would be either Marvin.. or the spaceships computer..
"Good Morning! I'm delighted do inform you that todays traffic is completely jammed!"
"Well look at that! You are out of gas/energy"
In worst case.. Marvin with Genuine People Personalities..
"Hey! Moron! Wrong turn!"
This GPP seems to be a good way to replace the driving tutor ))
I remember reading a (fictional) book with a car that had a system that could read a driver's emotions through heart rate and a variety of other things and then tailor the driving experience to one's mood at the time. For instance, if one was feeling mellow, play music accordingly from the on-board hard drive, different inflection of the voice in driving directions, etc. Anyway, I think that would be a nice feature, and if Ford could make this system not annoying, that would be excellent.
WWWAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL EEEEEEEE!
You are all dicks.
This is a great invention... well, at least while we need people to drive. After that, when we remove the human element in driving, this type of thing will no longer be necessary.
Microsoft, huh? I wonder if she'll let out a blood-curdling scream when she blue-screen-of-death's...
Cortana?
I am trying to figure out how Ford could ever use this as a selling point... "Our cars come with a virtual nagging b$&*%!"
"Your driving is hurting my fuel efficiency."
"Lisa's dancing makes my feet sad."
Time for "A door is a jar" in a soothing voice.
How could you desecrate Cortana like that?! Shame on you!
CORTANA.
Cortana is hot.
I had a talking car once. It's not as fun as Knight Rider would have you believe.