Intel wants to make your autonomous car rides more entertaining
It'll be the closest you'll ever actually get to driving the Batmobile.
Once autonomous cars can routinely take over the monotonous, minute-to-minute responsibilities of actually driving, what are their human passengers supposed to do with themselves? Well, if Intel has any say, people will spend their trips being immersed in interactive fantasy lands.
To that end, Intel announced on Wednesday at the 2017 LA Auto Show that it will partner with Warner Bros. to develop "in-cabin, immersive experiences in autonomous vehicle (AV) settings," according to the company's press release. They're calling it the AV Entertainment Experience. Essentially, not only will passengers be able to watch movies, TV shows or play games on their mobile devices while their autonomous vehicles are driving, they'll eventually engage with fully immersive VR and AR experiences as well.
"For example, a fan of the superhero Batman could enjoy riding in the Batmobile through the streets of Gotham City, while AR capabilities render the car a literal lens to the outside world," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich wrote, "enabling passengers to view advertising and other discovery experiences." We get to watch immersive advertisements during long car rides? Oh boy!
There's no set timetable for when these sorts of systems will actually make it into tomorrow's autonomous vehicles. Intel and Warner Bros plan to first install a prototype of the AVEE into one of their 100-car test fleet and develop it from there.
