Cars That Show Emotion

from the KITT-would-jealous dept

Anthropomorphic cars usually only exist in TV shows like Knight Rider or ‘Herbie Goes ______’ movies. Though drivers can express their feelings with after-market car accessories (or various hand signals to indicate their true feelings), real cars have not been able to express themselves — until now. With US 6,757,593, inventors at Toyota have claimed the rights to cars that can show a variety of different emotions by wagging antennas, crying tears, raising eyebrows, etc. The car itself determines what emotions to show using software that records some user input along with road conditions and driving behavior. While this all sounds cute and amusing, I’m not sure I’d want my car to be showing a guilty smile the next time I’m caught speeding.


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