This may seem like an exaggeration, but many of us already have a special relationship to our cars. They are with us at many key points in our lives during which we experience strong feelings, whether we are nervous on the way to the first day of a new job or excitedly driving to the airport for a much-anticipated vacation. With this in mind, it might not seem so strange that 41% of people admit to talking to their cars. But how will you feel when, pretty soon, our cars start answering back to us?
Tag: Automotive
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Will Your Future Car Also Be Your Best Friend?
This may seem like an exaggeration, but many of us already have a special relationship to our cars. They are with us at many key points in our lives during which we experience strong feelings, whether we are nervous on the way to the first day of a new job or excitedly driving to the airport for a much-anticipated vacation. With this in mind, it might not seem so strange that 41% of people admit to talking to their cars. But how will you feel when, pretty soon, our cars start answering back to us?
Human machines
We live in a time where our technology is not only becoming increasingly intelligent, but somehow also feel increasingly human. And since humans are social beings, it makes sense for us to do what we can to humanize the machines we surround ourselves with every day. It is hard to think of a more obvious example of this phenomenon than the popularization of virtual assistants that imitate some of the most basic human features. They are launched with human names, like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, and a voice to answer in when we talk to them.
But as our machines are being loaded with features to help us feel like we know them, they will simultaneously start developing features that allow them to actually get to know us. And when it comes to our cars, this can only be expected to deepen our relationship with them – our cars will not just get us where we need to go, they will keep us company on every step of the way.
Your empathetic car
By 2025, you might not even have to verbally communicate to your car how you feel or what you want. Through AI-based technology like eye tracking, your car will be able to recognize the physical signs of your mood. And by continuously analyzing the faces of the people who spend time in the car, it gets to know more about their preferences over time and can adjust accordingly. Within the next decade, you might be driving a car that surpasses even your most empathetic friend in terms of not only knowing what song cheers you up when you are in a bad mood, but also recognizes the exact right moment to play it.
A car’s ability to recognize emotions can also have a very important effect on Smart Eye’s number one concern: road safety. Along with alcohol and texting, human emotion is actually what causes the most accidents. Road rage, sadness, even euphoric happiness – these are all feelings that cloud our judgement and can cause us to lose focus in traffic. A car that can recognize these strong emotions and knows how to calm us down could save lives.
A more human future
From that point forward, development is expected to move fast. Intelligent machines learn in roughly the same way humans do – through experience. This means a car’s emotional intelligence, its ability to recognize and understand emotions, will increase for every face it experiences. Just during training, the system will be subjected to millions of faces and emotions – a supply that will continue to grow every time the car is used. A well-developed intelligent car will be able to experience and learn from a much larger number of different faces and voices than any human would be able to experience.
For decades, whether machines are bound to become more intelligent than humans have been a subject for debate for established experts as well as rookie technology enthusiasts. But recent innovation relating to emotional AI poses another question: will our machines eventually become more in touch with human emotions than humans themselves?
It is easy to feel intimidated by this possibility. But with effort consistently being put into developing machines with superhuman intelligence, there is no denying we will continue to become increasingly reliant on machines on an everyday basis. And a machine without emotional intelligence to match its IQ might be an efficient, but ultimately cold, companion to keep with us in our daily lives.
As Pamela Pavliscak, researcher and author of Emotionally Intelligent Design, puts it: “If we make our technology more efficient, we may make a more productive society. But if we make our technology more emotionally intelligent, we may create a more human future – one with communication, compassion and connection.”
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BLOG: “2010-2020: A decade of innovation at Smart Eye”
We can conclude that 2019 has been a significant one for Smart Eye. It’s been a year full of great innovations and success, as well as the incredible 29 design wins Smart Eye has been rewarded over the course of 2019 alone. Now we look forward to the dawn of a brand-new decade with even greater innovations and success.
From crisis to serial contracts
When thinking back on the last time we were entering a new decade, we’re struck by just how much that has happened these last ten years. By the end of 2009, Smart Eye was still dealing with the aftermath of the Lehman crash. The global financial crisis of 2008 hit the car industry hard. Suddenly, car manufacturers’ main priority became surviving until the next quarter, and the incorporation of new, innovative technology had to wait. This forced Smart Eye to take a step back… read the full blog
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2010-2020: A Decade of Innovation at Smart Eye
We can conclude that 2019 has been a significant one for Smart Eye. It’s been a year full of great innovations and success, as well as the incredible 27 design wins Smart Eye has been rewarded over the course of 2019 alone. Now we look forward to the dawn of a brand-new decade with even greater innovations and success.
From crisis to serial contracts
When thinking back on the last time we were entering a new decade, we’re struck by just how much that has happened these last ten years. By the end of 2009, Smart Eye was still dealing with the aftermath of the Lehman crash. The global financial crisis of 2008 hit the car industry hard. Suddenly, car manufacturers’ main priority became surviving until the next quarter, and the incorporation of new, innovative technology had to wait. This forced Smart Eye to take a step back from the automotive industry, and we entered 2010 as a company solely focusing on research instruments. At that point, we could not know which car manufacturers would survive the crisis or if we would even get the chance to deliver our technology to the automotive industry again.
But before long, things started to turn around. After about a year, in late 2010, requests from automotive clients began dropping in again. And by the end of 2011, the pendulum had swung, and the car industry was back on track with a renewed vigour.
After several years of hard work and occasional uncertainty, we finally received our first serial contract in 2015. And during the next few years, we were able to turn that one contract into 57 contracts – including car manufacturers and industry giants on almost every continent. From then on, our focus was largely placed on fulfilling the trust put in us and making sure we would eventually see more and more cars with Smart Eye’s technology on the roads.
Eye tracking in the 2020’s
With everything that has happened over the course of these last ten years, the natural development for Smart Eye has been the thoroughly expansive phase we are still going through. In 2009, we were less than 15 dedicated people working at Smart Eye. Today, we are approximately 150 talented women and men around the globe.
There is no denying that these past ten years have paved the way for a very exciting future. Of the 57 car models the 2010’s has landed us; many are set to go into mass production during the first two years of the 2020’s. And during the next ten years, we hope to see the idea we have worked with from the very beginning become a reality.
Furthermore, due to regulations recently approved by the European Union, there will not be a new car model launched on the European market from 2022 that does not feature advanced safety systems including driver drowsiness and attention warning, as well as advanced driver distraction warning. Meanwhile, similar regulations are being adapted in China. The Euro NCAP are even adjusting their rating system to include driver monitoring as a vital safety measurement. By 2030, we hope to be able to point to mass-produced cars all over the world where Smart Eye’s technology is saving lives.
Unknown to ubiquitous – the development of eye tracking technology
Over the last decade, some of us have had the pleasure to witness first-hand how eye tracking has gone from being a relatively unknown concept to something more and more ubiquitous. Ten years ago, very few people knew what eye tracking was. We were starting to get used to people telling us that while they understood the concept, they could not understand what they were supposed to use the technology for. That is a question we barely ever hear anymore.
These days, you can find eye tracking or facial recognition almost everywhere. Smartphones, computers, gaming equipment, disability aids, vehicles, VR – the list goes on. And pretty soon, we will most likely be able to add airplanes, buses and trains to that line-up. Today, almost everyone is realizing that a greater understanding for a user’s mind and intentions is a vital part of creating a better user experience – and therefore incredibly valuable.
Of course, this is what convinced our very first colleagues and passionate eye tracking advocates at the very beginning. We never doubted that we were dedicating our careers to something useful and valuable.
And it may have taken some time, but during these last ten years, the rest of the world seems to have caught on to the benefits of eye tracking. Now, we can feel quite certain that we have not received our last car contract, car manufacturer or design win.
Since 2009, Smart Eye has not just grown to involve ten times as many people, we have become an integrated wheel in the great machinery that is the global car industry of today. The last time we were entering a new decade, we were merely looking in, trying to catch a glimpse of what it might be like to be on the inside. This time, we have a crystal-clear view.
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CEO blog: CES2020 is over – Smart Eye’s journey has just begun
By Martin Krantz, CEO of Smart Eye.
DMS going mainstream in 2020.
As the world’s leading Driver Monitoring System (DMS) supplier, Smart Eye entered Las Vegas this year with a heightened sense of curiosity about this year’s big themes on the bustling floors of the annual festival for techies also known as CES. After eight years of attendance via industry partners we now had our own booth and were able to showcase our latest and greatest tech thoroughly. But it was not the only thing that brought attention to DMS. One of the most important takeaways for DMS at CES 2020 was the momentum of the technology. With new EU legislation and safety requirements from Euro-NCAP, both requiring new cars to be equipped with drowsiness and inattention detection, it was easy to generate buzz. Another indication of mass implementation is the sheer number of upcoming cars with DMS on board, 57 of them coming from Smart Eye with six already on the road. Even though we had a private and invitation-only booth, we ended up welcoming hundreds of visitors from the automotive industry to our four-demo tour, including our very own car simulator…READ MORE -
CES 2020 is Over — Smart Eye’s Journey Has Just Begun
By Martin Krantz, CEO of Smart Eye.
DMS going mainstream in 2020
As the world’s leading Driver Monitoring System (DMS) supplier, Smart Eye entered Las Vegas this year with a heightened sense of curiosity about this year’s big themes on the bustling floors of the annual festival for techies also known as CES. After eight years of attendance via industry partners we now had our own booth and were able to showcase our latest and greatest tech thoroughly. But it was not the only thing that brought attention to DMS. One of the most important takeaways for DMS at CES 2020 was the momentum of the technology. With new EU legislation and safety requirements from Euro-NCAP, both requiring new cars to be equipped with drowsiness and inattention detection, it was easy to generate buzz. Another indication of mass implementation is the sheer number of upcoming cars with DMS on board, 57 of them coming from Smart Eye with six already on the road. Even though we had a private and invitation-only booth, we ended up welcoming hundreds of visitors from the automotive industry to our four-demo tour, including our very own car simulator.Semi-autonomous vehicles are trending.
As expected, CES 2020 offered a variety of new concept cars, and OEMs demonstrated what to expect for the upcoming year. Concept cars typically provide the visitor with a new perception of what the future will bring. At CES 2020 we found that the upcoming cars seemed to have one thing in common – DMS. Yet the hype around completely self-driving cars seem to be declining and the focus of this year’s show was shifted towards semi-autonomous vehicles. In this new phase driver monitoring seems to play an important part when it comes to connecting the car to the driver.Interior Sensing, the next big thing?
Every year we hear devastating news of children being left behind in cars with fatal outcomes. It is not uncommon that also pets are forgotten, as well as keys, computers or phones. Interior sensing technology, as the name indicates, measures the whole inside of the car and senses when someone or something is left in the car or simply out of position – and warns the driver.Integration of DMS and Interior Sensing for best result.
As DMS tracks the driver’s eyes and makes sure the driver is watching the road when needed and not falling asleep, Interior Sensing watches over the entire cabin. Smart Eye exhibited how DMS and Interior Sensing is enhanced by being integrated on both hardware and software level. Each sub-system boosts the other through sensor fusion, on a singular cost-efficient inference platform. In combination they provide extensive safety and convenience features. There are also some great convenience features to benefit from when it comes to interior sensing; intuitive entertainment interfaces, identification and in-car delivery for example.Safety, the over-arching goal
But all in all, the fact still stands, every year 1.2 million people lose their lives in traffic-related accidents and another 50 million are injured. A huge portion of these accidents happen due to driver inattention. We have never turned a blind eye towards this. Instead we strive to make DMS and interior sensing technology as common as seat-belts and airbags, and in our opinion self-driving cars just aren’t there yet in terms of safety. After this year’s show, shedding light not only on Smart Eye’s offer but on the technologies as a whole, our vision doesn’t seem that far away anymore. Very few companies in the world can offer safety level driver monitoring systems, and Smart Eye, with 20+ years of experience, is at the forefront. -
Our CES experience
“Productive meetings, fantastic technology and a world class team that made it all possible, pretty much sums up our CES experience!” – Martin Krantz, CEO Smart Eye
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Video: CES Interview with Smart Eye CEO by AutoFutures
Smart Eye CEO Showcases Groundbreaking AI Eye Tracking Technology in Vegas
by Alex Kreetzer
“Smart Eye Founder & CEO Martin Krantz discusses the use of AI and deep learning algorithms to identify driver distraction or drowsiness and protect them on the road.
He also explains the benefits that the software can bring to automakers looking to rollout autonomous technology.”
Read more and watch the video here:https://www.autofutures.tv/2020/01/08/smart-eye-ceo-showcases-groundbreaking-ai-eye-tracking-technology-in-vegas/
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Smart Eye receives design win from second Chinese OEM
Smart Eye AB (Nasdaq: SEYE), the market leader in Driver Monitoring Systems, receives one new design wins, from a second Chinese OEM customer. The estimated revenue of the order is MSEK 50, based on forecasts of the estimated product life cycle, the company has now received a total of 57 design wins.
Smart Eye will deliver its second-generation DMS technology to a large Chinese OEM. The car models that includes Smart Eye’s software have a planned SOP in 2021. Smart Eye’s DMS software includes an in-car AI function to increase the safety and entertainment of the driver. The system includes gaze tracking and Face ID, preventing driver distraction and inattention.
“As a global supplier of DMS and in-car AI technology, we have worked hard to secure a foothold on the important Chinese market, the largest in the world. This second design win is a crucial step towards our goal. It was a hard-fought competitive process where in the end Smart Eye’s proven capabilities of safety level driver monitoring combined with solid quality and high level of functionality came out as decisive factors. The Chinese market is expected to grow at an increasing pace, as is the rest of the global market. In the end it’s all about keeping more and more drivers safe and the Smart Eye team in China has done a great job in ensuring just that”, says Martin Krantz, CEO at Smart Eye.
Smart Eye has partnered with a major Tier 1 supplier in order to secure the order and has to date, Smart Eye has received 57 design wins from ten OEMs in the automotive industry, making the company the market leader in DMS technology. The total potential value of Smart Eyes design wins exceeds SEK 1.5 billion. Six car models with Smart Eyes technology have been launched in the market.
Definitions:
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer (car manufacturer)
Design win: order of technology for one car model
SOP: Start of Production
DMS: Driver Monitoring System -
Smart Eye integrates the future in today’s cars through eye tracking and AI at CES® 2020
With 20 years of experience, 56 design wins and six car models on the road, Smart Eye is the leader in eye tracking solutions for the automotive industry. At CES, we will showcase our next generation of eye tracking technology featuring not only drowsy and distracted driver detection, but also face ID and face expression for emotion detection. Smart Eye is connecting car and driver for a safer journey today and paving the way for autonomous cars tomorrow.
To extend the intelligence to the entire cabin, Smart Eye is introducing interior sensing. Tomorrow’s cars will be able to identify people, pets and everyday objects for an enhanced passenger experience. This enables future safety and convenience features such as checking passenger position before air bag deployment, intuitive entertainment interfaces, in-car deliveries and preventing sleeping children from being left behind.
Finally – in a vehicle environment – we will showcase how the sum of the whole is bigger than the parts. By integrating DMS and Interior Sensing, our technology will be able to do more with less. Our algorithms are developed to run on many platforms, and can make full use of the car’s existing infrastructure. A robust, scalable and cost-efficient solution built on 20 years of automotive experience.
” We are excited to host our first exhibit at CES® 2020 and are bringing groundbreaking technology in the area of vehicle safety and convenience. Our DMS is reaching mass market vehicles and we continue to see further with new technologies that extend into the cabin to provide deep learning AI inference applications,” says Martin Krantz, CEO Smart Eye.
Today Smart Eye’s technology is primarily used to enhance critical safety applications through driver monitoring systems, a vital prerequisite on the way towards fully autonomous cars. Tomorrow’s cabin sensing features will include detection of occupants, safety belt status and forgotten objects, and other extended functionality. This view of what is happening inside the vehicle can ultimately help the car to seamlessly transfer control of the vehicle to an awake and able driver, call for help in a medical emergency, or simply offer to play the perfect song for the moment.
For those attending CES, Smart Eye can be found in Westgate Pavilion #1415.
Make sure to visit www.www.www.smarteye.se/ces2020 for more updates.
