Apparently GM has been busy, working on early versions of a system that will turn windshields into heads-up displays. I think it was about two years ago when I first saw commercials for cars that projected your speed onto the windshield. Immediately my imagination went crazy – I thought it was the beginning of those really cool heads-up displays that you see on vehicles in science fiction.

I started thinking of what else you could do with that sort of technology. The first thing that came to mind was to move information from the dashboard to the windshield: your speed, gas tank’s gauge and whatever else you might fancy.

Now of course, there are dangers to having things displayed on the windshield. The big concern is that they may get in the way of seeing what’s on the road. Having them more prominently displayed might also cause drivers to look at them more often, causing a distraction. Both of those problems can be resolved by having some sort button on the steering wheel that toggles the display.

GM’s examples are even cooler than my initial ideas though: they have the system highlight the edge of the road in foggy conditions and pick out signs along the way and bring them to your attention with an outline. It seems that the system only highlights one thing at a time right now, but it’s not much of a stretch to imagine they’ll be able to do something like full road highlighting to make driving at night easier.

GM's HUD showing the edge of the road in fog