Driving Simulator for Toyota "out of this world"

It looks like what the HAL 2000 would be in, er, 2007...or 2057, maybe.

Standing at 15 feet by 23 feet, the gadget swirls,dives, moves, glides on a rail to deliver the sensations of maneuvering on real-life roads. Is it the newest attraction at Disney? Nope, it's new driving simulator by Toyota, and it's really cool!

The internal surrounding sides of the dome show 360-degree computer graphic imagery of roads and landscape, complete with signs, pedestrians, street-side stores and faraway Mount Fuji — all synchronized to move with the simulated driving. It is designed to obviously give Toyota an authentic feel and output of certain scenarios without the usual risk of car testing, etc. On a test course, Toyota separately showed experimental wireless safety features, such as those that warn vehicles of a red light ahead through beeping and the image of a traffic light that pops up near the speedometer. The system uses infrared beacons on roadside poles.

Though officials view this as a long-term investment where the effects may not reach full potential within 10 years, it still has some greatness attached to it and should be greatly beneficial to driver safety. Now if the darn cigarette lighter just worked....

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Driving Simulator for Toyota "out of this world"

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