Toshiba Shows Off In-Car Facial Recognition System

We’ve seen plenty of systems that rely on facial recognition for an interface, but they’ve so far been a decidedly rarer occurrence when it comes to in-car systems. Toshiba looks set to change that, however, with it now showing off a new system that’ll not only let you control the A/C or radio with the glance of your eye, but alert you if you happen to take your eyes off the road for too long. That’s done with the aid of a camera mounted above the steering wheel that’s used to identify and map out the driver’s face, letting the car (or desktop PC in this demonstration) detect everything from head movement and eye direction to eyelid blinks, which Toshiba says could eventually be used to alert drowsy drivers. Unfortunately, Toshiba doesn’t have any immediate plans to commercialize the technology, although it apparently busily working to make it more suited for embedded CPUs.