See-through Toyota Prius makes reverse parking a cinch

Are you one who for the life of you still cannot figure out how to parallel park or perform a reverse park maneuver due to your fear of blind spots even with the help of the side and rear view mirrors? Well, technology in vehicles have evolved to a stage today where there are reverse cameras, but even then there are some folks with a phobia of performing such parking moves. Enter the brainchild of researchers over at Japan’s Keio University who are hard at work in developing a system which actually makes the back seat “invisible” from the driver’s perspective. A Toyota Prius is used in this example, where the back seat ends up as seemingly transparent, hence doing away with blind spots which might conceal hazards. It is known as the “see-through Prius”, where you could catch it at the 2012 Digital Content Expo in Tokyo, Japan. Definitely different from the Toyota Smart INSECT which we spotted at CEATEC.

The “see-through Prius” system is actually a variant on optical-camouflage technology which was developed by Susumu Tachi, Masahiko Inami and colleagues – technology that dates back to approximately a decade ago (!). How does the system work? Well, it will capture footage from behind an object, projecting the background onto the the back seat, making the driver feel as though he or she is driving a glass car.