Earlier this week while sifting through my RSS feeds, I stumbled onto a pretty ingenious concept design for improving the average traffic light. The “Eko light is a simple yet, highly practical concept for traffic lights that not only helps preserve the environment by reducing pollution but promotes safer driving as well.” While I seriously doubt the validity of the designers ecological intensions, I do believe the concept’s benefits to driver sanity could be enormous.

Sometimes an idea can still be great when the motivation behind it is somewhat misguided. This is how I feel about the Eko light. From the products description (and name for that matter) it sounds like it’s main purpose is to cut down on pollution by allowing cars stopped at intersections to turn their engines off while waiting for the traffic light to change. This is great, in theory, but I don’t see it working in most cases.

Now I’ve read the reports that say idling for 2 minutes is equivalent to actually driving a mile down the road and I understand that it’s better to shut your car on and off when you’re going to be idling for longer than 10 seconds. However, how often are you completely stopped, in park, and ready to shut off your engine the moment the light turns red? The answer is never. Even if you’re the first to the intersection right when the light turns red, you have to decelerate, stop, throw your car into park, and then you can shut down the engine. You’re usually never even the first to the intersection, though. So the light will have already been red before you’ve even begun to slow down your car.

Additionally, traffic lights are already horribly inefficient. When a light turns green, there is a delay between when a car begins to accelerate and when the car behind it begins to follow suit. While that delay isn’t excessively long, it can definitely add up in a line of cars. I’ve sat at several intersections where the light had already begun to change before I had a chance to even start forward progress. Imagine how terrible the delay would become if people future back int the line who couldn’t see the Eko light were waiting to see cars moving before starting their engines. Less cars through each light would mean more congestion, more idling (because you know not everyone would agree to turn off their engines at an intersection), and more pollution in the long run.

All that being said, I still think the Eko light is a brilliant concept. First off, it’s just cool. As a geek, more things should have progress bars. Hell, if my toaster had an LED progress bar and popped up to the AOL guy saying “Toasts Done”, it’d be an improvement. But that’s besides the point. What this invention really offers is peace of mind. You have no idea how many times I’ve sat at a stoplight, especially in a town with trains running through several major intersections, and obsessed about the light’s apparent disregard for the fact that my car was in one of it’s lanes. Sometimes, I think just not knowing when the light is going to change makes it seem like you’re sitting at it for so much longer than you are. Especially late at night when you’re the only car at a red light and you’re not even sure you’ve triggered the sensor. A progress bar would at least give you the feed back you need to know that you’d triggered it. Also, knowing exactly how much time was left would save you from those “damn, I thought I was next” moments.

posted by Christopher Schnese

Now I may be in the minority, but when I think back on Tony Stark’s Mark III Armor I don’t think about it’s ability to fly, it’s weapons arsenal, or it’s indestructibility. I think about JARVIS and the Heads Up Display. The ability of the suit to scan it’s surroundings, analyze them, and then present pertinent information about them is absolutely amazing. Not to mention the one feature we could actually use in our day to day lives. I almost can’t imagine what it would be like to have access to an affordable system like that. Fortunately, some pretty smart people over at MIT can imagine it and are attempting to bring us the next best thing to Ironman’s HUD system.

Below is a talk by Pattie Maes of MIT, given at the latest TED conference, describing an amazing product they’ve been developing. It may not be as flashy as what Tony Stark could build, but it’s damn near close. And it’s absolutely incredible.

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some.

posted by Christopher Schnese