BMW's AirTouch turns entire car into a touchscreen controller

PanARMENIAN.Net - BMW, like a number of other automakers, is keen on showing off its latest tech at CES. This year will be no different as the company plans to demo its AirTouch concept in Las Vegas next week, Engadget reports.

AirTouch is but one feature of BMW's Vision Car that aims "to demonstrate what the interior and the user interface of the future might look like." More specifically, AirTouch allows passengers to control the car's features with gestures rather than having to interact with a touchscreen. There's still a display that shows navigation, entertainment and communication info, but sensors track hand gestures in the space between the dash and the rear-view mirror rather than requiring taps on the screen.

At CES 2015, BMW demoed Touch Command, a gesture control system that uses a Samsung tablet to control a vehicle's features. The tech actually made it into the BMW 7 Series this year, and now the company will show its latest advancements with AirTouch. This new system is designed to not only improve the use of gestures inside the car, but to reduce the number of steps required to complete a task. In theory, fewer steps would cut down on the amount of time you're dividing your attention between the road and switching songs.

Both the driver and the passenger have easily accessible buttons to confirm an action alongside the gestures and the system's "large panoramic display." In other words, a passenger can use one hand to navigate the menus while keeping the other on that button to confirm selections. We're sure to get more info in a few days, and we'll be sure to take AirTouch for a test drive ourselves on the show floor.