App provides extra eyes on the road

7. August 2013

A few high-end cars already come with technology that will issue a warning—or even brake automatically—if the dashboard computer thinks a crash is imminent. Now, for those of us who can’t afford this luxury extra, there’s a smart-phone app that aims to do something similar.

iOnRoad detects and tracks cars on the road ahead using a phone’s camera and machine vision software. It also draws on a phone’s GPS, accelerometer, and orientation sensors to calculate the distance to other cars, and the speed at which they are traveling.

Just place your device in a mount on the dashboard and start up the app. Then your phone will diligently watch the road ahead, and beep a warning if you get too close to the vehicle ahead, alerting you to hastily brake before any damage occurs.

Read more about the app here.