Cars that can read your mind -- through the steering wheel

Why get a self-driving car when you can get a self-driving car that also reads your mind? I'm Bridget Carey. This is your CNet update. [MUSIC] In the quest to make cars smarter than human drivers, the good folks at the Jaguar Land Rover Corporation are working on cars that can read your mind. I wish I was making this up, but Jaguar has a research team looking into ways to read your brainwaves to know if you're distracted or getting sleepy behind the wheel. But instead of wearing sensors on your head to read your mind, it wants to measure brainwaves through your hands on the steering wheel. Jaguar is working with a company called Freer Logic which made a sensor that can be worn on the arm or the wrist and it says it can measure the electric current given off from the neurons firing in your brain to detect concentration levels. The system is supposed to ignore the electrical signals from your heart and muscles. The company markets this BodyWave sensor with the tagline Explore, command and master your inner universe. Well, the whole mastering the universe thing is fine I guess. Let's just first see if it actually makes you a safer driver. And how many drivers are gonna keep their hands perfectly on the wheel sensors at all times? Now long with reading your mind, Jaguar is also working on seats to measure your heart rate and breathing and that seems to make more practical sense if something is wrong physically or maybe it can tell you're not paying attention. The car could vibrate the wheel or vibrate the peddle as a nudge to pay attention. But if this tech is put into a self-driving car, the car could just take over control if it thinks the driver's impaired. In the meantime, Samsung has its own idea for helping drivers. Samsung has made a semi-truck that has a massive screen on the back. The screen displays a live video feed captured by cameras placed on the front of the truck so drivers can essentially see through the truck to know if it's safe to pass. This prototype was tested in Argentina. But, as good as this idea is, you know, people are gonna get distracted trying to understand what the heck it is. In other news about tech companies trying to outsmart humans, Facebook says, it developed a way to recognize people in photos even if it can't see your face. Facebook uses facial recognition technology to suggest friends to tag you in photos. And, you can turn that off in settings. But Facebook researchers had taken the technology to the next step, teaching it to identify people accurately based on other physical characteristics, like body type, posture, or distinctive hair. Now Facebook researchers have been able to identify Identify people when their faces are obstructed with 83% accuracy. New Scientist was first to report the findings. Facebook and Google both just came out with apps that can sort your photos based on detecting people in the photos. So tech like this can make those apps even more accurate and make the world even more worried about privacy. That's it for this Tech New Roundup, but there's always more at CNET.com, from our studio sin New York, I am Bridget Carey.