BMW's laser headlights - pretty amazing

[darylzero]

watch the whole video to see all that LIGHTs can do!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WvK5WC4ns0[/youtube]

[MinisterofDOOM]

The selective high-beams are my favorite thing EVER. So cool. Having to balance the need to not blind others while still providing safe amounts of light for yourself is a fight you can't win with current lights. This assumes it actually WORKS, of course, but I love it. No more need to toggle high-beams on and off. No more need to expect others to have any @#$%ing clue whether their high-beams are blinding you or not. Everyone can see. Everyone wins.

As far as lasers, I'm frankly amazed it took this long for lasers to start powering our headlights. Lasers are an INCREDIBLY efficient light source, with very little waste heat depending on the application (something LEDs cannot also claim). Adding a lens to it means you can use that light in more forms than just an axial beam. Lasers are also limited to just a single bandwidth, which means you can tune light color to be the most effective for illumination and not have any waste in less effective spectral bands.

[Ace2cool]

Waiting for the first person to tune their headlights red and blue and impersonate a cop

[MinisterofDOOM]

Not tunable in the "on-the-fly" sense, but tunable in original design. Lasers are designed to emit light at a specified frequency, and that is determined by their emitter construction and design. So we could design emitters in that perfect wavelength that benefits human visibility and leave out the muddy purples and low-contrast yellows that compose a lot of normal incandescent or gas arc lamp emissions. They'd be very much locked to their original design unless the emitters were modified--an incredibly complex and fine-scale process.

[Dattebayo]

What about the whole "don't look at a laser" thing?

[dasoupdude]

The focused part of the headlight's laser is really really low, enough to illuminate pretty much the just the road.. Think of it as someone shining a laser pointer at your chest thats standing about 15 feet in front of you. Even though the lasers on, its not really not that unbearable to look at, especially with your peripherals.

On the other hand if he were to shine it directly in your eye it then it would be a different story

. But basically that selective beam witchcraft is supposed to block that laser light emittance and shroud you in darkness all while you are heading towards it.....at a constant speed.

[Dattebayo]

Road grade can change the aim of your headlight. And then there's little kids and other things like that to think of.

The more I think about it, a laser beam on the front of your car is just another problem.

[BusyBadger]

Waiting for the first person to tune their headlights red and blue and impersonate a cop

Or just adjusts the aimpoint...

[MinisterofDOOM]

Ahhh, the V8 vantage. Probably the least attractive Aston of all time. It's '70s-Ford-tastic and that has never ever been a compliment.

It's extra sad because so much of the car COULD be great, but the whole product is just...eurgh.

[BusyBadger]

But, but...lasers man!