A startup company out of Cambridge, MA is launching new high tech car audio games that have piqued the interest of car OEMs and insurance companies, and will soon be launched for consumers.
Called BRIGHTdriver, the company reasons that people are tired of listening to the same radio stations and songs over and over again and there is a need for a safe new form of entertainment in the car.
Using the GPS system on your phone, BRIGHTdriver knows when you are accelerating or in city traffic and it uses this information in the games it provides, so they may become a mix of entertainment and coaching for your driving.
Two games that rely on audio speech recognition will be released to consumers as apps within 2 months. But BRIGHTdriver is also in talks with car OEMs and insurance companies who are interested in parts of its technology.
Co-founder Jacob Silber said of car makers, “One may be interested in the game technology to reward efficient drivers, another to help long haul truckers to stay awake.”
One game called Odyssey puts you into adventures like the PC game “The Oregon Trail” while you are driving. As you are driving you become an American pioneer following the Oregon Trail in wagons. If you start driving too fast that might correspond to losing a wheel on your wagon, and you might need to improve your driving in the next 10 miles to “fix your wheel.”
Also, if you are in heavy traffic, the game might switch to giving you historical anecdotes so you can better pay attention to the road. Or the audio cues might slow down to give you more time to respond in the game.
Odyssey, along with a trivia game Volley will be the first two consumer games released by BRIGHTstar. They both also offer a social component so you can play with friends.
Silber told the Boston Globe, “We have a ton of research. What we found was that the root cause of distracted driving is actually boredom. So people drive in a distracted fashion — they pick up their phone to text, they eat…So in some ways it was more important to get people to that optimal point where they’re somewhat stimulated — but not overstimulated. And that’s sort of what we’re trying to do.”
When using the car audio game apps, the user can connect to the car radio via Bluetooth, and aux in jack or FM transmitter.
Silber told us he hasn’t approached aftermarket companies yet but doesn’t rule out the use of the games in car radios.
Both Silber and his founding partner Matt Albrecht are MIT graduates. Silber says he’s a “lifelong car guy” and both have worked at several tech startups.
Source: BRIGHTdriver via The Boston Globe
This is really cool!
I can’t wait to have my first audio game!