Nissan has a brand new concept vehicle it unveiled at CES this year, called the ‘Xmotion.’ The crossover SUV concept vehicle features sleek exterior lines with sharp angles to accentuate details like the headlights, and inside blends touchscreen displays, innovative control mechanisms and spare accents to provide a look that’s both futuristic, and strangely rural and relaxing.
The Xmotion’s exterior was inspired by combining traditional Japanese nature views like Mt. Fuji with the electric and modern surrounds of the city, per Nissan, and it feels like something that would be at home in Blade Runner as well as in modern Tokyo.
While the exterior is interesting, most of what’s novel about this vehicle is happening on the inside. That includes a virtual assistant that’s embodied as a virtual koi on the in-car displays. The koi swims between the console and a middle-mounted armrest touchscreen, and can do things like intelligently program the interior cabin conditions, music and more based on the destination and user preferences. The virtual assistant will also contribute heavily while the car is engaged in autonomous mode, providing ample information about the current route and potential stopovers while switching lanes and handling driving duties.
Screens are prominent parts of the interior overall, and cameras mounted around the vehicle feed imagery to these displays in place of traditional mirrors.
Nissan is focusing on opening up the interior as much as possible here, too. The bucket seats have plenty of available rotation for use while in self-driving, and there’s a continuous, single console that extends from front to back to provide interior continuity between front and back passengers, and to evoke a kind of internal “river” within the cabin.
Atop this console, there’s also the new “floating commander,” which monitors for movement and can even sense gestures in order to translate those into controls for things like the cabin lighting and air conditioning.
Futuristic concepts are, in the end, just that – concepts. But this looks like a natural progression of a lot of the trends we’ve been seeing in the auto industry in general, so I wouldn’t bet against seeing this kind of stuff in production cars in the near future. Plus, I really just want a virtual fish to guide my driving experience.
Elon Musk’s X is preparing to make “Likes” private on the social network, in a change that could potentially confuse users over the difference between something they’ve favorited and something…
The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for the scammer who used voice-cloning tech to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Is it…
Back in 2019, Canva, the wildly successful design tool, introduced what the company was calling an enterprise product, but in reality it was more geared toward teams than fulfilling true…
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 isn’t just an event for innovation; it’s a platform where your voice matters. With the Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice Program, you have the power to shape the…
The United States Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for alleged monopolistic practices. Live Nation and…
The U.K. will shortly get its own rulebook for Big Tech, after peers in the House of Lords agreed Thursday afternoon to pass the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer bill…
Spotify’s addition of its AI DJ feature, which introduces personalized song selections to users, was the company’s first step into an AI future. Now, Spotify is developing an alternative version…
After multiple delays, Apple and the Paris area transportation authority rolled out support for Paris transit passes in Apple Wallet. It means that people can now use their iPhone or…
Redwood Materials, the battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, will be recycling production scrap for batteries going into General Motors electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday…
A new startup called Auggie is aiming to give parents a single platform where they can shop for products and connect with each other. The company’s new app, which launched…
Andrej Safundzic, Alan Flores Lopez and Leo Mehr met in a class at Stanford focusing on ethics, public policy and technological change. Safundzic — speaking to TechCrunch — says that…
ZeroPoint claims to have solved compression problems with hyper-fast, low-level memory compression that requires no real changes to the rest of the computing system.
In 2021, Roi Ravhon, Asaf Liveanu and Yizhar Gilboa came together to found Finout, an enterprise-focused toolset to help manage and optimize cloud costs. (We covered the company’s launch out…
On the heels of raising $102 million earlier this year, Bugcrowd is making good on its promise to use some of that funding to make acquisitions to strengthen its security…
Google is preparing to build what will be the first subsea fiber-optic cable connecting the continents of Africa and Australia. The news comes as the major cloud hyperscalers battle it…
The Kia EV3 — the new all-electric compact SUV revealed Thursday — illustrates a growing appetite among global automakers to bring generative AI into their vehicles. The automaker said the…
Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, was working improperly for several hours on Thursday in Europe. At first, we noticed it wasn’t possible to perform a web search at all. Now it…
If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The “autonomous navigation” market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings —…
The best known mycoprotein is probably Quorn, a meat substitute that’s fast approaching its 40th birthday. But Finnish biotech startup Enifer is cooking up something even older: Its proprietary single-cell…
Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north…
Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart has started operating in Dubai, TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with its executive. The move to Dubai, which has been rumored for months, could help…
Under the envisioned framework, both candidate and issue ads would be required to include an on-air and filed disclosure that AI-generated content was used.
Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Refer them to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024! Applications close June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TechCrunch’s Startup…
Comment