GM is using Israeli tech to build cool apps for car windows!

What do you do when the kids sitting in the back seat of the car say “we’re bored?” Depending on what kind of parents you are, you may have any one of a number of responses. But eventually, you will fall back on that old, reliable suggestion – “just look out the window!”

To which the kids will, without doubt, respond by saying something like “there’s nothing to see.” But if they do say that, they clearly aren’t sitting next to a window equipped with Spindow, an “in-window app” that lets users view the world from car windows across the globe. Say you’re driving along a boring stretch of road – where there really is not too much to see. With Spindos, passengers can “look out” windows as they would be seen from other vehicles – in other parts of the world.

Or, how about this: How many times have you wanted to communicate with other drivers on the road – to get directions, or to tell them how lousy they’re driving! If you want to “drive” your social networking into a new dimension, Pond is for you – letting you turn your window into a “virtual bumper sticker” that other drivers  can see, and even display in their own windows.

These and other applications are the result of a program called Windows of Opportunity (WOO), sponsored by General Motors, of all companies, with students from the FUTURE LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. The result: A host of applications using computers, touch technology, and interactive components that let kids (and adults!) use their windows to create, design, and communicate.

Other apps developed by the students include Otto, an animated character projected over passing scenery that responds to real-time car performance, weather and landscape. With Otto, passengers can learn about their environment in fun, playful ways. In addition, the students developed Foofu, an app that allows passengers to create, explore and discover through finger drawing on window steam.

In 2007, GM opened a development center in Herzliya, owned directly by the company (ie, it is not an Israeli R&D lab that was taken over by GM). As part of its retooling strategy after going bankrupt several years ago, a smaller, nimbler GM is using technology to build advanced vehicles that it hopes will outsmart – and outsell – cars from Japan and Korea. WOO is one of a number of design and technology development programs GM is conducting in order to take full advantage of digital tools that can enhance the driving experience – and is relying on Israeli genius for those tools.

“Projects like WOO are invaluable, because working with designers and scholars from outside of the automotive industry brings fresh perspective to vehicle technology development,” says Omer Tsimhoni, lab group manager for human-machine interface, GM Advanced Technical Center in Israel. “WOO is just one of many projects underway at GM that could reinvent the passenger experience in years to come.”

After all, if apps that do cool things are good enough for an iPhone glass touch screen, why not a glass GM car window?