BlueCruise eye scanner and its origins

[rzanzerkia]

This is a bit of an old story but I find it fascinating.
When would you guess Ford started thinking about the technology to scan eyes for our hands free Blue cruise feature?
Most would guess last 5-10 years right?

So back in 1984-1995 I used to work at a company called Digital Equipment corporation (long gone, was 2nd biggest computer company at the time).

One of the group I worked for 1985-89 was called Advance VAX development (Hardware development group).
I was a wee bit young junior engineer with focus on software tools for hardware development.

When our lead tech engineer left the group he mentioned this story.
Ford had contacted him to research eye scanning hardware.
Mind you IBM and DEC were the two biggest and reputable computer companies at the time so it makes sense that Ford reached out to engineers from these companies.

Now I have no idea what he did after he left DEC or how long he worked for Ford.
Nor do I know the work he or any DEC engineers did for Ford actually ended up in the Blue Cruise implementation.

However the story stuck in my mind that fact remains: Ford was thinking about using eye scanner technology back in 1985-89 window.
That’s almost 40 years ago and first blue cruise arrived 2021?
It took them 30+ years to turn research/concept into actual product.

I just thought some of you would get a kick out of this history.
Now anyone from Ford is lurking here and have a way to find out it would be nice to know origins of eye scanning technology inside Ford.

Sponsored

 

[jgcom]

Very interesting. FWIW, I'm impressed by whatever Ford is using to detect eyes, accounting for sun glasses and scanning the road, even though it calls foul when I look a bit too long at the warning/info messages that the system puts there because it thinks they are important.

In 1984-1995, I was a student who spent too much time with a DEC VT100 or VT240. I was allowed the newer (color!) one after my office window fell out of its wall and crushed the older one in a cloud of asbestos dust. I loved those days.

 

[rzanzerkia]

Very interesting. FWIW, I'm impressed by whatever Ford is using to detect eyes, accounting for sun glasses and scanning the road, even though it calls foul when I look a bit too long at the warning/info messages that the system puts there because it thinks they are important.

In 1984-1995, I was a student who spent too much time with a DEC VT100 or VT240. I was allowed the newer (color!) one after my office window fell out of its wall and crushed the older one in a cloud of asbestos dust. I loved those days.

True it’s very good even through sun glasses. Oh that VT100 brings back some memories. If it was color it had to be VT240.

 

[Sikkun]

True it’s very good even through sun glasses.

Until you have a lazy eye and prisms….then it becomes unusable at night sadly.

Fine during the day, but I literally can’t use it at night.

 

[lonndog]

I just thought some of you would get a kick out of this history.

Oh heck yes! I used to work on DEC computers, first in college (PDP-11), then in a company that made software development tools for the air force. We also wrote our own software repository program on a DEC system, kind of like a primitive ancestor to GitHub.

Never thought I'd conflate the Mach-E and DEC! ?

 

[rzanzerkia]

Until you have a lazy eye and prisms….then it becomes unusable at night sadly.

Fine during the day, but I literally can’t use it at night.

Interesting. Is it because of cataract surgery?

Oh heck yes! I used to work on DEC computers, first in college (PDP-11), then in a company that made software development tools for the air force. We also wrote our own software repository program on a DEC system, kind of like a primitive ancestor to GitHub.

Never thought I'd conflate the Mach-E and DEC! ?

Yes indeed I wasn’t expecting a connection between DEC and MachE either ?

My IT career started with DEC and by far the best company I worked for.

In this whole post what I am impressed is how far back Ford was thinking of eye scanning technology.

 

[Jimrpa]

I thought I saw someplace, a long time ago, that Ford uses Smart Eye

 

[AjzRide]

I’m obviously much younger than the other guys around here reminiscing about DEC. One of the roles for my first job out of college (2005) was buying every DEC Alpha that showed up on eBay, because they were critical to our infrastructure and obsolete by a mile.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

This is a bit of an old story but I find it fascinating.
When would you guess Ford started thinking about the technology to scan eyes for our hands free Blue cruise feature?
Most would guess last 5-10 years right?

So back in 1984-1995 I used to work at a company called Digital Equipment corporation (long gone, was 2nd biggest computer company at the time).

One of the group I worked for 1985-89 was called Advance VAX development (Hardware development group).
I was a wee bit young junior engineer with focus on software tools for hardware development.

When our lead tech engineer left the group he mentioned this story.
Ford had contacted him to research eye scanning hardware.
Mind you IBM and DEC were the two biggest and reputable computer companies at the time so it makes sense that Ford reached out to engineers from these companies.

Now I have no idea what he did after he left DEC or how long he worked for Ford.
Nor do I know the work he or any DEC engineers did for Ford actually ended up in the Blue Cruise implementation.

However the story stuck in my mind that fact remains: Ford was thinking about using eye scanner technology back in 1985-89 window.
That’s almost 40 years ago and first blue cruise arrived 2021?
It took them 30+ years to turn research/concept into actual product.

I just thought some of you would get a kick out of this history.
Now anyone from Ford is lurking here and have a way to find out it would be nice to know origins of eye scanning technology inside Ford.

No promises, but I'm seeing what I can find out for y'all!

 

[rzanzerkia]

No promises, but I'm seeing what I can find out for y'all!

That would be awesome. I’m pretty sure it’s not directly connected to blue cruise but history of eye scanning research at Ford intrigues me considering what I heard way back in 1985-89.
Thank you for your reply.

 

[rzanzerkia]

I’m obviously much younger than the other guys around here reminiscing about DEC. One of the roles for my first job out of college (2005) was buying every DEC Alpha that showed up on eBay, because they were critical to our infrastructure and obsolete by a mile.

I’m trying to stay on the topic of Ford and eye scanning research but my post was inseparable from DEC ?
Just to date my age, I was at DEC when Alpha server was developed ? These were high quality machines.

 

[valeriol]

This is a bit of an old story but I find it fascinating.
When would you guess Ford started thinking about the technology to scan eyes for our hands free Blue cruise feature?
Most would guess last 5-10 years right?

So back in 1984-1995 I used to work at a company called Digital Equipment corporation (long gone, was 2nd biggest computer company at the time).

One of the group I worked for 1985-89 was called Advance VAX development (Hardware development group).
I was a wee bit young junior engineer with focus on software tools for hardware development.

When our lead tech engineer left the group he mentioned this story.
Ford had contacted him to research eye scanning hardware.
Mind you IBM and DEC were the two biggest and reputable computer companies at the time so it makes sense that Ford reached out to engineers from these companies.

Now I have no idea what he did after he left DEC or how long he worked for Ford.
Nor do I know the work he or any DEC engineers did for Ford actually ended up in the Blue Cruise implementation.

However the story stuck in my mind that fact remains: Ford was thinking about using eye scanner technology back in 1985-89 window.
That’s almost 40 years ago and first blue cruise arrived 2021?
It took them 30+ years to turn research/concept into actual product.

I just thought some of you would get a kick out of this history.
Now anyone from Ford is lurking here and have a way to find out it would be nice to know origins of eye scanning technology inside Ford.

Off topic, but you brought back fond memories of my early career. The DEC VAX was my bread and butter from '84 to '97 (from the 780 to an Alpha station, with some PDP-8 and PDP-9 thrown in the mix). The orange wall was my bible (was upset when they turned it in the beige wall).

For all those that are unfamiliar, DEC provided a set of fantastic manuals that took a whole bookcase, originally they came in bright orange binders, eventually they were replaced with lame beige binders.

 

[Jimrpa]

I’m trying to stay on the topic of Ford and eye scanning research but my post was inseparable from DEC ?
Just to date my age, I was at DEC when Alpha server was developed ? These were high quality machines.

I’ll try to avoid saying “PDP 8”, “PDP 11/xx”, “KA10”, “KL10”, and “DECSYSTEM 20xx” ?

Oh, and don’t get me started on CDC 6400s and 6600s ?

Good times ?

 

[macchiaz-o]

You all are youngsters.

I've been collecting tree resins and beeswax for more years than I'm willing to admit, all so I can manufacture longer and longer tapes for my esteemed and dearly missed colleague Alan Turing's incredible machine. My goal is to physically prove out Alan's theory of completeness. As the rest of you race by with your bigger, fancier machines, you're just making my task so incredibly difficult. I'm buried in slightly red but mostly golden tape, literally.

 

[ESJB]

No promises, but I'm seeing what I can find out for y'all!

Hi all from Canberra, Australia. We have a local company who does eye tracking tech. Just asking a friend of a friend whether they were involved...

Sponsored