Picture driving a car and seeing navigation arrows right on the road. You no longer have to deal with maps: the entire control panel is right in front of your eyes. Does this sound like a video game? This technology will soon become reality.
In 2012 Vitaly Ponomaryov got into a road accident due to a lagging navigator. This inspired him to invent a whole new system that would make driving safer. This was the birth of WayRay, a technology that integrates virtual objects into reality. The company’s experts faced the task of creating something more than just a flexible screen: a system that could turn any glass surface into an augmented reality window. It took WayRay four years and $10 million to develop the system. The work has not stopped yet. First cars to have this futuristic software installed are to hit the road in 2020. The vehicles are to be built by a yet unnamed “premium European manufacturer” and China’s SAIC Motor.
WayRay is currently valued at $500 million and supported by Alibaba, Porsche, Hyundai Motor, JSFC Sistema, and other companies.
Written by Polina Vorobyova
Translated by Tony Savosin
Photo by WayRay media service
