Brad Gieske, a designer who works on interior electronics at Chrysler, said the concept is more about making the car connected than it is about any particular piece of hardware. He said that designers were frustrated both by the dull rectangular display screens in current autos and by the size and format limits of smart phones.
“We wanted to take the square out of the center console,” Mr. Gieske said. “We wanted to make it about technology, but at the same time we wanted to make it beautiful, to make it elegant.”
The dashboard controls use technology that recognizes gestures such as touching and dragging a fingertip across the panel; the display and the animations of a virtual trackball control are the work of Chrysler. The basic patent behind the touch-screen hardware comes from Nartron Corporation of Reed City, Mich., a maker of touch screens for automotive, military and consumer electronics uses, said Norman Rautiola, Nartron’s founder. Mr. Rautiola said he was certain that a system like this would rapidly find its way into new cars. It is likely to be far cheaper in the long run than mechanical buttons and switches, he said.
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