Audi presented a new type of entertainment system for passenger cars at this year's CES in Las Vegas: Thanks to state-of-the-art virtual reality technology, passengers can virtually recreate real driving movements of the car in video games and interactive content. Together with Disney, a game set in the "Marvel's Avengers" universe has already been presented.
Audi wants to make long car journeys an adventure even for passengers in the back seat: At this year's CES trade fair in Las Vegas, the German carmaker presented a new virtual reality technology that will be commercialised in the future via the start-up holoride GmbH, co-founded by the subsidiary Audi Electronics Venture GmbH. The new technology makes it possible to transfer the real driving and steering movements of the car in real time into interactive content and video games that can be experienced by the passengers.
Users become vulgar raccoons
To present the new technology, Audi, together with its partners Disney and Interactive Experiences, presented "Marvel's Avengers: Rocket's Rescue Run". As can be seen from the title, the passenger slips into the role of the vulgar raccoon "Rocket" from the Marvel universe, who will be familiar to most viewers from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" films and the latest Avengers part. In his spaceship, you fly through an asteroid field at the speed of light. It is no coincidence that a Marvel title was chosen for the presentation: since the first appearance of the Audi R8 in the forerunner of the Marvel hits, the first Iron Man part from 2008, both companies have been working together regularly.
Every movement of the car is taken over in VR
The special feature: Every movement of the car is meaningfully transferred to the virtual spaceship in real time. If the car makes a sharp turn, Rocket's ship orbits another spaceship in the interactive application; if the car accelerates or brakes, the Guardians of the Galaxy ship also speeds up or slows down. Each driving manoeuvre is thus assigned certain forms of representation in the VR app.
Other carmakers will also profit
To drive the technology forward, Audi has co-founded the start-up Holoride through its subsidiary Audi Electronics Venture. Audi technology is licensed to the young company. A corresponding open platform for the commercialisation of VR entertainment is to be made available to other carmakers and content developers in the future. A software development kit is to be made available for this purpose.
Source: Chip / t3n / Photo dpa
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