It has been around since 2005, but is still interesting: the Nissan Pivo Concept Car. This weird looking vehicle owns some nifty technologies, changing the way we interact with the car. One of them is the ability to turn the cabin around in the direction you are driving, making parking a pleasure. And yes, the car can drive sideways. To make this driving experience work they integrated an ‘Around View Monitor’ which constantly generates a 360-degree view of the car’s surroundings on the dashboard.

But what makes it really interesting for Johnny is the way you interact with your navigation system, audio player and other technology. At Nissan they came up with the “Magic 4″ concept, which is a new type of interface. Your hardware isn’t physically controlable anymore, but integrated in the car. Through a central display screen they can be controlled, but this display doens’t have a touchscreen or physical buttons… You simply have to point your finger at the IR system, while keeping your hands on the steering wheel. Pointing one finger will activate the first feature, while pointing three fingers will activate… the third (how surprising). And when you want to make the music louder, you simply motion your finger upwards. The display on the first Pivo was integrated directly below your windscreen, into the dashboard. While on the Pivo 2 it is a special screen again.

The dashboards of the Pivo 2 and Pivo:

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