Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Sightless Touch (Sightless touch infotainment system for drivers) Reporting period: 2017-05-01 to 2017-08-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Infotainment systems for drivers today form an integral component of futuristic automobiles for enhancing user experience. However, with the evolution of touch-based interfaces, interaction with the infotainment systems is not possible without looking at it. Companies have tried to solve it by using voice control, however voice control can be used only is relatively silent environment and having accuracy problems. The need for an effective technology that could enable seamless interaction without diverting vision and attention is evident. Distracted driving, caused by cell phone use and infotainment system, is a major cause of motor vehicle crashes. Taking your eyes off the road for only 2 seconds increases the risk for an accident 24 times: distractions caused by cell phone usage or current infotainment systems last an average of 27 seconds in which drivers aren't fully engaged. In the US alone, 9 people are killed and 1000 are injured each day in crashes that are reported to involve distracted driving. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far Inpris is an award winning Israeli company founded in 2011 with the intent to develop a virtual keyboard that allows users to type effectively, regardless of where they are looking. We started off by developing a virtual Braille keyboard for the visually impaired to improve the quality of life of this demographic group. The game-changing impact of our innovation was recognized in 2014 at the UN's WSA award as "one of the 200 best apps in the world". Once achieved our previous milestones, we decided to apply our patented technology to solve the problem of driver distraction when using car infotainment systems. In 2016 the breakthrough nature of our innovation was also recognized within the car industry as we were awarded in the category of Most User-Friendly HMI Feature by CAR-HMI in Berlin Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) By removing driver distraction, it will help avoid the accidents directly caused by distraction when using infotainment systems which annually lead to 2,400 deaths and €1.6 billion in health costs and make a significant contribution in helping achieve goals of 2011 Transport White Paper: ”Moving to 0 fatalities in road transport by 2050”.
