Designers Propose Rear Wiper with LED Messaging

This ingenious design for a rear wiper was developed by the team of Huang Junxi, Ma Jincai and Ding Dong. The wiper has a set of embedded LED lights that are computer controlled to create an image as the wiper sweeps back and forth. Of course, to the human eye, the moving LEDs will look like a complete image, thanks to the persistence-of-vision illusion.

In the designers’ image, the wiper is programmed to warn following drivers any time road conditions require the car’s driver to flip on the rear wiper, like rainy or foggy weather. It could also be used to automatically warn upcoming drivers if the car is broken down along the side of the road.

This seems like a great idea and very useful to warn following drivers. Of course, I could imagine hackers having a heyday with this technology and sending all sorts of messages to other drivers. Tailgaters, beware!