This makes me want to drive through it… not exactly the effect that a stop light should evoke.

Pedestrian impacts also cause unnecessary paint damage and may possibly void certain manufacturer warranties and/or service agreements.

This would be great until an emergency services vehicle such as an ambulance crashes because the driver’s vision was impaired.

it’s a fine idea….. but how are they plan on doing that? Using laser today is not possible to display such detail or image appearing in mid air.

So my question is…. why post such a faulty dream hope idea when it’s not possible?

Oh OH ohhh! got a better idea since those don’t really stop you from hitting anyone…. Let the computer drive the car for you. Duh.

Don’t need giant red people roaming all over the places. -_-;

(posting from the year 2028)
Yes, I hate these laser walls that clog our every turn. It was ok in the 2010’s, when they were only used in dense urban areas. But, then the city of Houston made that deal with GoogleSoft to outsource their infrastructure development for a slice of advertising royalties. The new “adlights” spread everywhere as cities, towns, and truck stops tried to get in on the action.

If only we could simplify the design a bit. Focus the signal into a smaller visual footprint, perhaps with different colors for whether you should yield, stop, or go. It would be cheaper, more reliable, and easier to maintain. And no more ads.

I hate you, GoogleSoft.

I like this idea. A lot.
But I agree with the first comment too: people (ME!) would be tempted just to drive through it. I would enhance it a bit: put in motion sensors too so that if the car crashes into the image, some huge speakers would blare out screams and cries of “KENNY! OH MY GOD - YOU KILLED KENNY!” and we would have visuals of big red people flying in different directions.

That’d learn them.

surely innovative. Impressive

Must be a cool light show.. But I don’t see this working in high density urban areas where crosswalks are seldom used. I should know I never use the crosswalk her in ny.

I love the idea, but I think certain cars need to get special exclusion, such as ambulance, police car …

This is ‘design’? You come up with something impossible with current technology, ignore the need to create technology to make it possible, photoshop a picture of it, then claim you ‘designed’ it?

I assumed that the idea of designing such technology involved creating a viable blueprint for the hardware and programming necessary to implement the idea. I was really looking forward to an explanation if how these ‘plasma lasers’ were going to make images hover in midair in broad daylight.

But if that’s not the case, I can see a career for myself designing flying saucers, killer robots, and rocket pants. It should be easy now that I don’t have to worry about such important things as how or why.

Another question:

If you have lasers powerful enough to be seen in daytime, they’re certainly not going to be eye-safe. How do you create this impossible technology in such a way as to be eye-safe?

Looks cool but wildly impractical even beyond the technological hurdles of creating a wall of light in thin air.

- Right hand turns on red are legal… so you could have trouble seeing pedestrians. Through any kind of ‘wall’.
- How do we have plasma walls but not cars that can manage to not hit a pedestrian? If I have plasma fences I expect automatic cars or at least some sort of cool down town pod train system.

i think ppl will spoil it in my country XD
the cost not low right !

It’s impossible, and can’t possibly work (without photoshop). Other than that, it’s quite nice

Where’s the problem…? You simply slide up a big windowpane out of the ground and use it as a projection surface. If the glass is thick enough it really protects the pedestrians behind it.

Or we could finally get automated traffic/roadways going after the last 60 years of speculation and development, and do away with hopelessly bad drivers and traffic lights (or walls) altogether.
However impractical the design is, if mostly technical, its still a positive reinterpretation of an every day fixture and thats what matters. One things leads to another and all ends are unknown.

Eric K, you should have just said you didn’t agree with the use of the word designer in this case and left it at that. Otherwise you sound like you believe every rough concept out there needs to be backed up by a million dollar development grant or fleshed out by one person who’s a ‘ conceptual designer’ but also a competent professional in engineering (of several kinds in this case), physics, city planning, and psychology. Thats not the way it works.

There’s two things wrong with this “design”:
1. It is not physically possible.
2. It’s not his bloody Idea, clearly the man just read Transmetropolitan and copied the (wholly fictional) traffic lights of the future.

How about cross it and your license plate gets a photo.

It is a wonderful idea, but laser is well established hazardous for anyone eye, if use at a powerful level.

I propose using LED light beam might be safer than laser. The light intensity of LED is much less and less chance of blindness, especially if children is playing with the beam.

One problem with this idea that it prone to abuse by children or other punks. Simple tape cover it up and cease to works correctly.

It may be better to use over head system rather than side street bars or emitted from the road surface, so it out of reach.

Good luck, I believe this is very good ides, far better than traffic light system.

R.

Fake pictures!

Uhhmmmmm… I think both people and car driver will be tempted to go trough it , crashing together!!

super!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s a word for people like Eric K: TROLL. Even if the idea lacks merit or viability, being an idea-bashing bully doesn’t change the idea. Doing so only proves you’re a troll, Eric K.

Instead of bashing the idea, try offering helpful suggestions or alternatives.

Those who offer constructive criticism of others advance society.
Those who offer only abuse, destroy it.

Below is a non-troll constructive criticism:

The plasma/laser grid offers only a signal mechanism, consumes power continuously while lit, and cannot prevent people from driving right through. While admittedly not as “flashy” or “high-tech” in appearance, mechanical engineering should not be discarded. Try using a simple mechanical system that raises and lowers steel reinforced concrete barricades. The barricades would also help stop people from running red-lights, too. While this could prevent “right turn on red” for those places where it is legal, the increase in public safety would be well worth the 15-40 second wait for pedestrians to cross.

Be helpful, or shut the fuck up.

OK, so the idea, As IT STANDS, is physically impossible. The question is- should I (or anyone else) spend time coming up with an alternative?

That depends on the value you put on time, I suppose.

For example, I’d suggest a series of micro-jets, spraying water UP and being swept by stroboscopic lights. Such a barrier is visible, yet penetrable by emergency vehicles- at the risk of getting wet.

Just out of curiosity, how big a problem is this anyway?

The complete inability to implement this “design” notwithstanding - how many pedestrians are actually hit by drivers, at a crossing, when there’s a red light?

And of those traffic collisions that do occur, how many would have reasonably been prevented by the proposed design?

(For example, in cases of DUI or speeding vehicles, would such a system have been any more effective than standard traffic lights?)

I haven’t researched these figures myself, which is why I’m asking - hey, maybe we need to take measures against the rising tide of motorists who are not capable of both checking traffic lights and not running over pedestrians.

But until I see such evidence, I know I wouldn’t want to implement this, even if it were actually physically possible to do so.

I wish we had such virtual bariers in our human relations
can anybody make that also…

what happens when a large truck stops next to one of the projector poles and blocks the beam? Traffic chaos.

Impressive, but not possible. Traffic lights are managed by computers in large cities already. But if it would be cheaper to implement “Traffic Wall”…

What’s the power consumption required to make a plasma wall? As an electrical engineer I’d guess 100-10,000x a walk signal.

Cool idea, but not very “green”, and probably very hard to see in bright sun.

An old-fashioned railroad swing-arm gate would be cheaper, lower-power, and at least as effective, I’d think.

So can motorists see the “pedestrians” BEFORE they arrive at the crosswalk?

Does the light show only activate when people are entering it? Or is it on all the time?

I think it would be most effective if it only activated when pedestrians are actually approaching and/or using the crosswalk, rather than being active all the time. If it’s on all the time, motorists might get desensitized to its presence.

EXCELLENT IDEA, though, I think.

I’m amazed at the number of people who say “Keep an open mind” when discussing something that clearly will not work.

Anyone can think “outside the box”. But doing so is not useful unless you can tie your dreams to some sort of reality.

A throw-away mention of Keio University’s plasma laser display device does not make this idea possible. That technology does not work in this manner, and is not at all safe to deploy where someone might accidentally walk into the beams.

Further, the people behind the plasma laser display device are true inventors, they thought outside the box, and THEN FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE THEIR IDEA A REALITY. Simply, coming up with crazy ideas, while important, is the easy part. Any six year old can do that.

On the other hand, If this technology existed, then it would be in use EVERYWHERE. Not just street crossings.

You wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without seeing a zillion floating laser ads It’s not as though no one has invented the ability to project images in mid-air because they couldn’t think of a use for it.