Continental's Morphing Controls and Curved Lens Display innovations win design awards
Car component maker Continental, best known for its tires, received two awards at the German Design Award in the product design category. These were for concepts developed by Continental in car controls and displays that improve user experience.
The first product to win was the Morphing Controls functional surfaces. Through this technology, 3D buttons appear on a seamless surface in the car when a hand is in close proximity. The user experiences a brief pulse once they have used the button, which then disappears once the button has been retracted. Continental says innovations like this will able to comply with users need for more features in their cars that are easy to use but with fewer buttons.
The other winning innovation was the Curved Plastic Lens Display. This system takes large-screen display in cars a step forward. Continental's display is made of plastic at less cost they make sense of mass-market vehicle or can be built to a larger size, as compared to glass. These displays' unique curvature and shaping also make it easier to display larger amounts of data more effectively, while allowing for more creative designs.
Dr. Frank Rabe, head of the Human Machine Interface Business Unit at Continental said of this win, "We are very pleased that the German Design Council has recognized the quality of our design and development work. The awards encourage us to continuously develop our solutions to improve the user experience." The German Design Award is the German Design Council's international design prize with an objective to discover, present and reward unique design trends.
