Advances both of the alerting kind and of the distracting kind made their presence known at last week's Philadelphia International Auto Show.
Taking a CUE: The Cadillac User Experience offers a new level of infotainment interface for drivers.
Jim Vurpillat, Cadillac's global director of marketing, showed off the system, which will be available in the company's new ATS and XTS models. It offers more than just a plain, old touch screen like the kind you might find at an ATM. Now, drivers can get feedback just like they get from their own high-tech toys.
"It's touch, swipe, scroll, pinch - all the things that people are used to in their smartphones," Vurpillat said.
It also gives a little buzz to the fingers when something is selected.
The system will debut later in the spring in the new Cadillac XTS large sedan.
Seat of your pants: Cadillac will also offer a new rear cross-traffic alert, which is useful for backing your new ATS or XTS out of a parking space when you're parked between, say, a Hummer and a Land Cruiser.
It buzzes the right side of the seat if a vehicle is coming at you from the right rear, or the left if it's coming from the left.
And a virtual bumper will recognize you're about to back into something and apply the brakes.
Time for coffee?: The 2013 Ford Fusion will add something called the Lane Keeping System.
Using a camera to detect the white line on the right and dotted line on the left, the system alerts drivers when they're drifting, said Jason Sprawka, a Ford marketing manager.
Lots of automakers offer a similar package already, but this one comes with a nifty three-tier warning system:
At first, the steering wheel will vibrate.
If it's reactivated, the steering will drift you back to where you want to be.
