Mercedes S-Class news - Double vision - 2008

Imagine this mad, outlandish vision of the distant future.

You’re sitting in the driver’s seat, your eyes on the central display screen, checking the satnav. Your passenger is watching the same screen… but she’s looking at something completely different. Home and Away, or something. It’s the same screen… with two different things on it. Madness, we tell you. Mind control, surely?

This isn’t the year 2050, though. Oh no. This is next summer, in the Mercedes S-Class. It’s something called Splitview technology, and works by showing two different images simultaneously by placing pixels adjacent to each other on the eight-inch screen, with a filter masking the display.

Sounds very clever, but how irritating it is going to get for the driver? You’re watching something as boring as, ooh, your mpg readout, while your significant other is guffawing along to some unseen moment of comedic genius on the very same screen.

And, more importantly, how long before Merc develops a radio that streams the football into the ears of the driver, and Passion FM to the passenger? Or vice versa, of course...