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Head-up displays have been around since the 1950s in jet fighters, and in automobiles since the 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Now, more sophisticated displays are coming to our cars to tell us how we're driving and to remedy our dangerous compulsion to check our phones while behind the wheel.

The Navdy ($499) is a new dash-mounted device with a 5.1-inch screen that syncs with smartphones to let the driver answer calls, send texts, or just check her miles per gallon while keeping eyes on the road. It goes on sale in early 2015 and is up for pre-order now.

Rather than drawing power from the cigarette lighter or being hard-wired to the battery, the Navdy plugs into the OBD II port — a small plug that sits on the lower left side of the steering column on any post-1996 automobile, typically used to diagnose problems with the car. In addition to drawing power unobtrusively, connecting to the OBD II lets the Navdy display on-board data like fuel efficiency and speed, along with phone-based information such as Google Maps directions or Pandora stations.

Along with a noise-canceling microphone for voice inputs, which allows the user to use audio commands like "read latest text message," or "share my location," Navdy has a rear-facing infrared camera that can read motion inputs. As shown in the company's demo video, the driver can accept a phone call with a thumbs-up, or swipe an index finger to prime the device to accept voice inputs.

Why not just project this info on the windshield itself rather than displaying on a separate device? Glass needs special treatment to properly render pixels from a projector like this, and that means a stock windshield would muddle the images. And if every windshield were specially treated in this way, then a spider crack from a passing gravel truck would make replacing the glass quite expensive. Mazda claims this as an advantage in its Active Driving System, which uses a similar display setup to the Navdy. Other automakers, like Audi and GM's Corvette and Camaro, use the windshield projection method.

Navdy isn't the only electronics manufacturer making is own heads-up displays. Pioneer has an even more elaborate augmented reality setup, which reads the road ahead and shows locations of nearby businesses, but its technology hasn't shown up outside of the convention center floor. Garmin has similar technology in its aptly named HUD, but, as we found, it has issues with GPS accuracy and its display looks straight out of the original Tron—not in a good way.

For now, unless Google Glass takes over or self-driving suddenly show up, see-through displays like Navdy are emerging as the best option for a compromise between in-car phone use and attentive driving. We're not going to stop using our phones while driving, no matter how obvious the danger, so hopefully being able to watch traffic ahead while skipping through Pandora stations means a safer drive.

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