That's the bit of your eyesight that doesn't capture too much detail but does excellently at detecting motion...so the extra data hopefully wouldn't be too distracting. Essentially its a clever way of augmenting your normal checking of the road, and avoiding being side-swiped by a fast-moving vehicle that was sitting outside your normal vision zones.

Simple and blindingly obvious, when you think about it... and could have potential uses in all sorts of places. I know it'd help with my skiing... or at least would've helped me avoid that dumb snowboarder who knocked me flat last year when he wasn't watching where he was going. Hopefully it's a concept that'll be a reality soon.

Though a Fresnel sensor has the same sharpness as a glass lens, it only collects about 10% of the light. That's why the sheet has to be really really big, like the 30-meter one mentioned above. Even worse, the Fresnel lens brings light to focus far away from its own surface. A 30-meter panel may require a spaceship with secondary lens and camera located several kilometers away to line up within a few millimeters to capture the image precisely on camera. That's some tricky flying, and would require a lot of energy, especially when the panel itself is constantly tilting to look at new, wondrous things. [New Scientist via Kurzweil AI]