The next "latest and greatest" thing out now (or soon) is a system by some of the luxury car makers (I think Audi and/or BMW?): "smart lighting" headlight systems.

Basically, instead of just a headlight bulb with hi and low beams, they use a single bulb (probably LED) and a TI micro-mirror array, controlled by a computer-vision (and other sensors) system to control the headlights to do some pretty amazing stuff:

* adaptive high-beams - lighting only the areas that need it

* auto-highlighting road-side obstacles (like animals or pedestrians or cars)

* placing "signage" at the feet of pedestrians to warn them

* highlighting of signs (and only the signs) with high-beams

Imagine the car steering the beams where needed, when needed - brightening things for your attention, dimming areas that are unwanted (oncoming traffic, for instance - to keep from blinding the other drivers), placing other information on the roadway as needed (for you and/or pedestrians), etc.

I think right now it is still a "beta idea" - still being developed. It seems plausible, but it might be something that proves too complex to be practical. The other downside of it (maybe the greatest downside) is that replacing bulbs (not too mention the module!) is probably going to ultra-super expensive.

Of course, most of these luxury cars already have a "service position" of "remove the entire front portion of the car" (or, if doing something interior, "remove the entire dashboard") - which already puts you into the several-hundred dollar repair cost range before anything is done...