This startup hopes to keep barf bags out of self-driving cars

Fully autonomous cars could make your travel time a lot more productive in the coming years--just think of all the things you could do if you didn't have to pay attention to driving. Though they're not that common yet, self-driving cars are moving toward consumer use, with companies like Google's Waymo testing them out on public roads. And these cars are likely to inflate the problem of motion sickness, which is caused when a person's eyes and inner ears send conflicting signals to the brain: the ear detects the motion of the automobile, but the eye sees the stationary surroundings of the interior. Driving helps mitigate the effects because it helps to constantly observe outside movement, but autonomous cars would take that crutch away. Without the need for a driver, it may also be more challenging for passengers to anticipate the car's motion and more likely that riders will be facing backwards or sideways rather than straight ahead--both things that can make you want to hurl.