Mercedes-Benz intros SPLITVIEW COMMAND system

It’s hardly the first example of the technology — we saw a very similar system from Delphi in action at CES last year — but Mercedes-Benz’s new SPLITVIEW COMMAND system appears to be one of the first instances of it being used in a production vehicle, and that certainly counts for something. From the looks of it, the system is very similar to the Delphi one, with the 8-inch display able to let the driver keep an eye on the GPS while the passenger simultaneously watches a DVD or something equally distracting on the very same screen. That’s done with the use of a special filter that masks the display and only lets the proper pixels slip into view depending on where you are seated. No word on what sort of premium the system will demand, if any, but it’ll apparently be available on all S-Class models starting in the summer of 2009.