Forgot Where You Parked? A New Gadget Offers Hope

It happens to the best of us: After a week on holiday, you step off the airplane and look at the sea of cars in the parking lot, with no idea where you left yours two weeks earlier. To the rescue comes Siemens, which is launching in March a new "car finding" system at Heathrow Airport in London. Genius!

The idea is pretty simple at heart: A camera scans your license plate as you enter the garage, and a computer assigns you a parking spot, printing the stall number right on the ticket. The garage then shows you where to park, by leading you exactly to the nearest empty spot with lights embedded in the pavement. When it's time to leave, you just look at the ticket. If you need more help, just insert it into a kiosk and you get a map of exactly where your assigned stall was. Lost your ticket? Just type in your license plate number.

If you lost your ticket and you don't know your license plate number, well, you're out of luck. Consider carrying your license plate number in your wallet or on a small tattoo.

The Heathrow project will keep tabs on 3,800 parking places as a test of how well the technology works before it is potentially rolled out to other locations.

And it's not just a time saver: Observers are hoping the technology proves to be a green one. The goal is that assigned parking spots will help keep people from driving in endless loops as they hunt for a parking spot. Siemens believes it will reduce carbon emissions by almost 400 tons per year.

LINK: Can't remember where you parked at the airport? Meet the gadget that will find your car for you