If Microsoft Built Cars... 642
trystanu writes "If Microsoft Built Cars, occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason; you'd
accept this, restart and drive on -- at least that was the joke a few years ago. ZDNET reports that Microsoft has persuaded a number of carmakers to use its slimmed-down Windows CE operating system to power a variety of in-car electronics, from navigation systems to music players to information devices. BMW, in particular, has gravitated to Microsoft systems, although the company has announced wins with Honda, Volvo and others as well. Perhaps the recent trapping of Thai dignitaries inside a BMW should be a warning to us all."
It's a good fit (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure in the US there's some protection offered under the same law that forces manufacturers to allow you to use aftermarket parts, but I don't know if that precedent would extend to electronics equipment that isn't really part of the car.
Win CE/PPC 2003 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:4 words (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's a good fit (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no reason to trust MS cars, but..... (Score:5, Interesting)
"We couldn't breathe because there was no air," he added.
I have not yet met the car that was utterly and completley sealed. And there's a lot of air in the passenger space of even a small sports car, and this was a "luxury car". See below for more reasons why, even if it were completley sealed, this is totally stupid. Even if they mean no air conditioning, I can't imagine in the time this occurred it got so hot they couldn't breathe.
To draw attention, the minister and his driver waved frantically at passers-by. The incident ended only after a nearby security guard smashed the car's windows with a sledgehammer.
Even with the heavy-duty tool, Suchart said it took a long time to break the windows as the "glass proved to be very resistant".
The harrowing experience lasted about 10 minutes, he said.
Let's see "it took a long time.... about 10 minutes". What exactly is wrong with this statement? Certainly 10 minutes is longer than you expect for a sledgehammer to go through glass, but even so, that's NOT really a long time. Certainly not enough time to asphyxiate. Can you say complete panic?
Re:Music Players? (Score:5, Interesting)
idrive issues (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news, try getting a service on an engine management system over 15 years old. Almost impossible. I think I'll go back to carbs
this helped me make a decision... (Score:2, Interesting)
I dont want to die at the hands of Bill Gates.
Windows gets slow after running a few days.
I can see this happening:
I go out to the car one morning, and try to unlock the car... takes 30 seconds to unlock..
takes 30 seconds to start... 30 seconds to brake (CRASH! dead.)
Nice try Bill, But I will stick to a NON-WINDOWS car for now.
Re:Trapped inside a locked car? (Score:5, Interesting)
In my brand new Honda Accord, I came out to the cold Canadian air last week, pressed the button on my key to open the door, and All I heard was a faint thudding click. It seemed the locking mechanism was a tad frozen ( it was -26c that night).
Repeated attempts were not producing results, so I inserted the key into the lock, figuring I'd just open in manually. It turns out there is no physical connection to the locking mechanism, the key simply triggers the electronic lock!
Needless to say, I ended up popping the trunk with the remote, and crawling thru, pushing down the back seat. When I got inside the car, I had to end up pulling the lock up mannualy, and boy was it ever stuck.
Seems like a simple thing, but how the hell could some idiot engineer put together a single point of failure for getting into the car?
What if the battery was dead? then neither the trunk nor the door would open, and I couldn't get in to pop the hood to replace the battery. Needless to say, I'm still quite pissed about it.
I'll be yelling rather profusely at the Honda rep this week.
G
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
The trouble with such a highly computerized car...I feel, is that once you get electrical demons in there...they are almost impossible to get rid of. Their diagnostic stuff could never catch the problems.
I sold it...got a 1986 Porsche Turbo (half the price...half the monthly note). Yes, things do still break...and expensive to repair, BUT, most everything on the car is mechanical....and if something does go wrong...my mechanic can usually diagnose the problem quickly...and find a quick fix for it.
I'm now up to almost 10 mpg....and it runs like a rocket sled on rails. I'm a definite believe in a more 'mechanical' car....much more dependable and easier to maintain IMHO.
Bumps and the BMW 7 series (Score:5, Interesting)
SSX5 (Score:4, Interesting)
The main reason being you want a real small real time kernel tucked in there for the engine controller, ABS, stability control, traction control, gear box.
All those systems are normally kept on a seperate network for traffic to from any telematics (industry BS word for the nav, steroe, DVD, phone, climate etc...). If they do use the big optical network it is through a gate way that is written to safety critical standards. Of course not every writer of safety critical or safety related software meets what I would consider adequate standards.
I was trapped (Score:5, Interesting)
The car was still operational, though, so I drove to a friend's house and eventually got their attention. Two hours later a locksmith finally got me out. In the mean time I had to sit through each passerby feeling compelled to go around the car and try every door, and then signal me to pull up on the lock. As if somehow no one had yet thought of that. It was a bit like waiting for an elevator, where each new arrival feels the need to press the button.
Does anyone remember? (Score:4, Interesting)
except the BMW 7-series is practically undriveable (Score:5, Interesting)
except that 7-series owners are trading their iDrive-equipped(and hideous-looking) cars in for Mercedes and Audis. They just don't "get" iDrive, and since it's tied into so many goddamn features on the car, if you don't "get" it, you're not "getting" most of the car. WinCE has been a -spectacular- failure in that car. There are videos running around the net showing a guy's 750iL hunting for gears on the highway, closing+opening the trunk incessantly, ejecting the key from the keyslot(making it impossible to start the car!), changing radio stations on its own...
If you want to see the interface done right, check out an Audi A8L with MMC. Similar idea, but instead of putting absolutely everything on the dial and making you push/pull/twist/etc, it's simply an "adjuster"; buttons around the dial are used to actually navigate around the menus. Oh, and it's also not in control of absolutely everything in the bloody car. It's only in charge of suspension settings, the radio, phone, and nav system(actually, it might have climate control too, I forget.)
The running joke in the auto industry is that the only reason Chris Bangle(BMW designer who ruined the 7-series and now the 5-series) has a job is that all his bosses got 7-series cars and can't get them out of the driveway to go into headquarters and fire him.
What I'm wondering is... (Score:2, Interesting)
And which Antivirus software does Microsoft recommend? I mean, I'd hate to have my car stall in a busy intersection because the onboard computer caught the blaster worm from someone's WiFi hotspot.
Kinda gives wardriving a whole new meaning, though.... Kids could drive around in rush hour traffic with a virus-infected Windows laptop and bring traffic to a halt!
AAA would be unaffordable! (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope the government forces car companies to label any car with an MS OS in it. Caveat emptor!
Not bikes, tanks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a little exerp:
Imagine a crossroads where four competing auto dealerships are situated. One of them (Microsoft) is much, much bigger than the others. It started out years ago selling three-speed bicycles (MS-DOS); these were not perfect, but they worked, and when they broke you could easily fix them.
There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery.
The big dealership responded by rushing a moped upgrade kit (the original Windows) onto the market. This was a Rube Goldberg contraption that, when bolted onto a three-speed bicycle, enabled it to keep up, just barely, with Apple-cars. The users had to wear goggles and were always picking bugs out of their teeth while Apple owners sped along in hermetically sealed comfort, sneering out the windows. But the Micro-mopeds were cheap, and easy to fix compared with the Apple-cars, and their market share waxed.
Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable.
Since then there has been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has changed. The smaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans and to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they have gotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and bigger station wagons and ORVs.
On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently.
One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others.
With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free.
Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships.
Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits.
The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player.
The group giving away the free tanks onl
drug dealer car for the ambassador (Score:5, Interesting)
Solution to the problem? A fire ax became standard equipment in the back seat of that car.
I never got to see the car, but I always imagined it as totally pimp-rific.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, the chicks liked that car.
I'll second it. (Score:5, Interesting)
But, go ahead and visit a dealer. That should be pretty hard to fake
The reason for the sticker is that they don't want to be resposible for interference-testing every possible combination. I didn't heed the warning, and I found that when I kept my cell phone stashed away in the compartment under the radio, the radio would randomly turn off about every 45 minutes. Now, I keep it in the cup holder, and the radio is fine.
I also suspect that interference is the reason they moved the computer into the engine area - they used to keep them in the passenger area, where the temperature is controlled (and not searingly hot), but that provides less shielding.
Open v Closed (Score:4, Interesting)
I still cary the same bag of tools in the trunk of the Benz, but mostly out of stubborn habit (and the fact that they provided a hidey-hole for them that was exactly the same size as my bag ;-), but I know that there's no way I'll be able to work on my new car with all the electronics.
As it was, I just had it winterized and requested they put a trickle-charger on the battery instead of a blanket heater. They had to disconnect the battery to do this. When I got back into the the car to drive it home all the electronic devices - seats, windows, sunroof, mirrors, etc. refused to work properly until they were "reset" - meaning run through their entire range twice. I paniced and thought the dealership had totally screwed my car up until I realized how to get functionality back.
Take this to the extreme then. What happens when, instead of just windows and seats, we have steer-, accelerate-, and brake-by-wire in our vehicles? If a computer program is controling this instead of some sort of redundant solid-state system, I want it to be bullet proof and open to public review - with the ability to mod it if I feel the need (yes, yes, warrantly, blah, blah) I just don't want a completely closed system where I have to trust the manufacturer (or God forbid, Microsoft) with critical systems in my car. And since it is MY car, I want the freedom to be able to "get under the hood" if I want/need to.
... or there's iTron (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if anyone is looking at any of the *BSD kernels for this sort of embedded use? They have reliability records comparable to iTron and linux, and also come with all the source code.
Man, it's a shame... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:If if if (Score:3, Interesting)
Not nobody.
Also, 9/11 was caused by poor airline security and lax regulation and oversight. Terrorists are a fact of life that's incredibly difficult (and expensive) to change. Airline security is something we could have changed to prevent this tragedy. And we still have not.
It's probably not too far off to say 99.9% of Windows crashing problems are due to operator error from installing bad drivers (from other manufacterers), installing bad hardware, installing crappy software.
But is that the user's fault? I buy a computer, I attach a printer, I expect the frickin thing to print. Is it MY fault the printer manufacturer went after the quick buck and wrote a crappy driver, and never updated it?
If GM made Windows, it would not be upgradable, it would run 1950's technology, it would cost $20000 every 5 years, and it would STILL CRASH!
Yeah, but the coders would have an AWESOME retirement plan. And they wouldn't be replaced by H-1B's.
Here Is What the Automotive Press Thinks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Car and Driver Magazine reviewed 6 luxury sedans in their December 2003 issue [caranddriver.com]. They rated the Lexus and the Jaguar 1 and 2. Here is what they said about the BMW iDrive:
Re:Win CE/PPC 2003 real-time/mission critical (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
'NEEDS' have nothing to do with it. How many gadgets do you need? Well, not many. How many can you have if you really want? How many fish in the sea man?
I submitted a story about this a while ago (rejected of course because I don't know the secret handshake), in the latest high end models, the cost of the electronics is rapidly approaching 50% of the cost of the car. Yes nearly HALF!
Well, you've got all those things like navigation, tuner, TV, MP3 player, cellphone, rearview camera, electronic windows and mirrors, A/C, let's just put it all in one box baby! And all the bits can talk to each other. So when your airbag goes off, your cellphone can automatically make an emergency call, retrieving your GPS coordinates from the navigation system. Or, when your engine management system predicts failure of some critical component within 100 miles, it navigates you straight to the nearest service centre. You need it *all* man, come on baby you know you want it?
I swear I'm not making this stuff up, I write software for some of these systems! And yes, there's a hell of a lot of it. And like you, it completely doesn't fill me with confidence how much of the car is being taken over by this stuff.
For example from the article:
"We couldn't breathe because there was no air"
and
"it took a long time to break the windows as the "glass proved to be very resistant"
Now that is scary. What happened to manual backups? On my washing machine, there's an electronic door opener, but there's also a hidden tab you can pull manually in the event of a power cut etc. There's no way in hell it should be impossible to open the doors if the system crashes, that really sucks! There's no way those systems are bulletproof.
Man, I can't wait for electronic brakes!!!
BS Bell clanging loudly alert! (Score:4, Interesting)
The F22 only just fits the time period; it started its software development process in the days of Windows 3.0.
No aircraft has Windows based Flight Control systems, not even the civil stuff.
Though that is not to say flight qualified software doesn't reset.
Re:No it's not... (Score:2, Interesting)
For one bugg piece of code (inevitable in *nix AND windows, not to mention everyone else) to bring the whole system spiralling down means the OS did not protect one subsystem from another.
Now I'm not saying I haven't hung my Linux Sparc simply by typing "modprobe reiserfs", it happens. I am saying that if something shits itself on any Windows OS, you're likely to see the BSOD, not some message on your console "xyz: shat itself - dropping to console" for example.
Re:hooray for MS (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Automatically switch on/off lights. Citroen C5, C8 and BMW 6 series. Possibly others.
2. Automatically switch on/off wipers and control wipers frequency. C5 at least.
3. Automatically retune suspension pressure and do autolevelling and compensation in sharp turns. C5 at least.
These are features I personally do not like being entrusted to anything but dedicated simple feedback systems with manual override. The last thing you want is the car to flip in the wrong direction when taking a sharp turn at 40mph on a wet mountain road (example taken out of a C5 commercial)
8 Things To Do Before We Put Computers in Cars (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Day-time running lights, so the car is more visible by other drivers and pededstrians.
3. Airbags for every possible passenger in the car.
4. Lots of compartments in the car to store things. I should have more places to store my 3 foot long 20 pound Mag-Lite of death than just the trunk. Of all the cars I've been in, only Suburu is really good about providing lots of places to put stuff.
5. Well-placed controls that allow a driver to operate them without taking their eyes off the road. The general placement of these controls should be standardized across all car brands and price-ranges.
6. Radios that lets the driver do the same as #5.
7. Make it impossible for someone to get locked out of their car. For example, my honda will only let me lock the driver's side door from the outside (using the key).
8. Cup-holders that do very well in accommodating a large variety of different sized-shaped beverage containers.
These are eight simple, easy, lo-tech things that we really should have done years ago that would make cars safer and more pleasant to be in. It is my opinion that until these basic things are added to every model of car produced in every price-range, we shouldn't even begin to think about adding something as complex and expensive as a computer.
Re:If Linux Users Built Cars... (Score:1, Interesting)
This one is more MS. I have done all sorts of updates on a Linux machine without having to restart or rebuild anything.... my XP machine still insists on being rebooted for every trivial update.
I just don't get this one.... are you claiming most people who say they run Linux don't?
My Gentoo system is more responsive than my XP on the same machine (duel boot). Boots in less time, apps start in less time... and the XP occasionaly gets into a 4 minute... 'wait, I am thinking about that last click' thing. Plus if you are running a webserver that is taking a lot of hits, Linux works great.
What, you work for Darl? You can lend it to whoever you want and they can keep it hidden. Its only if you try to 'distribute' that you have obligations.
Some funny points of course, but I think you could have been funny and slightly closer to reality.
Re:BS Bell clanging loudly alert! (Score:2, Interesting)
I did some google searches at the time. I learned that the Navy has tried the same thing with some of their planes and their ships. That being the case lends credibility to what they told me. The results were unfavorable. The window systems were removed as a result.
I'm not picking on Microsoft products. They don't have the best history with their software. While I use their products, I prefer using more stable environments for my work.
Re:If if if (Score:2, Interesting)
Linux, at least, does exactly what I tell it to, even if that's something stupid. If GM made computers, they would still crash, but only if you threw them against the wall. A car turns where I tell it to turn, without second-guessing me. I expect the same from my computer. With Windows, I never know what's going to happen.
And btw, if it's "operator error" to install third-party drivers, sue me, because there's almost no computer I've ever seen with all of its hardware compatable with Microsoft-only drivers. And there's no verification process on those drivers, and if the driver fails, it brings down the system with it.
My worst fear of "if Microsoft made cars", though, makes me seem a conspiracy theorist. If Microsoft made cars, your car would log everywhere you go (have you manually gone through Temporary Internet Files from something other than Windows, e.g. DOS or Linux?) and at any time, due to automatically installing new components, Microsoft could replace your steering wheel with a sign that says "Don't Panic" and start driving your car.