Dashboard Linux

zebziggle writes "The dashPC has Global Positioning (GPS) and Navigation, DVDs, Games (Quake 3, SoF, UT), Address book database, etc. It can run any programs that will run on an Intel/AMD i686 class computer. There is a Basic Stamp micro-controller that interfaces the Linux box to the car ignition for controlled boot/shutdown." The article says Linux, but that screenshot tells a different story. The website has other stuff and a lot more pictures.

Comments

what's better?

[blugecko]

Now when I get hit on my bike again by a car, instead of the old "i was on my cell" they will "i was in the middle of recompiling my kernel..." to the officer

Beowulf?

[czardonic]

Imagine a ten car pile-up of these!

Driver distractions

[Lewisham]

Do drivers really need any more distractions? They're supposed to be watching the road, rather than whomping through pedestrians. Why the hell would you want to play UT in the car? Frag a few people at the traffic lights? The real kicker is that it doesn't actually run when the engine is off. Hooray!
However, the rather pointless walnut styling on the keyboard really sells the thing to me :)

The Next Step

[Talisman]

What with all the automobile modifications for running computers, the next logical step is to simply replace the windshield with a monitor.

Cameras mounted on the front of the car would provide the driver with images from the road. The rest of the 'screen' could be divided into whatever the user(s) would like.

Say the passenger wants to play Quake, he opens a window and plays it on the right side, while the screen in the middle plays The Lion King for the kids in the back.

This would also allow stronger bodies on cars, as the composite used in place of windows would be far stronger than glass.

Talisman

Re:The Next Step

[Mr. Sketch]

Cool idea. I've often thought of something similar for a car, but I've since thought that a Heads Up Display would be better suited for the purpose of displaying video on the windshield. Everything you mentioned could easily be done with a heads up display, and I think it would also end up looking cooler and being safer.

(Actually my idea I had was about 7 years ago, while I was a major trekkie, was for a car that looked like and worked like a ST:TNG shuttlecraft. I had blueprints and everything, but somewhere along the lines I grew up :) ).

Re:The Next Step

[brer_rabbit]

And after that, the next obvious thing is to replace the mouse with the steering wheel. And wire up the gear shifter as a joystick.

It's all fun and games until someone *thinks* they're playing Carmageddon but they're really driving around the Target parking lot at 80 mph...

Re:The Next Step

[milkmandan9]

Besides the obvious safety considerations (what happens if the monitor dies or if a nicely-sized rock manages to punch a hole straight through the camera lens?), there are many advantages to having nothing besides a piece of glass in your way.

First off, the windshield is big enough that if any significant portion of the glass gets damaged enough so that you can't see it, you generally can see enough to pull over to the side of the road. Glass is ungodly simple this way--if you critically damage part of it, the whole thing isn't going to fail.

Secondly, glass is relatively easy to fix and cheap to replace: A new windshield runs for around $200. Any camera/monitor combo would likely cost tens of times as much. What's more, even if you've got a chasm-of-doom running down the middle of your windshield, you can still drive (albeit not terribly legally). With a cam/monitor combo, a dead camera means a useless car.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the human factor. The human optical system is a very complex systems that's been honed for tens of thousands of years to process lots of bits of information at once. When I'm driving down the freeway at 75mph, maybe ten or twenty car-lengths behind someone, I can feel if I'm getting closer or farther away from them, despite there being a speed difference of only a couple of mph. Most peoples' eyes are also much sharper than most LCD screens (we won't discuss CRTs -- they're big, heavy, and a major safety hazard -- would you like a vacuum-filled glass tube in front of your head when you get in a wreck?) I've seen camera-and-LCD rear-view mirror replacements, and I haven't been impressed. Even at high resolutions, there's a lack of detail and intuitive connection to the image. It's the same feeling as looking through a periscope--your mind loses its connection to the object that you're looking at. You don't have any of those problems with glass.

Read this!

[wiredog]

Article about the dangers of car PC's and cell phones use while driving.

Re:Read this!

[nuintari]

They wanna outlaw talking on cell phones while driving, with good cause. Then someone comes along and inventsd "mobile quake 3 for the really bvored driver!"

God we're dumb.

Re:Read this!

[Quizme2000]

Great, now Bill Gates can say open source movement can kill.
When somebody gets hit when the driver's attention is distracted by the radio, phone, or tv it is an accident that was 100% avoidable in the eyes of the law. Just having this rig in your car makes you liable for any accident your in, and any would be theif walking pass your ride. If this is for passenger use Only(?) it fine, just like the game systems/TVs in minivans. Adding anything to the dashboard that distracts the driver is extremly dangerous period. Voice activitation and HUD won't solve the problem either, its still distracts.
IMHO when automated driving systems become standard (which they will) then I'll have no problem with the driver of the SUV fragging the scrpit kiddie in the minivan.

He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[tmhsiao]

If you look at the dashpc.com site, he mentions that he's running VMWare for Windows 98 access to the GPS software.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Milican]

The listed software includes VMware. So it looks like your windows theories are true, but only by emulation.

JOhn

Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[ReidMaynard]

Please note: This system was designed for the enjoyment of my passengers.

*My* passengers are to busy praying not to die, while I navigate my bmw @ 2xSpeed Limit speeds.

Nifty

[chihowa]

This is great.
I've put a system in my car that does a few of these things. It's based on a regular x86 system, but uses straight DC-DC for power (eats less power). The BASIC STAMP I used (BS2-SX) is set up to power up the computer on ignition and it can start the car on a signal from the computer, as well. I'm in the process of setting my trunk button on my keyless entry to turn on the computer instead. I have a 5" LCD (no touchscreen yet!) and tiny keyboard (keypad next to the LCD, too).
So far it has integratio with my GPS: moving map, output to my stereo, 802.11b (to work on it from my home, transfer music, etc), and the beginning of an interface to my car's CPU and testing system.
I'm using a big deep-cycle battery to power it (charges from car) when the car isn't on, but I really just want to make it more low-power from the bottom up. My car is pretty light-weight anyway (RX-7), so I'd like to lose the battery eventually.
This is mostly spare parts and home-built electronics, though, so I spent less than $200 on it as it is. My entire CD collection is in it in fairly high bitrate mp3/ogg files.
Once the car CPU interface is complete, I can have all sorts of useless realtime stats to look at instead of the road!
Now I just need retractable wings and I'm set. (Maybe oil-slick and caltrops, too!)

What we REALLY need . . .

[cjpez]

A bunch of us were talking once about how keen it'd be to actually have Linux RUNNING your car. As in, replace whatever's in the "little black box" with Linux.

So you'd actually have /dev/engine, /dev/wheel[0123] . . . Some stuff under /proc to report stats and the like. You'd have things like "steerd" running in the background to handle steering. Get a remote interet connection up and you could even SSH into your car to diagnose engine problems! Think of the possibilities!

You could even use the standard Linux sound structure to deal with your car's audio system. /dev/audio and the like. Have mpg123 for mp3s, some cd player to deal with CDs. Heck, since we're doing mp3s now, you could actually serve mp3s up to OTHER cars running Linux! We could probably hack up Gnutella to do some keen P2P stuff. ("Damn, I forgot my NIN CD at home. But wait! That Honda over there is sharing them! Great!")

Of course, then you've gotta worry about people h4x0ring into your car. That'd bite. We'd have to make sure there's some pretty thorough iptables rules going on . . . And what happens if your kernel panics? Doh! Probably not the best situation to be running a "testing" kernel on. I can see the website now: "Well, the bug that was causing engine meltdowns was fixed in 2.5.13-pre5, so I suggest everyone upgrade . . ."

Gives a whole new meaning to the whole "no warranty implied" thing, eh? Would you want the preemptible kernel patches on that thing?

So what do most cars actually run on, anyway?

Priceless...

[thrillbert]

In-Dash PC emmulating windows: US$1,000

802.11b Wireless LAN card: US$120

Airsnort: Free

Sending a WinPopUp that says "YOU ARE AN IDIOT" to the moron who just cut you off: Priceless

For some things there are hand signals, for everything else, there's Linux.

Carmegeddon

[schporto]

So you can play Carmegeddon while driving? There's just something inherently screwy about that. Or playing a racing game while stuck in a traffic jam. Yesh the irony.
-cpd

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[gol64738]

isn't it obvious? since linux is open, it's a lot more configurable.
let's say he only wanted certain processes starting or stopping at particular times?
what if he wanted to run his choice of a journaling filesystem and wanted to tweak it for speed?
what if he wanted to run a webserver and database server without having to waste money on any licenses?

let's see you hack a unsupported touchscreen display into windows, hahaha.

look, with linux (and vmware) he has the best of both worlds PLUS ultimate configurability. he can make his car computer do whatever he wants.
if he were to install only windows, boy would he be limiting the power of his project.

Something else I want it to do..

[jcr]

My car was stolen a few months ago, and I got it back after about five weeks. From now on, when my car starts up, I want it to note where it is, take a picture of whoever's starting it up, and upload that information to a hidden FTP directory at my ISP.

The next time some asshole takes my car, I want to be able to e-mail their picture and location to the SFPD.

-jcr

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[Milican]

Well the article mentions some logic tied into the auxilliary power on the car. If he is using Linux he can design a rudimentary program which will shutdown the OS nicely when the car is shutoff (aux power off). If he is using Windows the task isn't trivial. Thats just one reason to use Linux. Good question though. The appropriate tool should always be used for the task at hand.

JOhn

More reasons to get in an accident

[djsable]

Jesus Christ, why not just paint over the windows with black spray paint, and go driving around in the mall. You won't be using the windows to see, between a computer, a dvd player, and a cell phone, why bother with such lame things as WATCHING WHERE YOU'RE DRIVING.

badger

major design problem

[Lumpy]

The LCD he uses for the dash will last exactly 1 week in any US location above mid-ohio.
LCD's die when they freeze and most every LCD from his listed source are rated only down to 20 degrees F michigan get's to -1 -2 on a regular basis every winter (except this winter, it was 65 yesterday) and in minnesota it gets to -15 at least twice.

the best choice for an LCD is something designed for vehicle use which has a wide temperature range. Nothing from his supplier is useable in a vehicle in the upper 40% of the northern hemisphere.