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Volvo's "Safety Car" Runs Windows 98
An anonymous submitter writes "MSNBC is carrying a report on Volvo's new "Safety Car." It sounds pretty cool, too, until you get to the part that mentions it runs Windows 98 as its operating system. Yikes! Be sure to reboot your car frequently to avoid crashes."
So when does the first service pack come out?
"Herbivores eat well cause their food never, ever runs."
...when the space shuttle works on 486-era technology?
uJust because it's old tech deosn't make it bad. But I admit, the fact that Win98 crashed on me often makes it kind scary...
it was going to be my 1st...
no comment
Seriously, I think somebody makes this stuff up just to incite Slashdot riots.
No references to "buggy drivers".
dys-
Just posting early to pre-empt the inevitable flood of said jokes...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
"Windows 98" and "safety" in the same sentence is a patent oxymoron. Perhaps this is obvious, but apparently not to the people at Microsoft, Volvo, or MSNBC.
I don't trust Windows 98 to cruise the "information superhighway," so why would I want to use in on a real highway?
....Yeah and if you hit your head in a crash you don't even get properly protected memory!!...
~geogeek
Since when does rebooting windows 98 often prevent crashes?
--Huck
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Wow, not a cloud in the sky..... wait a minut...
Three engineers are riding in a car: an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car stalls and stops by the side of the road. The three engineers look at each other with bewilderment, wondering what could be wrong.
The electrical engineer, not knowing much about mechanics, suggests, "Let's strip down the electronics of the car and try to trace where a fault might have occurred."
The chemical engineer, not knowing much about electronics, suggests, "Maybe the fuel has become emulsified and is causing a blockage somewhere in the system."
The Microsoft engineer suggests, "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it will work."
On a more serious note... why Linux won't ever be used in a car or other similar product: Most, if not all, automotive (and other) companies have a little problem with the GPL. As much as they'd like to use it, they'd never agree to releasing the source of their kernel tweaks, changes, etc that would fall under the GPL or its derivatives, fearing competitors' stealing the information and making a competiting product. Sorry RMS, that may be a true utopia for you, but it's not the way American business works, nor will it ever work that way... the way of "completely free information exchange."
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
Bwaaaaaahahaha!
A friend of mine showed me a similar article earlier today, but this one mentioned about 5 different foreign (to me anyway) automobile manufacturers planning on using Windows CE, for just displays I think.
I wonder how happy people will be knowing they'll get to pay for a Windows license.
Ingenious!If it doesn't go... you can't get hurt!
Gotta give some credit to those volvo engineers
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
I'd bet money that the journalist flubbed this one, or its some elaborate trolling with MSNBC realizing that a 'safe' car running Win98 would get an instant Slashdotting.
BMWs iDrive System on the BMW745i is the real deal.
iDrive consists of a computer that controls 270 functions (including basic climate and stereo settings), a center-mounted LCD screen and a console-mounted rotary pushbutton knob that works as the system's "mouse." It's an amazingly powerful system that BMW sees taking over almost all vehicle functions.
More info here.
The Blue Screech of Death. :)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Seriously, though, all those warnings are good (as long as false positives don't cause boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome in the driver) but being able to watch the back seat? I think this is going too far...
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
I would imagine that windows 98 is not used in anything critical for the car to run, like say, fuel regulation, traction control, airbag deployment, etc. If it is, it's probably a stripped down version of it with almost nothing left of the original windows 98. Otherwise this 10 million dollar car wouldn't be much good on the road... What if the traction control decided to send all power to your right wheels, and brake your left wheels while cruisin at 90mph? that'd be fun... Or better yet, if steering suddenly went all the way to one side. (Like sometimes happens in some f1 video games I've played in windows 98)
"Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
Shall I keep going? :-)
Karma whorin' since 1999
and I just made a joke about this on /. a few weeks ago. . .
*sighs*
When oh when will people stop listening to me?
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Would this have even made it onto /. if the car didn't run Windows 98?? If you want to actually learn something then here is the official Volvo site for the car and here are a bunch of other references you can look at. None make mention of Windows 98.
Wouldn't be quite so funny if it was a kit car that comes in 5,000 pieces that runs linux, now would it? :P
Is available at the Volvo concept car site.
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
If Windows crashes while you're on the road, will the car burst into flames? Or just veer off the road in an uncontrollable trajectory?
I can only imagine the rescue workers... "Looks like a nasty crash!"
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
The new Volvo "Safety Car," thanks to an OS that has more security holes than an unpatched IIS server running without a firewall.
Cars are very complex devices--for that reason, the electronics are divided into subsystems. Fuel ignition, sensors, signals, suspension, and various other parts of the car are controlled by separate embedded microcontrollers communicating on a data bus of some kind, such as CAN (Controller Area Network).
I suspect that what Volvo has done is simply added a Win98 based subsystem--in other words, if Windows crashes (quite likely), some subsystems won't work, but others will. If Volvo has been smart, the car won't lose power and will continue driving. It's quite possible that Volvo has even implemented some kind of watchdog timer that will automatically reboot.
I don't think this is as bad as many people think--after all, if this car runs Windows, it can run Linux too. Think of the modification possibilities; this car is like a great big Tivo just waiting to be hacked!
No matter how bad a crash you have in this car, all you have to do is press "RESET" and a couple of minutes later you're back on the road.
When you hop in, does the car say "Where do you want to go today?"
If any auto manufacturer were going to pick a version of Windows to deploy in a product, Win98 is the one I'd be most comfortable with. That's where I got off the Windows upgrade treadmill myself. Win98SE is what sits on my second partition, it works just fine for all the reasons I've got it out there, and if I buy software that runs under Win98 I can be pretty confident it will run under WINE as well. Otherwise, it goes back to the store as broken.
So where Volvo's at right now, they could theoretically jump over to Linux for less than pocket change. Hey, they're European, givem a chance, they'll figure it out....
I would be much more concerned about the health of the rest of us, not driving VOLVOs.
1. I didn't know MS included Volvo drivers in Windows 98. I thought they weren't included until XP.
2. So does this mean that all service stations will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement with MS in order to work on this car?
3. Will patches be available at the pump or do you get them from behind the register?
of a similar article about BMW's use of Microsoft's Windows CE to run critical (or at least near critical) car systems. Does the fact that BMW's running a more compact M$ OS mean they'll crash less? ;)
"We are far too easily pleased." --C.S. Lewis
A few years back, Linux Journal ran a story about a car, I believe in Italy, that was using Linux. I believe Linux did the steering as well.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Unsafe at any speed. Thanx god, we have somebody trying to do the right things.
This car uses stuff like occupant cameras, etc --- stuff that would be easy to run off of 98 in a concept car --- why make custom hardware/software for custom ICs when you can throw a Win98 box in the trunk, plug it in, and do a simple demo?
;)
I mean, if they write portable code, it's not like it's terribly difficult to migrate.
Plus, I bet Windows had the available drivers
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
NOTE: The OS doesn't drive the car, it exists to handle the warning sensors and the like; so stability isn't that big of an issue.
Though, I have no idea why anyone would employ Win98 over 2000 or a stripped down Linux?
On a more serious note... why Linux won't ever be used in a car or other similar product: Most, if not all, automotive (and other) companies have a little problem with the GPL. As much as they'd like to use it, they'd never agree to releasing the source of their kernel tweaks, changes, etc that would fall under the GPL or its derivatives, fearing competitors' stealing the information and making a competiting product.
Bullsh*t - kernel drivers can be non-GPL (look at NVidia), besides, as long as the automotive companies are not distributing their tweaks, they don't have to provide the source for any changes.
Not to those inside it, but to those outside. The morons who buy Volvoes buy it for the "safety" that's a trade-mark of the car, so they drive like assholes, thinking that if they're in accidents, they'll be okay.
Perhaps if seats belts were outlawed (for the driver), you'd see people driving carefully, because in case of accident, they'd know they'd get turned into marmalade.
Remember what GM said will happen.
I didn't read the article (as usual) but is the Win98 installed on it a stripped down modular version or does it have all the IE, WMP, etc integrated into it? Unless they're using 98lite/litepc?
It would be much better suited to embedded development.
/real/ embedded OS.
OTOH, since it's a concept car and meant for the market, they may have just kludged something together with commodity PC parts for one or more of those 5 computers on that car, and it may have just been easier to have it running Win98, since it is only a concept car, so they don't need to worry as much about using a
I can see it now. "Officer, It's not my fault. Microsoft sold me an unsafe product. If it were safe, my car wouldn't have stalled in the middle of the inteterstate."
In all seriousness though, as the promotion of WIndows for Embedded Devices continues, these sorts of safety issues will need to be evaluated vary carefully. The software industry - the only industry in which selling defective products has almost no consequences - will have to take greater responsibility for bugs and instabilities in their products. As the stakes go up to the point where their products are directly responsible for human lives, a new approach to security and reliability will be needed. Among other things, Microsoft will need to alter it's position oposing full disclosure of security vulterabilities.
Cars running Windows are one thing but regardless of what steps are taken, it'll be many years before I'll be comfortable being attached to a heart bypass machine running MS Windows for Embedded Devices.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
No matter how badly you "crash" , you won't get physically hurt!
Seriously though, this article suggests a fair number of manufacturers including BMW use Microsoft based systems in their cars. It's Windows.CE.
Unsurprisingly, Volvo is not using Windows 98 in their safety concept car. As Motor Trend reported in May, they're using Microsoft's embedded operating system, Windows CE. It's kind of old news that Microsoft has been leading an initiative on embedding CE into cars. Check out the information from MS at Microsoft Windows CE for Automotive.
Why would any software running on linux need to be open source? I'm assuming you're implying that the GPL might require all other applications put in the same computer must be GPL'ed too. That, of course, would mean running XFree86, Apache, OpenOffice, and Mozilla couldn't be run on Linux legally, since none of them are under the GPL.
It gives the phrase "blue screen of death" a whole new meaning.
I know that win98 is only running some sensors and such, nothing too critical.. but you gotta laugh at the notion.. imagine how much insurance would cost if cars ran win98 for critical functions ;)
but will it only cost $5?
CAUTION: Product may be hot after heating
really, I do.
Since the automotive industry is an entirely different beast, can Microsoft be held liable if people die because of shoddy software design?
because I switched (of course with the computer off) between a USB MS Natural Keyboard Pro and a PS/2 Natural Keyboard Pro.
Unbelieveable. I cannot wait for my Mac to arrive. FreeBSD with a decent GUI. Sad to hear i'm not going to get a @mac.com address though.
Volvo's company image survey indicated it is now the world's *least* saft car.
also, after many volvo curiously ran into the ditches, Microsoft spoksperson stepped up to defend Volvo, saying that it was a not a bug, but a feature.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Maybe they could have cut down on the $10M cost by not needing to pay all those license fees.
-nate
I think we understand where all those "false-positive" error messages are coming from.
What is the inverse of the Matrix?
Not joking here... ..."Oh, theres that Microsoft Sound again ..." at one point she goes.. "oh, that Microsoft sound is making me nervous". These parts were not translated by the spanish narrators, but the english version could be heard in the background. I was praying it didnt mean that the car was running windows, but I was wrong :(
I just watched a special report on this car on CNN en Español, and the lady reporting, who was also testing out the car, kept sayin
[alk]
This is just another example of the Lunix loving myopia that plauges the hobbiest's club like mold. This one-sided blidness can only serve to HURT the Lunix experiment rather than help it.
Run win2k, it doesn't crash ever.
Maybe the gimmicky interface parts run windows CE (this volvo car isnt all that new, i remember reading about it a long time ago), but either way the crucial components would never be left to something that centralized.
-
I drove the Volvo that the MIT Media Lab used to collect 'predictive' data for the lane-change detection etc. It was an interesting experience - driving in Boston wearing a small fiber optic video camera taped (!) to some cheap safety glasses, several video cameras pointing every which way, and sensors on the steering wheel, brake pedal, and gas pedal to collect the data.
:) Well worth all of the funny looks I got on I-95.
The theory was that they would use the data to predict when you were *about* to change lanes - and set off an alarm if there were a car in your way. I'd be interested to know if they actually succeeded in doing this.
This wasn't a fully automated process - there was a co-driver who you had to tell when you were going to change lanes, turn, etc., then he would punch the appropriate action into a laptop.
Then again, I got paid $20 for the hour or so it took, so I'm not complaining
A safe car runs Windows 98? Bwuhahahahaha. That's funny.
Expect this car to be listed as the one that crashes the most. Some bug in the software will probably tell the user to turn left on red.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Yall know that those airbags are not going to be your traditional ~WHITE~ colored airbags ..hehe
[alk]
Isn't MS going to stop supporting Win98 soon? Does this mean I'll have to buy a whole new car, or can I upgrade to XP-Automobile? (Maybe XP-Freight, if I'm always carrying stuff in the trunk.)
Linux is a fucking joke. I hope it dies.
So what it it's running Win98 (or WinCE, as another poster corrected).
It's got five different systems.
With that kind of redundancy, you can AFFORD to run Win98.
(Just kidding; I suppose they are five different systems for five different functions because WinCE isn't multitasking...)
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Does it run in safe mode?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Microsoft has announced plans to buy Volvo and dub the car "XCar". It won't drive to as many destinations, and will probably lose the company a ton of money. The company plans to counter by suing owners of the car that allow unlicensed drivers to operate XCar.
Apple will release a similar auto, the MacDriver. It will be fully functional, but will only have one button for the driver to push. Additionally, diagnosis will be limited to a "Sad Mac" or "Bomb" icons.
Linux's automotive offering ("GNU-Car") will come in an Erector set complete with tools, detailed instructions on how to design and harden a car, and software that will allow you to run XCar's fuel... sort of. This auto promises to be a favorite of automotive enthusiasts, but the car-driving masses just won't get it.
We all get along together like tornadoes and trailer parks.
If you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, or maybe Clutch-Downshift-ParkingBrake will the car instantly freeze and display a 'close program' dialog? press it again and you will reset, losing unsaved trip odometer, radio presets, and fuel comsumption?
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front ends eed to know what network number they are on so hat they can address and route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? asy, you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by efinition to know their correct network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start sing it and before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get my drift.
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
It's coming true!
If Microsoft Made Cars
When Microsoft Starts Building Cars
MacOS X (darwin) is not freeBSD
its based on BSD, and has shared developers at times with freeBSD, but it not based on freeBSD.
It is very possible that this was an error or genernalization by the reporter. He says that the car has 5 computer systems and they run windows98.. it is very possible that these systems are not for the control of the car, but rather for end-user use in each of the 5 seats available.
It may also be possible that he meant to say that only one of them uses Windows98, etc.
Looking at other reviews, I couldn't find any information regarding their computer systems.
(23:36:09) Erin: that is retarded
(23:39:20) Erin: wow
(23:39:29) Me: yeah, i want one
(23:39:29) Erin: but the clear glass a frame pillar sounds cool
(23:39:36) Me: i'll put linux on it
(23:39:41) Me: and then it will drive itself
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
I work in a factory, I roll mats on a machine which uses a scanner connected on a computer which tells me on which route to place the mat. I've been there 2.5 months, for 8 hours a day, and never seen it crash.
As this is a concept car, I wouldn't be too surprised that it's running '98.
:-)
A couple years ago I decided to put together an in-car MP3 player. After buying the needed stuff, I got it set up in a few hours one day using '98. As it's running one program alone, and isn't dealing with all the interaction and varied programs that a user desktop is, it actually runs rather stable, crashing perhaps once every 6 months or so, when I have to take it in the house and do some standard clean-up. I switched to ME early on, but it's pretty much the same. These are dirty OSs for the desktop, but when they're under the passenger seat running one single program and nothing else, they perform remarkably!
Quick to set up, best hardware support around, stable enough when there's little variation in function or installed software base; I understand why they chose '98 for a concept design / prototype. No one in their right mind would try to use it in a production, for-sale system though.
"Installing a new driver"
I realize that further discussion on this topic is useless because we already know that the version of windows embedded into these cars is CE, not 98. However, for all of you wondering what it takes to embed win98, here's someone who did it:
clicka
[o]_O
...I hop in my Volvo, start 'er up, and then have to wait an extra minute while my dashboard displays a dlg box that says 'Windows has detected new hardware. Installing driver for FUZZY DICE.'
What if it ran WinME?
Actually, it was on last year's Auto Show Circuit, according to Edmund's. Considering how long it takes to develop a prototype, that may explain the choice of Windows 98 - when this was being developed, 2000 was still brand new, and Volvo probably wanted something that had been tested longer. I guess they could have used NT 4, but maybe they needed plug and play and USB.
"It appears that your driving to work..."
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I was looking for a convincing answer to whether or not the car actually runs Win 98, and instead found these pretty pictures of the car in a more informative article.
A previous post suggested this article (no bookmark anchors, scroll down 2/3 of page) from motortrends, which states that Windows CE is the OS in production systems - but doesn't speak to the issue of their concept cars. The MSNBC author could easily be right in this case - but should have known that it was could have known that this was not the production choice.
Other info from miscellaneous articles: the fancy communicator uses Bluetooth networking.
My motto: "A cat is no trade for integrity."
***Some piss-weak joke about Windows 98 being unsafe for car use***
Seriously though...
***Some excruciatingly obvious comment about Windows 98 being unsafe for car use***
Why did they paint the car red? I would have picked blue with white text.
-R
Oh, that explains why I've never ever seen a motorcycle rider speed or make any kind of dangerous maneuver.
But does anybody else find it amusing that MS choose a name where the most natural shortening of it is wince?
I work for a company that does Volvo's US website and we've been given strict orders from Ford to use all MS, all the time when working on the Volvo site. This is not to say that I don't use Unix when it would make everyone's lives easier, just that I'm supposed to use MS all the time.
Apparently, Ford internally and externally is a big MS center so it doesn't surprise me that they are using Windows CE. (not 98.... why would slashbots believe MSNBC under any other circumstances than when it results in a chuckle?)
As a funny aside, we had to drop everything we were doing in moving to a CMS decided upon by Volvo Sweden when Ford's CEO had lunch with Bill Gates who convinced the Ford CEO that all of Ford's sites should use MS's at-the-time-unannounced CMS. Of course, we were 8 months away from a launch when we were told to hold wheat we were doing and wait for a MS product that not only was pure vapor, wasn't even publically announced yet! Oh, the laughs I have at my job.
Actually, that would be pretty cool. You just gave me a good idea.
Never hot plug a PS/2 item, mouse or keyboard. That's the root of your problem, hardware. Basically it has to do with the voltages in the PS/2 standard, and that if you don't plug it exactly straight so that all the pins make contact at the same time, it'll do anything from locking the OS to frying the motherboard.
Does anyone remember www.dashpc.com?
It is about embedding a linux-powered PC inside a car. The project is improving everyday - if you're interested, please take a good look. Very interesting stuffs.
General Motors doesn't have a "help line" for people who don't know how to drive, because people don't buy cars like they buy computers - - but imagine if they did... HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "I got in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!" HELPLINE: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?" CUSTOMER: "What's an ignition?" HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and turns over the engine." CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use my car?" HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "My car ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!" HELPLINE: "Is the gas tank empty?" CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know!?" HELPLINE: "There's a little gauge on the front panel, with a needle, and markings from 'E' to 'F.' Where is the needle pointing?" CUSTOMER: "It's pointing to 'E.' What does that mean?" HELPLINE: "It means that you have to visit a gasoline vendor, and purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself, or pay the vendor to install it for you." CUSTOMER: "What!? I paid $12,000.00 for this car! Now you tell me that I have to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything built in!" HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "Your cars suck!" HELPLINE: "What's wrong?" CUSTOMER: "It crashed, that's what went wrong!" HELPLINE: "What were you doing?" CUSTOMER: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor. It worked for a while, and then it crashed -- and now it won't start!" HELPLINE: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product. What do you expect us to do about it?" CUSTOMER: "I want you to send me one of the latest versions that doesn't crash anymore!" HELPLINE: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "Hi! I just bought my first car, and I chose your car because it has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door locks." HELPLINE: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you?" CUSTOMER: "How do I work it?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to drive?" CUSTOMER: "Do I know how to what?" HELPLINE: "Do you know how to DRIVE?" CUSTOMER: "I'm not a technical person! I just want to go places in my car!"
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
My brother in law worked on some of the components of this car. It doesn't "run" anything. Nor does it even use 98. It uses windows CE to run a few of the non critical subsystems of the car. It's actually a great concept. Everyone needs to chill on the "jump down whoever's throat is mentioned using any microsoft product" bandwagon. This site is actually starting to sound a lot like middle school. Boo to MSNBC for misreporting and setting off the microsoft alarms.
-- There's only one replacement for displacement.....
Ahem... MacOS X aka Darwin is basically a FreeBSD release reworked to run on Mach.
I definitely agree with you. Are these new safety gimimcks supposed to be a replacement for proper driving ability? If you need to be reminded by the car to signal when changing lanes, or to stop staring at the dashboard and look at the road, or to turn on your headlights at night, then you shouldn't be behind the wheel in the first place.
There are plenty of ways, in which clueless drivers can screw up, where their "safe" Volvo won't help them (ie. running through stop signs & red lights, illegal left/right turns, etc). And those idiots with Volvos think that they are indestructable.
In conclusion, Volvos are for the weak, who do not know how to drive, regardless what operating system they use.
this IS volvo we are talking about. Despite win98, the car is still a steel tank
What part of "of course with the computer off" did you not understand?
It is still a Volvo... I would be more worried about the wetware drivers crashing than the software OS (Win98) crashing. The "safety" in "Safety Car" is for the occupants, not the people outside tha car.
Now - how long will it take before someone replaces Win98 with Linux in the "Safety Car"....
- HeXa
.... and runs on way cheaper hardware than W98 too.
The CE kernel is actually quite robust.
Owner: WTF do you mean engine detonation?? Mechanic: It ran out of oil and coolant! Owner: Why didnt the warning lights say something?? MS Lawyer: This conversation is over, please collect your assorted volvo parts and leave the premises. I'm calling security.
Insert something insightful here, or I'll insert something painful there.
I would like to challenge y'all step beyond the specific OS choice and consider the technological implications of this article. For example:
This points towards the impending implementation of ubiquitous computing that's been talked about for years. It seems that embedded computers have reached adequate power that we can start using similar platforms in them that we use in PC's/servers. That OQO can deliver a PC that fits in a pocket gives a picture of how the size a gadget you can put computers in. This will explode the availablity of programming knowhow available to producers of all manner of gadgets. Your PC program and interface development C / VB/ Java / KDE etc skills for PC's and servers may soon be directly applicable to VCR's, refridgerators, traffic lights, and is already applicable to some mobile phones. There are a number of avenues to explore in this direction which would be more interesting then squabling over the platform choice for this vehicle.
It might not happen in this decade- but you are starting to see the change in the face of the computer. Already, I know hospitals where the complex tasks of registering patients and services rendered are accomplished by staff walking around with card scanners and portable computers. The office worker is leaving the office. Think about your JOBS and possibilities. There is enormous potential for innovation in applications here and interfaces here.
Sigh, I guess we should get back to the BSOD / M$ squabble.
My motto: "A cat is no trade for integrity."
I've been a user and promoter of Linux since late '94. Pushed it for the first time (quite successfully, BTW) at NASA Dryden in 95 for use in their mission control rooms.
.02--have a nice day/life :)
And I've been pushing Linux ever since--in 1998 I'm sure that I had several boxes with uptimes (I know--who cares) over 200 days.
While linux was harder to install back then (no fancy wizards or GUI installers) it was still a fully functional and full featured O/S.
just my
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Having worked in tech support, I always imagined that a call to a GM support line would run like this:
Helpline: "General Motors Helpline, how can I help you?"
Customer: "I have a 1998 Camaro, and when I'm doing 60mph on the Garden State Parkway, shifting into 4th gear with the air conditioning on, my radio station mysteriously switches from my favorite radio station to that crappy country station. Is there a way I can solve this problem?"
If you did, he was probably trying to get out of the way of a cager Volvo driver.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
Okay, since nobody can come up with anything better than "heh heh, the car will blue screen. heh heh. Err I can't think of any other reasons I don't like Windows", I'll flip the topic around:
:P
What if the car ran Linux?
- The version with the automatic transmission would have 4 drive gears that all work differently, that way you can pick one from an individual that you like.
- Instead of intuitive buttons on the steering column to turn on windshield wipers and so on, you have a patch board complete with a very nice array of differing lengths of cable.
- The driver of the car has to understand how the internal combustion engine works before he can go anywhere in it.
- More than one steering wheel can be added to the car, afterall it is a multi-user OS.
- The gas door would be located underneath the car so that gas doesn't have to go as far to reach the tank. A bottleneck is removed that way.
- The key to get into the door can only fit one right side up, afterall it is case sensitive.
- The 'ding ding' noise when you start the car without the seatbelt fastened won't go off because the sound drivers don't work.
- The car wouldn't come with headlights because only newbs need to be able to see where they're going.
There, that's much better than "ha ha snort snort, that means they'll have to restart the car every ten minutes."
*Hopes the mods have a sense of humor today.*
Tanenbaum explains that Microsoft OSes are actually pretty stable, it's just the buggy drivers lead them to crash. I hope MSFT remembers that defense.
go kill yourself fuckhead - you won't be missed.
This is a very safe car compared to the other new Volvo which runs Windows Millennium... (har! another priceless Microsoft joke).
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
I have to stick up for us Volvo drivers. I've seen worse driving by folks in Japanese sportscars and clunker American boats than I have Volvo drivers. The folks in the sportscars fall into two classes: those who try to use raw speed on the interstate, and those who bought a sporty looking car that they're afraid to use. The folks in the beaters all seem to be driving 10 under in the fast lane.
Most of the Volvos I've seen are driving smoothly in traffic. They're usually soccer moms in V, 7, and 9 series wagons and sedans.
Of course, I concede you could have been driving behind me....I can milk my 740 wagon for all it's worth. But that's not because I feel safe and secure in a Volvo so that I can run people over. That's because I'm an aggressive driver who happens to like Volvos.
Then again, some people don't appreciate fine cars...I like my Volvo because I can get a little performance out of it, it is rock solid, and if there happens to be a problem, I do have a nice safety net. If I was into more performance, I'd be eyeing a BMW.....
What is your Slash Rating?
The maintenance guy at my apartment shared me this story:
It seems his buddy and his buddy's girlfriend were driving down the road. The buddy was drinking and driving, but this being the south, that sort of thing is common. In his mirror he sees blue lights flashing, so he hands his bottle to his girlfriend and says "peel off the label." She says "you can't fool a cop by just peeling the label off!" He replies "just peel it off."
So he pulls over. As the cop walks up his girlfriend gives him the label. The cop leans in and sniffs in the car, then says "are you drinking?" Slapping the label on his shoulder, he says "No, I'm on the patch."
What is your Slash Rating?
I send you this file in order to to jack your car.
If a Mac were running the car, at least the Volvo wouldn't be so boxy!
I'm afraid that with the motorcycle crowd, which is an abnormally attentive bunch of drivers, what with their lives being on the live, SUV drivers rank as serious threat #2, with Volvo drivers ranking #2. Can't much argue with their experience.
(Of course, anyone with a cell phone is a greater threat than even the clueless SUV-driving soccer mom.)
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I doubt this has much to do with quality and more with logistics, The development cycle for cars is alot longer than it is for computers, they have to know that the vendor will still be around in four years. even though linux won't dissappear the vendors do, and sadly, do to forced expansion by investors, even the once quite profitable companies are in the black.
Calling people who have opinions that are common on slashdot 'slashbots' is no longer clever. you are just repeating what some other moron said. stop it, get a new schitck you tired old loser.
this reminds me more of the "if cars were like computers" thing from bill gates.
http://www.cobalt-blue.com/humor/gates.htm
My brother works for the Greeley, Co police department. The machines in their cars (you know, the ones they use for doing license plates lookups and what not) run 95 and 98. Apparently the pd IT department has to ghost the car machines every few weeks or so as 95 and 98 tend to eat itself or blue screen, or otherwise do goofy crap.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Oh, and for those of you wondering, the last time I checked, cars were still steered by the steering wheel, and handbrakes still stopped your wheels.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
The cars they use in Carmageddon should be pretty safe
...thought that perhaps the caravan which this entailed spoiled the look and handling of the vehicle.
Behold, a joke in none of the above categories... and here comes another one!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...is a whole new approach - a whole new, er, depth of meaning - to the phrase `embedded systems' ...and of course...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Pretty expensive volve car to drive... How long will one Windows 98 license take you? Hmmm, I think I still prefer my car to run on gas instead of Win98...
Where else would you put systems that needed frequent booting? `How often do you boot your systems?' `Oh, permanently.'
:-)
* Note to yanks: this is what the rest of the English-speaking world calls that bit under the lid on the back of a sedan where luggage goes (-: A `trunk' is the hose thingy dangling from the front of an elephant.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're the one who doesn't understand the difference between safety features and driving assistance features. An airbag is a safety feature, so is a seatbelt. They can save your life if you get into a crash.
But something which beeps when you forget to signal, or when you're drifting out of your lane, is a DRIVING ASSISTANCE feature; it tells you that you're not driving properly, and tries to help you. If someone needs such a beeper, that means they DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE, and thus should NOT be in front of the wheel.
And when I said "Volvos are for the weak", I was talking about all Volvos and everyone who drives them. They all need to trash their worthless "safe" Volvos, go to a real driving school, and then buy a real car. Then the streets would be a much better and safer place.
I don't care if it's just a prototype, it's a waste of time and resources. Why don't the engineers design a more efficient engine, or drive train, rather than wasting time trying to help idiot drivers?
Yes it is, I've been sitting here laughing my ass off.
...
That said, I gotta go; I think it's my turn to hit the bong
Will they be bringing out an AI version with it's own set of driver disks? (-: Will it support plug and play within the vehicle? :-)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's probably almost as safe as Jaguars, which never even start.
No... Jags are probably on parr with Volvos, even running Windows 98. (Volvo owns Ford, guess what webserver www.ford.com runs on... urk.)
Jags have Lucas Electrics. Unlike Ozzy, Joe Lucas is the original Prince of Darkness.
Q: Why is it the British like warm beer?
A: Because Lucas makes refrigerators!
Q: How many Lucas engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None! They just redefine darkness as the prevailing standard!
No, that last joke started with Lucas, not Microsoft. :)
Honestly, I thought the stories of honking your horn and having the headlights go out were an urban myth and an exaggeration by those who don't know anything about automotive electrical systems. Then I rewired a 1950s MG for a friend. On the pre-work test drive, that happened to me.
How? I had the system all apart, and all I can guess is that the headlights and the horn relay shared a *slightly* corroded ground connection. I couldn't believe that would do it.
How about a car where the headlights draw 20 amps, the parking light circuit another 10 amps, the windshield wipers another 15 amps, and the generator only puts out 40 amps?
(Electrical Engineering Homework: if the battery is rated for 50Amp-hours, the ignition system stops working when the system voltage gets below 7 volts, and the vehicle speed is 35 MPH, how far can you get on a rainy night before the engine stops running and the battery is too dead to run the starter?)
Lucas Electric jokes here.
Urk.
Jaguar not starting? That's okay. The starter motor cranking overheats the wire's insulation. The wire's insulation catches fire and ignites the fuel spilled when the fuel pump's relay stuck on when the car was last run. Ka-boom.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Some do not realize it but some of the major gas station pumps ARE running WinCE and are going to go wireless very soon. Might be that your car and the pump "talk" a bit and you just might have to put in a certain gas in set quantities. Since I worked on one of the projects for a large nice multinational gas corp, I know part of the game plan and have seen some of the code beginning to roll out. They have REAL ideas on how to get you and your car in a nice controlled system along with the data they want to collect and how they wish to influence your habits or if necessary, none to hidden steer you to certain choices. The corps are sharing more data than most realize too though not directly. Sad part is I helped with this junk and even gave ideas on how to help the whole process. Dumb and I apologize for it but cannot undo it.
Fire-retardant children's footsie pajamas made of woven det-cord soaked in lighter fluid!
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
About 7 or 8 years ago, driving along the westbound lane of Canning Highway here in sunny Perth, Western Australia, I chanced to look up as I paused at the lights in Melville outside the KFC. A block away down the road, a Volvo station wagon began reversing out onto the Highway. Slowly. As the light went green, it halted astride the dotted line which separates the two westbound lanes. When I say `astride', I mean the line bisected the car's diff. It sat there. And sat there. The reversing lights went off. It sat there some more. The brake lights went off. Slooooowly, slowly it began to roll down the Highway towards Bicton. It would have been doing about 20-30km/h (in a 60km/h speed zone) by the time the traffic caught up with it, still perfectly aligned over the dividing line. As it nochalantly sidled towards the 40km/h mark on the way around the corner, it weaved a little left, then drifted across to the right until it finally sat in the right-hand lane (keep left in Oz, unless overtaking) at about 50km/h on the way up the hill, and the other traffic could finally begin to set about overtaking. The driver was an old Asian bloke wearing a tweed hat.
Despite some of my very good Asian friends being excellent drivers, and an Asian friend of Dad's being a good driving instructor, Asian drivers (at least in Oz) are generally hopeless. I've seen one tourist* accidentally put his rent-a-car sideways twenty feet onto a dry dirt road at about 30km/h, and a FoaF who repairs brick walls for an insurance company claims that around 2/3 to 3/4 of the damage he repairs is done by drivers with Asian names. You might be pleased to know that they tend to prefer Mercedes to Volvos. It must also be said that many more BMW drivers than Volvo drivers seem to have forgotten what the little orange lights are for.
* Yes, tourists really do expect to see kangaroos hopping down the main street of Perth, so the Council's put in some nice bronze ones for them; and yes, they really do hop into taxis and ask to be taken to Sydney (roughly 3000km).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Well it appears that the people who engineered the safety car didn't go with your prefered OS.
oooh!! the world is coming to an end!!! aaaa!!! they're coming for me! aaaaa!!!!
I know for a fact that agilent build 400K$ optical measurement devices that run a stripped win98 kernel. Interfacer.
deus does not exist but if he does
Finally the voice of reason!
For a moment there I thought that 'slash dot' was a base 16 translation for the words 'blind loser'
I love watching you all fight like wolves over the stability argument. The battle is over and Microsoft is off to new fronts. New fronts that you are not even aware of yet because you are stuck in the PAST.
hehehe
"you won't even see it coming"
As a new driver, I have been acquanted with difficulties inherent in attempting to concentrate (ADD style, i.e. fully) on many details at once. This has proven especially difficult when trying to keep over the yellow and white lines (U.S.).
Bottom line? This could be the end-all solution for driving schools, especially public ones, which get funding from various places. Of course, at 10 mil this is a bit high, but presumably it will drop.
It'd be funny if a car ran Windows 98 as it's operating system. Man, wouldn't that be hilarious?
Got friends?
STOP INSTALLING RAM DOUBLER
I drive a '99 grand am, and I still have to deal with my car's OS costing 85(USD) to get reflashed, and 2500(USD) to get the actual computer replaced. The last thing I need is Micro$oft's licensing fee's to deal with an upgrade consisting of WinME to XP just because they couldn't do it right the first time. Yeah, I understand upgrades are necessary, but for christ's sake, my car runs fine with WinME, I don't need Win XP just to get the "upgraded" features.. I guarentee that they didn't plan on my car having 802.11b, so why should they care if my car runs a copy of IIS that is vunerable to Nimda or not. Sure, that my car is exposed to the "Internet" a grand total of 7 minutes a day, but I guerantee that in that time my firewall isn't going to fail or to be compromised
Do we need to agree to some stupid EULA before using the car? Some terms like, i. if the software crashes and the driver dies, MS is not liable in any other way, ii. MS is neither responsible for the instability of the OS.
... then maybe you could go bang out code for 'da_community'
Welllll. I've never seen a less than NT box that got a "fatal exception message" that worked properly for any significant period of time afterwards. You'd need to define the word "recover". I'll define "significant" as more than an hour without the machine dying completely or experiencing increasingly unpredictable behaviour under typical user usage.
Jeez, but I'm unpleased I have so much experience with this particular subject.
signed, a SQA guy that is required to test on Win32 boxen
Yeah, then, if you pressed the brake pedal you would get Oops Oops Kernel Panic.
That would be funny!
No certified safety-critical version of any Microsoft operating system exists. The $40 Billion in Microsoft's bank account is not enough money to get the documentation, testing, and reviews done for Windows 98. The WinCE core, with no GUI or Apps, might be certifiable in our lifetimes, but they can expect to be required to change about half of the lines of code, goven that no safety or testability measures were considered in its original production.
A false sense of safety is counter to safety.
I wouldn't ride in this thing. I wouldn't even stand on the side of any road I knew it to be driving on.
--Blair
(* Volvos (Volvoes?) are the most dangerous cars on the road. Not to those inside it, but to those outside. The morons who buy Volvoes buy it for the "safety" that's a trade-mark of the car, so they drive like assholes, thinking that if they're in accidents, they'll be okay. *)
Unlike say SUV owners who drive like assholes because they feel like they are in a big war tank and enjoy threatening other cars using their size. However, the SUV's roll over, killing the driver and 5-lanes worth of other cars.
SUV's are full of Nepoleans.
Table-ized A.I.
Sweden has an almost pathological dependence on things Microsoft. When I sarcastically asked a major IT trainer if their extensive course catalogue with only two Unix/Linux courses still had one such course too many, they didn't get it, but replied that yes, they were going to remove one of those two courses. Sweden just gave an honorary PhD to Bill Gates. So Windows 98 on Volvos? Terrible - but predictably so.
Now this is an interesting competition. Volvo and Windows competing together to see which actually DOES crash more
The Apple software is not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, life support machines or other equipment in which failure of the Apple software could lead to death, personal injury, or severe or environmental damage.
So that rules Mac OS X out as the operating system.
Shame M$ don't put such limits of liability into their EULA.This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Ah, but Microsoft are working on the solution - the Trusted Car Platform Architecture. The TCPA will eliminate the use of 'unauthorized' parts in cars, thus easing maintenance, improving security, and ensuring business throughflow for the CAs (car authorities). Look: everyone knows that fitting cheap tires and filling up with unauthorized gazoline poses severe security risks. TCPA will eliminate all that! Windows Is Good For You!
My blog
Of all the MS operating systems, I'd prefer 98 over anything else MS puts on the market.
1. The code is the oldest, hence the most thoroughly checked / seen code on the market from MS. Undocumented bugs for 98 itself are likely few and far between by now. By choosing XP or 2k, you're asking, no, begging to run into a "damn, Nobody saw that coming" bug.
2. The biggest problem MS faces, security, is pretty much non existant for this implimentation. Who is going to hack a volvo? Not only from the sense of there being no means, motive, or opportunity, who the hell would want to 'hack' a volvo? how anti-l33t can you get?
3. Pre-existing support. Granted, a sizable portion of this car was done as a hack together job, there are more than a few components that are likely off the shelf product. Since the products re unusual or out of the way items, I doubt the companies providing them put much, if any, though into linux/bsd/mac support
4. It's a demo car. the idea is to show that the technology exists today. It's easier to make the comparison "it runs on the same operating system your home computer does" than it is to say "we wrote specialized drivers and compiled s specific kernal for a SuSE installation based around the 2.4 kernal. The first reponse makes joe carbuyer go "ooooh" the second makes him say "huh?"
I'm all for the bashing of microsoft at every given opportunity, but for once there's no point in reinventing the wheel when you can chisel down the octogon you've got lying around. Besides, a production run would DEFINATLY run an true embedded system.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
BMW Series 7: WindowsCE
Yes the Linux car is still alive! Visit us at
http://www.argo.ce.unipr.it
We are currently switching to a newer car (and a new kernel too! ARGO is still running 2.0.38).
M.
Now there's an uncomfortable reality-turned thought. I'll try not to imagine having windows run absolutely anything in my car. Can any of you honestly picture yourselves saying something in the lines of: "Oh, damn, hang on, I need to reboot my car", followed by the keystroke: "ctrl+alt+delete"... Just picture how much more money Microsoft will make! I mean, they're already making millions off extra elements in computers that people need, basically because there's no other way to make the damned thing work. Soon, cars will develop similar "necessities"... With all the rebooting and overheating that occurs on highways, people will go bankrupt just because they have to call a TechSupport number every ten minutes. How about the use of the internet? We'll gain an all new form of "single-handed surfing" which may even turn out to be the leading cause of death.. desperate and lonely middle-aged male drivers will not be able to keep their eyes off the nude women featured in their car's computer screen. By the time some psycho takes on the challenge to create another nice virus, permitting an even more elaborate death than aids, there'll be nothing left to kill but tree huggers. All of this thanks to the car "crashes" and middle-aged men attempting to drive without using their hands... If we survive the forthcoming human genocide masked as "technological advancement", we'll most probably evolve a second set of arms just to masturbate... now, wouldn't THAT be something!
I'd make some snide comment here re Win98 but my irony alarm is going off at full blast and I can't shut it up......
Burma?
This must be a giant hoax, part of some agreement between Volvo and Microsoft, intended only for marketing and good PR (on the MS side) purposes.
Methinks that you and me will never see this car around.
Windows 98, as well as Linux and many other popular operating systems, is not certified for use in critical environments such a running car where human life could depend on their work. For critical tasks usually automotive industries use realtime and very small footprint OSes (though the realtime Linux base has grown significantly during last year), while Windows boxes are used primarily for emulation purposes.
I'm sure they're using a realtime and stable system hidden somewhere, while Win98 acts primarily as human interfaces (drive the display, beep and play sounds, etc).
After all, it's a part of the OS and cannot be removed, right?
You are right: the fact that a car company would put something as unreliable and user-unfriendly as Windows 98 into a car isn't funny, it's sad.
Amiga: Cars that were years ahead of their time, and you don't see many on the road as the manufacturer has gone out of business and parts are hard to come by.
Apple OS X: Looks great, but You could only get accessories for it if they were made by Apple.
BSD: Their cars ran really well, but the only mechanic that knows how to work on them is 500 miles away.
IBM AS/400: Your couldn't buy a car but only lease one, it would come with your own mechanic, and would cost around a million per year.
IBM OS/2: You could buy one if you are lucky enough to find one, but It never went anywhere.
IRIX: Their cars would blow the doors off all the others, if you could ever find a gas station.
QNX: You couldn't buy a car, only find the demo car, and that just had a projection of scenery moving across the windshield.
RedHat Linux: You had a choice of sports car, station wagon, mini-van, or 18-wheel tractor trailer. You could design your own if you wish to, but most people gave up when it came to picking from the 2000 different accessories.
Sun Solaris: Their cars would have a least two engines, with up to 32 engines, and they would weigh 400 tons, but once they got moving, they were hard as hell to stop.
Last but not least: Microsoft: Just Where did You think You were going today?
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
I hope I won't see messages like "Old lady detected in the road. Would you like to save her as a wallpaper." often.
I thought they *promised* not to do that! THem bastards... You really can't trust anyone nowadays...
-- Serge K. Keller
And that's before you even start thinking about failure modes of the more recent 'intelligent' engine-management systems. There was a news report a couple of months ago in Switzerland - sorry, cannot find a URL for it now - of a number of incidents near Zurich where engines in several examples of a newly-introduced model had temporarily cut out for no apparent reason, fortunately without causing damage or injury despite being on busy motorways (and in one case in a tunnel). Suspicion was on interference with vehicle electronics, possibly related to radar emmissions from the nearby air traffic control.
<luddite>Makes me glad I'm still running an '88 VW with very little electronics. Perhaps I'll do best to replace it with a comparably simple second-hand car when the time comes to retire it.</luddite>
... since it seems the slashbots are out in force today.
First off, the car *is* a prototype. It's highly unlikely it will actually be sold to the public with Windows-based software. For one thing, Windows CE (not 98, RTFA) is nearing the end of its product lifespan, so it would be pointless basing it on something that's just about to be dropped. Furthermore, Windows isn't necessarily unstable - it is when you've got the four-year-old install of 98 that came when you bought your Packard-Bell, and run all those warezed programs on it, and Kazaa sticks Gator on, and Comet Cursor (and so on). When you run "known" software and drivers, it's actually fairly stable.
Secondly, it probably won't run Linux either. Nothing wrong with Linux, in fact I use it on all my machines at work and at home. I wouldn't use it in the car, for the simple reason that it's the wrong thing for the job. What they're most likely to use is a real-time OS like QNX, or more likely still, something custom written.
At the moment, nearly all computers used in cars run entirely custom-written software, on very specialised hardware. It's quite unusual to find any processor more powerful than, say, an 8MHz Z80, although certain combined EMS/ABS units that do traction control and handle automatic gearboxes use 68000's - still at 8MHz though. They don't need to be that fast. Not much happens in a car more often than once every few milliseconds. You also don't need to do *much* calculation, because most things (ignition timing, fuelling etc) are precalculated and worked out from maps stored in ROM. When you "chip" your car for more power, the fuel and timing maps are what gets changed.
Windows 98 is the only version of windows left with a real DOS prompt.
Microsoft will no longer sell you a copy of DOS. It's no longer possible to buy anything lower/cheaper than windows 98.
Volvo are not using any of the Windows98 functionality. They just wanted to write their code on an x86 box.
Really... there's nothing to worry about... Volvo are using DOS... Microsoft just won't sell it to them.
You you have to press and hold down the and pedals to reboot ?
Will I have to reinstall the driver if I lend my car to a mate?
One of the annoying kinks of the car is the "Please Wait For Your Car to Shut Down" display.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Knowing how reporters can filter out bits of information when writing their stories, making things sound different than they are. Chances are that Windows is only being used to provide the interface to the user, and most of the other work is handled by an RTOS. The benefits of using Windows for an interface: existing development tools and software. There is no denying that Windows is the best supported platform from a user software point of view.
To all of you who whine about Windows 98 in this case:
Give me a damn break. Volvo is - like all other really large car companies - a very clever crowd and I am absolutely sure that if Windows 98 ever crashed on this car, they'd switch to another OS. If they use Windows 98, they must have a good reason. I doubt they'd pay a few bucks less just to get a cheaper OS when it comes to this kind of money, and reputation..
Windows 98 is OK if you don't install 500 programs on it. Maybe they don't do that on the Volvo car. Maybe you can't even modify Windows 98 on it. Maybe the OS does not even handle any tasks that the car requires.
is the idea that the engine controls (or any other drivetrain subsystem) would be running on anything but a dedicated device chock full of proven code.
Of course, the whole car is a network of dedicated devices. Thats how everybody does it.
Switching from Ford-owned Volvo Cars to self-owned AB Volvo, I would recommend reading some of these articles. Heck, they even have serveral connected ECU's in construction equipment (like a wheel loader or articulated hauler)... Don't know about the OS, though, but I wouldn't think that somebody would rely on Win9x for critical applications...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
These car manufacturers are as ever, behind we chaps on 2 wheels. We've been running a Dawes Galaxy with embedded Debian (unstable) for years and it integrates brilliantly with Sheldon Brown's Geomagnetic Booster! ® to provide hours of stable open-source transport which is especially useful on a day like today when the London tube is on strike.
As ever with embedded systems, shoehorning all the code into the space available has been tough so we've fitted a specially adapted hub to the rear wheel and a windmill like fan on the rear sprocket to cool the Itanium 2 inner core. One advantage has been the thermic glow from this at nightime has reduced the need for rear-lights.
2 problems we're looking for volunteers to help with:
1) Seek-time latency on the hard-drive (also fitted to the rear sprocket and rotated by the chain) has been horrible and its been necessary to pedal really fast when playing mp3's
2) The kernel source is stored in the inner tubes / tyres and patching the source has been extremely haphazard with patches falling off, hissing air and rubber solution all over the place....
Next step is write kernel modules to drive Sheldon Brown's Bar-End Bayonetz to allow some much more aggressive Open Source advocacy, just as Cmdr Taco was requesting yesterday.
RMS is a big supporter of the Linucycle as we call it or the GNUcle as he prefers and is helping us in our efforts to integrate the Hurd kernel. An MS spokesman we contacted commented "This is just the sort of hippy s**t I'd expect from those Open Source guys...."
The ultimate laptop is out. It runs on Windows 98 and it runs all over the place. Finally the laptop is on the move again. Geez, this is probably the biggest laptop ever...
Will it be necessary to stop and reboot while driving?
American cars do have turn signals: they're optimally yellow, but its allowable to modulate the (red) tail light.
"All I do is eat and poop!" -- Bean
> This car is not safe...
Oh, I don't know - if my experience with win98
is anything to go by you won't even be able to
get the car to start - so you certainly won't
be involved in any traffic accidents.
#exclude <ms/windows.h>
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I wonder if they put the license sticker on the side, just like any good OEM should...
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
...now I think they should just roll over and die. I mean, for god's sake, WINDOWS? A CONSUMER version more so? This isn't the user interface, dammit! Use something DESIGNED for critical operations, at the very least NT... Volvo just lost a very loyal customer. I'm sure I'm not unique by a long shot.
Save time now so you can waste it later
Since Microsoft has discontinued support for Windows 98, does this mean The Safety Car is unsupported software?
...not to you at least, obviously.
Myself, I'll stop laughing when Microsoft stop making jokes. My favourite joke this year was the marketing hype around XP: Apparently it "makes your computer faster" when you "upgrade your hardware"! Wow! Gotta get me some of that.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I digress. Actually, what I would _really_ like to see is a type of tractor beam. The main problem with cruise controls is the subtle difference between yours and mine. I'm either gaining on you by 0.5kph or someone is gaining on me by 0.5 kph. I hate constantly adjusting the cruise.
A 'tractor beam cruise' would use some kind of range sensing beam to keep you a 'safe' distance (ie: the 2 - 3 second rule taught in driver's ed, could be adjustable for driving conditions) from the car in front. If the distance started to close fast an alarm would sound to encourage you to press the brakes if needed.
If a car jumps into the space between you and the car in front, the 'cruise' slows down for a second or two to re-establish the buffer zone.
This would keep cars safely spaced on the highways and reduce the amount of fiddling with the cruise controls while driving.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
After starting the car a friend found that pressing the gas pedal in drive did nothing, or even worse caused the car to surge forward unpredictably. However the gas pedal worked fine with the car in reverse. I never thought to tell them to reboot the car!
98 rawks....
i still use it.. and dont come and say its because i dont have a good enough comp. because it is good enough (2GHz, 1024Ram etc.)
I will admit Windows is a poor choice to put in a car. But you need to think of the design and build phase of a car. I read something about this awhile back. It takes 4-5 years to concept, design, and build a prototype. They cannot say "Let's design the car to use an operating system from the future." They need to pick one and work with it from the start. I think a Linux or Unix based product would have been better as the future upgrades on some distros is not so drastic as say Win98 to W2k or XP. But to design a car around WIn98 then upgrade the whole OS for each upgrade would be silly.
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eeww, I'll have a crab juice.
So now we will have to be careful on the road because some madmen can now play this game with their own car... And once you crash and die, you'll see your score in heaven... Game over, do you want to play again? [Yes]/[No]
there was a pop-up window? yikes. i had to close all windows before readin on...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This primarily has to to do with poor vision on the car drivers part. With an HUD people could see the oncomming red dot and hear a chime rather than losing the one oncomming headlight in the heat distortion and running bikers down.
Divided,ramped highways are your friend.
Volvo's tend keep the hell away from bikes (are their drivers afraid?) but a SUV just tried to run me down two days ago.
Here are some typical conclusions from motorcycle studies.
I would never buy a car running Windows anything for any component. If a car manufacturer doesn't see fit to write there own damn toolkit, they don't understand mission critical code by induction and the like, they are lazy and risking my life, or they are buzzword fixated.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I worked on this car. The PC are used to manage the displays and sound system. They were only used so that the system can be modified easily. In a real car, all of the PC's would be replaced with embedded circuits.
From the article:
"But for all that, the car has five separate computer systems (running Windows 98, by the way)..."
This is just asking for trouble. Just the other day I walked by a BSOD at the airport. How often will this car get BSODs are need reboots, if it has five separate computer systems running Win98?
Do you know its not unusual for an aeroplane computer system to be rebooted mid-flight. I seem to remember a fairly exhaustive article on the fact that this statistic is pretty bad - but they have enough backup and contingency systems for this to be a perfectly safe operation...At least so they claim...
Of course- when you are 30,000 feet+ in the air, with 10s of kilometers of open space(unless it crashes during takeoff or landing and then your scr3wed) its not a big deal to reboot. But when you are at 70+Mph on a busy motorway/autobahn/freeway in a car that could be instantly fatal.
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
I posted about this a few weeks ago, but alas it was rejected. Guess it's more interesting now!
This article is pretty much an advertisement masquerading as journalism. I know this because we have these Motorola Timeport pagers at my work and every day I get these MSNBC market updates sponsored by Volvo... At the bottom of each message it says:
"Shouldn't the car of your dreams be the car in your driveway? Visit www.volvocars.com today."
Just goes to show that money can buy journalism.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Here's a real-world example of WinCE not working.
I'm at the movie theatre the other day and in order to skip the lines at the ticket window I thought I'd use the "ticket ATM" instead. But when I walked up to use it, there was a debugging message on the ATM with a bunch of error codes and some text indicating that it was powered by WinCE.
Therefore to buy tix to the movie, I had to go to the ticket window instead of using the automated solution.
Thanks to WinCE (and M$), the theatre loses as they spent $$$ on a device that doesn't work.
As a motorcyclist, I can affirm that your allegation about Volvo drivers is quite true. Everytime I see a Volvo waiting at a cross-street in front of me, I can assume that its driver is probably going to pull out *immediately* in front of me as I approach the intersection. Every time I find a Volvo in the lane next to me, I can also assume that its driver is probably about to make an abrupt, unsignalled lane change right into the side of me. Ever time I find a Volvo behind me, I can assume it's probably going to try to run over me.
To remedy these kinds of problems, I propose that Volvo redesign its cars and keep the passengers enclosed inside the vehicle as is now, for their protection, however the driver's position needs to be relocated to outside the vehicle, to inside a flimsy plastic bubble suspended out in front of the front bumper of the car. On either side of the car, there need to be equipped with impact sensing switches that cause the driver's bubble to become de-attached from the vehicle such that the massive automobile can then run over the bubble and crush it before coming to a stop.
Once this design is in place, then Volvo drivers will come to drive so carefully that they will be just as safe drivers as the cars themselves are protective of the passengers.
Hey people, me and a few engineer friends designed a car that alters its speed based on the tempo of music playing in the onboard mp3 player. Not exactly safe, but hella fun when the herdcore techno comes on. Right now it's installed in a 1987 jetta, which is a manual, so you still hafta change gears when appropriate. Get's tricky.
I'm thinking of making the window a giant clear screen, like they have in some of those sunglasses-type things, but we'll have something similar to a winamp visualization plugin going.
And no, I'm not joking.
My dad was a TV repair man...
;)
...I'm a geek. Not a god.
- The version with the automatic transmission would have 4 drive gears that all work differently, that way you can pick one from an individual that you like.
Just use RPM (Regear program manager)
- Instead of intuitive buttons on the steering column to turn on windshield wipers and so on, you have a patch board complete with a very nice array of differing lengths of cable.
What's wrong with patch panels?! You have to learn how to do things in Hyundai's too you'know!
- The driver of the car has to understand how the internal combustion engine works before he can go anywhere in it.
Read the how-to (holy crap this is turning out good!) http://www.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm
- More than one steering wheel can be added to the car, afterall it is a multi-user OS.
My audi has seats with presets for up to 4 users, why shouldn't my stearing wheel? Try to do that with your Pinto!
- The gas door would be located underneath the car so that gas doesn't have to go as far to reach the tank. A bottleneck is removed that way.
Sheesh - just rebuild your engine with the loadable-gastank filler module... duh!
- The key to get into the door can only fit one right side up, afterall it is case sensitive.
It's harder to crack that way. And if you wrap it in ssh (secure sticky handle) it's even harder for someone to get a hold of your key. That's security baby. Unless of course they break your window because you didn't apply the latest tire patch...
- The 'ding ding' noise when you start the car without the seatbelt fastened won't go off because the sound drivers don't work.
- The car wouldn't come with headlights because only newbs need to be able to see where they're going.
You can driveload thermal sights, range finders, radio locators, infrared and night-vision sensors at auto-forge. Who needs headlights? Hell, who needs WINDOWS! (sorry, couldn't resist...)
*Hopes the mods have a sense of humor today.*
Amen brother... amen.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
Does it ask "Are you sure ?" before opening airbags ?
The picture that can be found on the MSNBC site (here) is manipulated if you ask me.
I found a more realistic one here.
42 + 1 = 42
Honest officer , the last thing I remember is popping a cd into the player. It immediately spits it out, flying all around the inside of the car. The speakers started yelling "Err-or " "Err-or" like something from 'Lost in Space '. The steering wheel locked up. I tried restarting the car but the ignition just sat there. I'm looking around the car , the wind shield froze over because the A/C tried to restart the car. Then I look in the basckseat, because that's where Volvo said I should look if I have any problems. There's a CD back there that says 'Rescue...something or other .' I go to put that in and can't because now the
A/C has frozen the CD player.
Some guy,from somewhere starts yelling 'reboot ' 'reboot' , which is of no help since I'm wearing tennis shoes.
Then a light comes on, on the dash, telling me to 'defrag in safe mode'. What the hell is that all about ?
Next thing I know I'm sitting here on the ground talking to you!
Your sig here!
Then we'd really be up shit's creek. I can see it now: you're driving along on the freeway at 75 MPH and your dashboard suddenly says: "New updates are automatically being installed". Next thing you know the airbags all go off, the brakes stop working, the steering pulls hard to the right, and some voice begins saying: "Please move away from the car".
Cop: Sir, I've been following you for the last 3 miles and you stopped no less than 15 times and threw the car into reverse. I'm writing you a ticket.
Driver: But officer, the owner's manual recommends frequent backups.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'car crash,' doesn't it?
I experienced a kernel panic under Linux yesterday when I upgraded the kernel!
:o)
Of course, it was because I accidentally compiled the kernel with Pentium optimizations, and the machine was a 486
Only for use on Micro$oft(tm) certified highways.
Just think what you can put on the insurance claims when you 'crash'
Certainly lots of 'milage' for these jokes.
It will be a Hard Drive to get there.
Specifically, at the Detroit Auto Show. Around 2pm eastern time. It's not even a concept; it's just a test bed for various, interesting ideas in safety technology, like the see-through A-pillar that eliminates a big blind spot. That some of it is controlled by WinCE is just proof that wanted to throw the ideas together cheaply in a small space. WinCE does that just fine, but it sure as hell doesn't mean that if any of those ideas make it to production, they'll use WinCE. Lordy.
Twenty five miles per gallon is pretty decent. Not spectacular, nothing to write home about, but it's no gas guzzler. if you're going to make up numbers, at least make them support your claims
However, you're still prettly likely to survive the crash. You'll just crash more often.
Do not touch -Willie
... presumably it's running in "safe mode" ? (sorry, someone had to say it, or at least, repeat it ...).
Why would he "be proud"?
Is this some sort of corporatized media "hero" or something? What does he have to do with cars or this article?
... can you network it?
* Please do not read my signature.
Finaly. A car I can fix myself. If this car stops running, all I need to do i to close all the windows, turn off the engine and restart my car!!! Is this good news or what?
How much "up-time" did you really need in your car anyway? Unless you keep your car powered on 24 hours a day for more than a month, you will likely have no problems. ;o)
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Who is going to hack a volvo? Not only from the sense of there being no means, motive, or opportunity, who the hell would want to 'hack' a volvo? how anti-l33t can you get?
Well, being a volvogeek, I'd have to say that *I* would hack a Volvo. So would these guys. In fact, they have. They make the best performance products for Volvos of all ages.
Whoa, wait a minute... Did I say 'performance' AND 'volvo' in the same sentence? WTF was I thinking? Oh yeah...that's right, Volvo wasn't the company who won the 94 (or was it 95 or 96?) BTCC series running an 850 WAGON?!? Silly me, yes they were.
Take a look at turbobricks, these guys are into serious performance with their swedish iron. Bork bork bork, my ass.
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
Both, with Microsoft involved, and probably with endangering national security as well.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Don't you speak semicolon?
IRL, I understand that one taxi has hopped into a bronze kangaroo (wet night, changing lanes in a hurry, overdid it) but I can't see any marks from it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
* The existing control software.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I think its the actual death you need to be worried about.
When are they going to have a hacked version running Linux
That none of the patches have ever been installed, so while this box may be up, it is probably rooted.
It'll have a tough acceptance curve when it's discovered that you have to call M$ to get a new access code every fifth time you change drinks in your cupholder.
remotely take control of your vehicle whenever they feel like it,
install insecure updates at will,
snoop on your back-seat video feed,
install spyware to upload logs of played-music, or
GPS logs of where you drive or what gas stations you've been to?