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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."
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.
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.
It has come to my attention that slashdot has posted a story with the keywords "windows 98", "volvo", and "safety".
Your "joke" was the first with a funny moderation on it that i saw. I would like to take the opportunity to address the rest of the slashbots and say "all the rest of the windows 98 BSOD jokes are going to suck".
They are not original, and they aren't funny anymore. You are flogging a dead horse. Slashbots are one trick ponies.
I'd like to see linux circa 1998 try and power a car.
Thank You
I can see it now:
"Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals x. If X is less than the cost of bringing in real programmers to fix our code, we don't release a service pack."
Shall I keep going? :-)
Karma whorin' since 1999
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
Who says they'd need to tweak the OS? I would think they could run a standard kernel and do their own application on top of it without that application being public. Or am I missing something, like anything that runs ON linux must be open source too. I'm not sure, I haven't actually read the license stuff all the way through.
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?"
Russian spacecraft run linux on easy bake ovens.
Ok, I made that up.
--
pants ahoy
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
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.
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
> Your "joke" was the first with a funny moderation on it that i saw. I would like to take the opportunity to address the rest of the slashbots and say "all the rest of the windows 98 BSOD jokes are going to suck". ... I'd like to see linux circa 1998 try and power a car.
You probably wouldn't have too look too hard to find a Linux system that hasn't been down since 1998.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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
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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.....
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
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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?"
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.*
This is the kind of things that would cause the other part of your split personality to develop SOAP-based protocols.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
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
"Clippy On Board"
"I break for solitare"
"Bob is my copilot"
"I don't break for Netscape"
(Fish sticker with four Windows color segments)
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
After all, it's a part of the OS and cannot be removed, right?
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
...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!