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If Microsoft Built Cars...
trystanu writes "If Microsoft Built Cars, occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason; you'd
accept this, restart and drive on -- at least that was the joke a few years ago. ZDNET reports that Microsoft has persuaded a number of carmakers to use its slimmed-down Windows CE operating system to power a variety of in-car electronics, from navigation systems to music players to information devices. BMW, in particular, has gravitated to Microsoft systems, although the company has announced wins with Honda, Volvo and others as well. Perhaps the recent trapping of Thai dignitaries inside a BMW should be a warning to us all."
Too bad he wasn't driving a BMW with an iDrive system, but an earlier BMW. It was a catastrophic electrical system failure that locked him in the car.
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http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,3900115
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?
The little notice says you are not to even operate a hand-held cell phone in the car.
They must use some piss-poor shielding on their electronics if they are really worried about induced currents from a hand-held phone causing any problems.
Either that, or they want to scare people into buying a BMW blessed carphone from a dealership, which is much more likely.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
In the US, it's called the Magnuson-Moss Act of 1975. Google for it. It specifically prohibits product tying for warranty claims. They cannot deny your claim because you used an unapproved cell phone. There's a number of other provisions in MM that BMW seems to be trying to ignore.
Temkin
Embedded != Embedded. MS products maybe used in cars, but largely in the "infotainment" sector.
WinCE is much too big for the tiny microcontrollers that control engines, breakes, gear shifts and so on.. As is Java.
If you want to really what going on in car electronics look for example for the OSEK/VDX initiative, a consortium of german and french carmakers.
I work at a BMW retailer and I can relate a few interesting facts about why this notice is on the car in the first place.
The number one reason is that each BMW vehicle has a personalized wiring system. Each vehicle receives a different wiring harness based upon the features and options in that specific vehicle. In other words, if one 325i has an auto dimming mirror and another does not, the entire wiring harness is different between the two vehicles.
Keep in mind that the wiring harness is like the electrical backbone of the car, weighs about 50 pounds, and runs contiguously from one end of the vehicle to the other. It is NOT something you want to mess with unless you really know what you are doing. In fact, if there is ever a problem in the wiring harness BMW recommends putting in a new one.
That brings me to reason number two. Alot of your aftermarket companies hire morons to install their electronics. I know this because I see it all the time.
For example, we had a customer buy a brand new M3 convertible (~$60K american) and they installed one of those Viper alarms that tells you to "Get BACK!" when you go near the car. The guy that installed it had the great idea of yanking out the headlight control module, chopping a piece out of the wiring that controls the headlights and splicing in there to get power for his alarm. Needless to say the car was NOT OK after this. Starting the vehicle would cause the headlights to freak out...they would switch on and off randomly. To make matters worse, the malfunction caused the autoleveling feature to kick in and make the lights to bob up and down.
This led to a cluster-f$#k with the customer and the service department. The customer was pointing fingers and yelling at the sales and service staff about what a piece of krap the car was and such. Things were pretty bad until we pulled out the light control module and showed them where the aftermarket guy had spliced in to the light system and where the control board had gotten fried.
I personally think the whole reason for the sticker is because BMW wants to maintain the integrity of the electrical system in the car and to make sure people understand that if their aftermarket device screws something up BMW is not gonna pay for it. Bmw even goes so far as to place prewiring jacks in the cars for most aftermarket devices you could want: bluetooth, satalite raio, mp3 players or line in devices for the stereo, phones, alarms, cd changers, and even Universal RF transcievers (programmable garage door opener).
You could even chalk it up to those strict German engineers if you want. God knows they hate it when people mess with their systems.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.