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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."
So... what are the chances of DRM following us to our (future) cars after it's rolled out? More specifically, the playing of mp3 cds.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
It will just make it that much easier to decide which manufacturers I'd consider the next time I buy a car, since there will a few that will immediately excluded.
Seriously - don't flame me. Win CE is very user friendly out of the box, and that's what one needs in a car interface. Familiarity is also key. Add some flashy, touch screen navigation, and voila. I'd have thought the increased cost of using MS as a reason to use a Linux flavor, but hey, I'm not the one spending money here.
A blog like any other.
Reading that story from Singapore puzzles me. Does it strike anyone here as silly to have car locks that are controlled entirely electronically? I mean, power locks are great, don't get me wrong. But since they are by necessity mechanical anyway, so doesn't it make sense to provide a manual, mechanical means to lock and unlock them? Doing otherwise just seems like you're placing unnecessary trust in imperfect electronics.
Quite frankly this concerns me.. all joking aside, Microsoft has yet to prove itself in the reliability stakes. Plain and simple.
Their handheld / 'CE' operating systems are no different, and quite simply I wouldn't knowingly buy a car where the majority of its tricks and gizmo's were Microsoft powered.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
...from navigation systems to music players to information devices...
Personally, I think it's no big deal. Just remember these are all non-critical components.
I'd start to worry if they operated the controllers for engine/fuel/drive-by-wire systems. etc.
"Perhaps the recent trapping of Thai dignitaries inside a BMW should be a warning to us all."
Did you actually read the article????
It starts with this paragraph
BMW has told CNETAsia that an electronic fault caused the problem, rather than a system crash of the car's Windows-based central computer, as other reports have speculated.
and ends with
But when contacted by CNETAsia, a spokeswoman from BMW Thailand said the car at fault was a 10-year old BMW 520i that had suffered a simple electronic failure.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Which is what it said in the article. So what? Does that suddenly mean that Microsft's 20+ year record of buggy, unreliable, insecure software just vanishes? The lession was not about what system the car was using but what can happen if systems fail on a modern, particularly a modern bullet proof, car. Why would anyone want to risk using the world's most famous failed OS in such circumstances?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Not trying to troll here, but Microsoft is a company that I simply do not trust. I don't trust them with maintaining my privacy, nor do I trust that they have my best interests in mind. And that's only for computer usage. Why would I trust that their system will always "do the right thing" when I'm in a real-world scenario, driving down the highway at 50 mph? True, I have no idea what role Windows CE (or whatever is used) would actually play while the car is in use, but it's an important question to answer. For myself, you can damn well be sure that I would take some serious convincing before I would entertain the possibility of spending a huge sum of money on a rolling, engine-powered WIndows machine. And even if I'm convinced, who's to say that there aren't serious problems with the design of Windows CE and how it interacts with the rest of the car. Even if it's only used to control the car stereo, I'd rather not have it there. I'll just stick with a nice Toyota or Volkswagen, or frankly any other manufacturer that avoids the use of a Microsoft prodcut as a systems controller.
Also, from the reactions to their iDrive system that I've seen, they can use all the user-friendliness they can get - the perfect job for MS.
Ironically, 50,000 people die every year from Automobile accidents and no one looks to blame Ford or GM for these deaths.
It's probably not too far off to say 99.9% of Windows crashing problems are due to operator error from installing bad drivers (from other manufacterers), installing bad hardware, installing crappy software.
If GM made Windows, it would not be upgradable, it would run 1950's technology, it would cost $20000 every 5 years, and it would STILL CRASH!
Not a Microsocks fan, but it's funny how narrowminded some can be...
torved
I came to Athens and no one knew me. - Democritus
Not that I'm saying it would make sense to do so, but the door lock is not mechanical by pure neccessity. If the handle to the regular door-latch (not lock) were also simply an electronic switch, the "lock" could simply be something which disables the regular latch.
:)
Just trying to be unhelpful here
[hey, it's how I'd build a lock!]
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'm not saying that I'd want to have any safety critical systems depending on it, but it's actually getting better (which, after my recent experiences with XP, I'm beginning to think is counter to the trend at that place). The 2002 version of Pocket PC, for example, is a lot more stable than the 2000 version. My Jornada 548 had two total data loss crashes that prevented it from shutting off until the battery ran out. My 568, running the same applications, hasn't managed to pull that trick yet... though it's still got the awful memory management problems that cut the effective usable memory by a factor of 3-4.
I don't think I'd want my car powered by embedded Linux, either. There are a lot of high quality well-designed dedicated real-time operating systems that don't have a legacy "big system" design. Why not stick with them? Going to Microsoft for your embedded systems is like going to Navistar for your family car, or to Halliburton for your swimming pool.
You have to remember this was in Thailand, where if you're driving with windows up you by necessity need air conditioning. The passenger compartment starts cooking VERY quickly under a hot sun on a humid day, so even in the few minutes they were trapped in there it would have gotten very uncomfortable. Remember also they probably would have been in shirt, suits and ties, not shorts and T-shirt.
And what's wrong with the 10 minute figure? It didn't take 10 minutes to smash through the glass, it took ten minutes to attract someone without using a horn, who then notified a security guard, who then had to find a sledgehammer. I'm sure few have them strapped to their belts as standard equipment.
Every year here we have cases of babies locked inside cars on a hot summer day while the parent runs inside for some quick errands. In many cases these babies end up in the hospital, after not much more than 10 minutes of being in such conditions.
why should ANY program be capable of locking up the entire OS?
You forgot about the temperature. About 20 years ago, I got stuck in a two-door Honda because the passenger door wouldn't open after towing a trailer and the lock on the driver's side jammed. The windows had long since stopped working after the metal channels had rusted, in typical Honda-fashion, through. This was in Dallas in July at 2PM. It wasn't even 10 minutes before I had trouble breathing. Fortunately I was able to pry the window down far enough to slide a key to someone so they could open the hatchback. I imagine that Thailand is as hot or hotter than Dallas at times. You say 10 minutes isn't a long time, but when I worked in a grocery store in Dallas, I saw several dogs die after being left in a sealed car for 20 to 30 minutes.
Recycled MBA/Engineer joke?
Or was it engineer/mathematics?
Anyway, the engineer part is important, as it shows the pragmatism of an engineer on most matters in contrast to their humouristic antagonists.
The transposition of the joke on Mac/Win lacks this kind of insight as pragmatism is, IMHO, not the distinguishing attribute of a Mac user.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Those motorcycle crash photos are pretty gross. I'm trying to convince myself they aren't real ...
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
I can't believe anybody would even *consider* Microsoft for mission critical systems, given their EULA and their past (and current) track record. There must be a lot of money involved, that's all that would make any sense.
You have to ask yourself: whos interest are they looking out for? Mine and yours, or their own? They don't give a flying shit about us, they just want their product in every nook and cranny on this planet so there's no way you can get away from using it. That would be their perfect world. What a bunch of sick fucks.
...Microsoft didn't design the iDrive system, they only provided the underlying OS. That's like blaming Linus for a shitty UI design from KDE or Gnome. As for its stability, stop comparing a desktop based Windows OS to what would be placed in ar computer systems (presumably CE or XP Embedded). I'm always amazed when the OSS community whines about all the FUD put out by companies like Microsoft or SCO yet they turn around and generate the same, if not more, amount of bullshit FUD in return.
When it becomes obvious that tires are shredding and rolling over, people do. When it becomes obvious that cars are exploding upon a slight rear collision, people do. When cars that are supposed to protect their drivers in a collision instead drive the steering column through their chest, people do.
It's pretty obvious that, for example, when the Windows installer crashes, or a fresh copy of IIS has to be rebooted every 2 weeks despite serving only static HTML, that Windows is somehow at fault. Not only is Windows instability legendary, it is also well documented. Hardware cannot be the issue, because that hardware could be running another OS and have years of uptime. Drivers should not be the issue for the same reason. If the drivers are both put out by the same company, they should have the same level of overall quality.
GM has made an OS... Its cars have been running on microcontrollers for years. They run on the smallest of processors, they can be upgraded for about $100 by replacing a ROM, and they never crash. If you had meant what a horrible mess it would be for GM to attempt to create a desktop operating system, then yes, I agree with you. However, that should extend to any company attempting to do something significant in a field that they don't have experience in.
If Microsoft decided to do this properly by hiring the best kernel developers and experienced automotive programmers, and creating a real-time OS from scratch, people might be persuaded that this was a good idea. But they're not. They're taking an OS made for convincing a printer to communicate with a text processor, and trying to force it into making an antilock braking system communicate with a real-time traction control system.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather use an OS specifically designed for reliability if I'm going to spend two hours a day inside something that kills 50,000 people per year.
The ______ Agenda
...then I don't have much to say. I love BMWs, and BMW is not dumb to choose something that would not be up to their standards. Unfortunately the notion so many people have that anything associated with the word Microsoft is bad by default is wrong. It's clear that buidling an OS for the car (mostly for personal use in this case, not to control the car's vital functions) is different than building an OS for the desktop, and equally easy to see why. It's a competitive world and some will use Linux, others will use Windows (slimmed). See, you can actually say now that it is a competitive world. I am happy with that.
The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Fcuknig amzanig eh!
Why didn't you have the dealership check for trouble codes?
The trouble with such a highly computerized car...I feel, is that once you get electrical demons in there...they are almost impossible to get rid of. Their diagnostic stuff could never catch the problems.
This is why almost every module stores a diagnostic trouble code (DTC) to help the service tech pinpoint the problem. At exactly the moment that the module detected an "electrical demon", it should store a DTC such as "Front Left Wheel Speed Sensor Airgap". This one, for example, indicates that during the last 14 or so milliseconds, the sensor did not interrupt the processor -- when previously the module calculated a speed of 100 kph based on this sensor's interrupts.
I'm a definite believe in a more 'mechanical' car....much more dependable and easier to maintain IMHO.
IMHO this is not an appropriate post on a technology-based forum. Your '86 Porsche still benefits from fuel injection, which is computer-controlled. And your enthusiasm about 10 mpg amazes me.
The technology under the hood of my 350Z enables it's normally aspirated 3.5L V6 to put out around 290 hp! This technology, namely variable valve timing and direct ignition, would not be possible without a computer orchestrating everything. (And I'm guessing that it will perform as well as your '86 Porsche, while giving me a highway fuel economy of 26 mpg)
Evidently, you either ignorantly or puposely misinterpreted the report, which merely states that 50% of crashes are third-party, and the other 50% are from Windows itself due to bad drivers or other poorly-written OS hooks. Yes, there were other reports about this that stated such.
In other words, half of what Dr. Watson reported was error conditions originating directly from third-party code, while the other half was initiated by Windows code. Hardly a reason to point fingers at "bad" Windows code. The Windows kernel rivals that of Linux in many ways. It's the stuff on top of it that biased people have a problem with.
9/11 was caused by poor airline security and lax regulation and oversight.
NO. NO NO NO NO!!!!. The terrorists took over using friggin' BOX KNIVES! I, for one, do NOT want to see the level of paranoid security that would be required to prevent someone from carrying a tiny razor-blade sized knife on board. The best weapon the terrorists had was deceit. They had the passengers convinced that all that was going to happen was that the plane was going to be forced to land somewhere and then negotiations would begin for hostage release. Under those expectations, the risk of being stabbed with the knives wasn't worth engaging in any heroics. In the one case where the news was already out, and the element of deceit was lost, the passengers did decide to overpower the terrorists' wimpy arsenel of box knifes. The same thing would likely have happened on the other three flights if they too had known what was going to happen if they sat still.
Don't blame airline security. Blame excessive optimism on the part of the passengers.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
In modern vehicles, the warning lamps are not hardwired. They are controlled by the embedded software in the instrument panel (IP). If the IP has not received a message from the ABS module within, say, 1 second, it will turn on EVERY brake-related lamp immediately (red "BRAKE" lamp, yellow "ABS" lamp, traction/stability control warning lamp, etc.)
Even in older vehicles that had hard-wired lamps, the lamp was grounded through the ABS controller. In this way, if the ABS micro ever went down, the lamp would illuminate by default.
There is no comparison between desktop computers which have millions of different possible configurations of input/output devices and storage mediums and protocols, and an embedded system such as a driver's seat module or a climate -control module, that performs a pre-determined (and thus EMBEDDED) function, while listening to the exact same sensorics in EVERY VEHICLE.
I can shut down my Windows machine and install a new sound card or completely replace the RAM, and likely it will re-boot and attempt to figure out what I've done. It may or may not re-configure everything correctly. Your car will not be happy with similar changes because all of this code doesn't exist. If a wheel speed sensor doesn't look electrically identical to the sensor that the system was designed for, the ABS module will set a DTC, disable ABS function, and throw a warning lamp.
Linux is remarkably stable because the user is responsible for configuring everything. Don't want support for sound cards other than what's installed in your box? Don't compile or load those modules. Don't need USB support? Re-compile the kernel and don't include it. You can make all the choices.
By the way, the supplier responsible for the module writes their own software.
I am a vehicle development engineer working on automotive embedded systems.
I marvel to think that anything with a 17 year old circuit board in it is still moving. Give your 350Z 17yrs of abuse, then come back and see if you wish to give this Gent the same criticism.
For a moment think on that old IBM PC-AT, the 6Mhz one that seemed so fast back then. Then remember it's 17 yrs old, and think to yourself : do you really want your kids playing anywhere near it just in case it blows up? I suppose there are a few of those old PC-AT's out there, but nature has a way of turning silicon into junk - electronics do fail. Statistics catch up with electronics, quickly.
The more complex, failure prone stuff in the blackboxes, the higher the probability it will all fail sooner, rather than later.
Not quite. If you read the article, Microsoft's emphasis was on getting networked computers into cars. Whether or not it's 802.11g is irrelevant; viruses were spreading via networks long before 802.11g was even a possibility. So perhaps they would use the existing cell phone infrastructure.
I mean, 15 years ago an email virus was thought impossible - email was plaintext, and everybody knew that plain text couldn't carry viruses. That was until Microsoft's auto-execute-email-attachments made the email virus a reality. The lesson: if there's a way to spread viruses, Microsoft will find it and make it a standard "feature".
I don't mean this to be a troll but Microsoft has repeatedly shown themselves to be extremely naive when it comes to security and reliability. It's not that they couldn't write a secure, bug-free OS for cars. It's that they won't; their emphasis will be on getting streaming video on the dashboard rather than fixing the bugs. They don't understand the degree of security and reliability that the consumers expect of their vehicles. A BSOD is a much bigger problem at 60 mph than when sitting behind a desk.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
>The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste huge amounts of money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. They have let the inmates run the asylum. Alan Cooper offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
If the engineers were running the show, things would have been much better, but whos running the show are idiots biz people who has no clue about technolgy. This book was obviously written by a biz person who wants to make a scapegoat of engineers.
The same can be accomplished with computer-ASSISTANCE without the risks of computer-CONTROL.
The cell phone usually *is* approved. By the FCC (or national equivalent/s) and has several other governmental and industry permits, seals, etc. At International, National, Regional, State, City, and County levels.
If the car can't handle it, it's the car that should have its approvals revoked, repealed, voided, rescinded, spat upon and dumped. And the guys that made and sold it should be made to spend a few years cleaning up ERs, or something.