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Cars that Can't Crash?
johnsee writes "Microsoft is working with Ford Motor Co towards car that can't crash. The future of cars according to Gates will involve high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions." From the article: "Also on Friday, Microsoft unveiled its Performance Peak Initiative -- a line of computer systems to help the auto industry better coordinate supply chains, streamline design, production and sales and fill vehicles with computer gadgets."
every /. reader in the world is gonna think "car that will never crash from the maker of the OS that will always crash?"
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Gates and Bill Ford Jr., Ford's chairman and chief executive, said high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions will set car companies apart from their competitors.
That's nice and all, but how will these technologies help cars to 'not crash'? It seems like a digital calendar will lead to more crashes.
Driver: "Car! I said DON"T CRASH! DON'T CRASH!"
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
The only car that can't crash is one locked in a concrete room with no doors and no internet connection...
If you watch TV news, you know less about the world than if you just drank gin straight from the bottle.
instead of these virtual things, they'd still crash. Trains do.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
I have 10 simple, low tech ways to which will guarentee fewer car crashes. Most of these already come with your current car, and the rest are simple and free to implement.
1. Breaks
2. Steering wheel
3. Side mirrors
4. Don't speed
5. Don't drink while drunk or high
6. Use your turn signal
7. Leave enough space between your car and the car in front of you.
8. Check over your shoulder to look in the blind spot before making a lane change.
9. Be considerate of other drivers.
10. Don't drive in LA.
And a bonus 11th point to feed the trolls:
11. Revoke the drivers licenses for anyone with 3 serious tickets in the last 5 years.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
.... Well it would be ....
Based upon Microsoft's ability to drive computers, I'm not so sure I want them driving a car. Certainly not one with ME in it.
Obvious slogan: All the reliability you have come to expect from Microsoft, with all the safety features of a Ford. I can't wait until these hit the road, so I can quit driving altogether.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
What would stop a car, trying to avoid a potential accident, from steering itself off the side of a cliff?
And what about choices that real people may have to decide. If I lost control of my car and the options were
1) Attempt to crash into brick wall
2) Attempt to crash into side of a hill
3) Do nothing and continue on course to plow into a group of children crossing a street.
What would the car decide? What's the failsafe if the magic computer stops working? What level of control is still in the hands of the driver? These are questions people will want to know the answer to, not a bunch of marketing oral-ejaculation about how this is the greatest thing since seatbelts.
As of this posting, I now have 1 on my list.
It's astonishing that anybody who's even heard of the Titanic can say something like that with a straight face.
Milliseconds before impact, the entire windshields and all the windows go blue.
Funny, perhaps, but this might not be the worst safty feature in the world. Tensing up in an accident actually increases injuries and blanking out the windows for the scary parts might help.
It wasn't clear from the atricle if their looking into cars that drive themselves or ones that simply ignore the signals from the driver based on certain rule sets, sort of like ABS for the steering wheel. Of the two, I think crash-avoidence override is scarier to me than complete automation even though that has a much larger window for failure.
I also worry about overall architecture, given how Microsoft has been approaching the PC. Everyone'll be running down to Firestone for some firewall tires and pulling over to install their updates.
Really, I think past Win2k performance has been really excellent (*ducks*). I think it's time for all this windows and redundant statements to end. I can say for a fact that until Windows NT, Windows was pretty much useless in the sense that it would always crash. Isn't it time that we give credit to MS? They've done a fairly decent job when it comes to crashes with win2k and xp (security wise, not so much)
- Teja
I've seen the car of the future in countless sci-fi movies and books already! But, hey, if Gates says it, then for sure it must be right around the corner. Ho hum..
God help us all if these are the things to come. In fact, I prefer my technology to
Even my first-gen iPod still works! I dunno, I'm past the disliking Gates and his empire and now I'm just sick of him telling everyone what the future's gonna be and the fact that Microsoft's gonna get you there.
Hang it up man, hang it up.
I've been on the MS side of development for the past 6 years. .NET is paying my mortgage. I have a wife and 2 kids who eat food bought with .NET money.
I would never buy a car based on MS technology.
If I found out the ones I already own contain MS technology, I would sell them.
I'll trust fairly sensitive data -- taxes, SSN, credit cards, etc. -- to be stored on MS based technology. Which is somewhat crazy in itself.
But I would never trust my life to it.
I have seen first-hand what MS source code looks like. Not horrible (relatively), but certainly on the level of application code -- definitely not mission-critical code.
Those who can, do.
Those who cannot, teach.
Those who think they can but cannot, manage.
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.')"
You know what, Microsoft is a perfect fit for an American car company. They've improved their cars a lot recently, and it's about time for a setback, kinda like the early 1980s.
"Microsoft: Drivin' like its 1979."
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
"Hahaha you're so funny"
I know. I thoght that too. He really is quite funny.
"Like, Windows has the 'blue screen of death', and you said 'the windows will go blue', like a blue windscreen of death!
Well, you didn't have to go ruining it for everyone else! Geez. The children are crying now.
"Really, you are the first person to ever make that joke comparing Windows crashing and cars crashing. Working in the 'blue screen' thing is really fucking witty. Honestly."
I sense sarcasm here. You should calm down. Cruise the relaxation highway. Find your cave. Take a chill pill. Get a load off. Take a ride on the cool train...
Computers are faster than you are.
You can't fly an F-16 without a flight control computer. Seat of the pants doesn't do you any good when the airplane doesn't know which end to keep into the wind.
You might argue that overly intrusive computer controls detract from the driving experience, but I don't agree for a second that computers in cars are categorically bad. If the yaw control in the 911 Turbo keeps you from spinning your car off the Nurburgring, that's Good.
Now, Microsoft operating systems in cars are CERTAINLY in that "categorically bad" category. I'll never understand what possessed BMW to go to Microsoft to get their iDrive user interface.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I have in fact nearly been been killed due to the effect of having two tires sand and two tires on pavement after a snow cleared and the road was dry. The brakes refused to engage because they asumed I was doing something stupid.
There is also an intersection in my town that many cars fail to stop at (it has a stop sign) because surface irregularities combined with the fact that it is on a steep downhill grade causes damn near every new car with ABS to studder but keep rolling until they are 1/2 a cars length past the beginning of the intersection.
I think ABS is an overall good thing (especially at highway speeds during emergency manuvers). But there are situations that I turn it off in my car. I have a switch wired to the fuse that controls the ABS in my car. (I drive on gravel a LOT, and I tend to drive like back when I used to rally as well)
I guess my point is this... You will NEVER have an uncrashable car on todays existing roads. Highways would need to be on a computer controlled Rail System.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Software causing a car crash would lead to the first real court test of EULA disclaimers. Microsoft may be able to disclaim liability for someone's ruined spreadsheet, but if a Microsoft powered car crashes and kills someone, there's enough money at stake to sue and I doubt the court will be impressed with what is written on page 87 of a EULA that the driver supposedly agreed to by turning the ignition key.