Microsoft to Supply Electronics to Formula 1

Yooden_Vranx writes "speedtv.com reports that beginning in 2008, Microsoft will be the sole supplier of Engine Control Units to Formula 1. Apparently, moving to a single supplier is part of the FIA's (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) attempts to cut costs. The article does not clarify whether this cost reduction is enabled by cutting back on tech support, what percentage of the engine's power will be required to run all the 'features' embedded in the device, or whether 'crash' will now refer primarily to software behavior rather than driving incidents."

Comments

Crash, virus infection, BSOD

[quad4b]

Imagine: You are Fernando Alonso racing for Renault in your eighth race of the year. A near perfect string of victories and, on your last lap your engine resets itself to factory specs. You reboot, relizing you haven't been saving your ajustments frequently and stare in horror as your steering wheel comes up with a Blue Screen of Death. You reboot again as your engine stalls and you lose steering. Shumacher flies by (he's running Red Hat). You shut down your engine, wait 30 seconds then start up again in safe mode. Your pit crew has lost wireless remote access to your computer because networking has shut down and can't trouble shoot.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, a psycho automotive manufacturing robot (its three laws of robotics having been hijacked by a truly malicious worm) operating MS's robotic OS jumps on to the field and runs at your car, firing up it's arc welder as it approaches your cockpit...

Clippy at 200 MPH

[Mr. Freeman]

Alright, all of the microsoft related car jokes I could find:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again, because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off!

11. You could only have one person at a time in your car, unless you bought a car '95 or a car NT, but then you'd have to buy more seats.

12. Written on the blue airbag: A fatal exception has occurred.....