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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."
I love car crashes on TV!
You can't take the sky from me...
This is the first article in a while to deserve to be modded Funny +1, which won't help his karma (that's a pun, get it?) anyway.
The original poster also failed to point out the problems when Windows Genuine Advantage refuses to let your car start on race day because someone else may have used your license plate.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They will claim ownership to whatever OS they buy, steal or build. That's what they did with the quick and dirty OS (QDOS > DOS > M$DOS > WIN3.1 > WIN9x > WINXP > VISTA), and every other application that is now "theirs".
The real question is how long they will survive as a company after Vista crashes and burns.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If Microsoft Built Cars...
1. A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until after that year instead of before it.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would just die for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car 95 or a Car NT. But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Sun Motorsystems would make a car that was powered by the sun, twice as reliable, and five times as fast - but it would only run on 5 percent of the roads.
6. The oil, engine, gas, and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
7. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for years.
8. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas.
9. The U.S. government would be GETTING subsidies from an automaker, instead of giving them.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same-size butt.
11. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
12. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
13. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the car windows, shut it off, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this, restart and drive on.
14. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd accept this too.
15. 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.
16. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bout a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
17. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
18. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
19. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
20. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft petrol and lubricants but the packaging would be superb.
21. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
22. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
23. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
24. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 1 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
25. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
26. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes.Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
27. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own anyroads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free,including IBM.
28. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11),then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
29. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrowyour friends, and then copy it.
30. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the
SO what. It's just a fucking corporation for god's sake. It's not like a human being or something and it's feelings are not going to get hurt. It's certainly not going to make any less money.
Honestly save your pity for someone who really needs it. Not a fucking corporation.
If you ever do need to bask in adulation of MS you can always go to gotdotnet.com. There you will find minions of MS dancing around Bill gates chanting "holy, holy, holy" 24/7 just like it says so in the bible.
evil is as evil does