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Ford's New Cars To Be Wi-Fi Hotspots
clang_jangle writes "Autoblog and others are reporting on Ford's planned extension to its in-vehicle SYNC multimedia systems — to enable SYNC-equipped Fords as rolling Wi-Fi hotspots. Customers would use their existing cellular USB modems, so for already equipped road warriers there would be no extra monthly charges. While there are other ways to get your car online (Autonet Mobile review here), the SYNC system does look especially simple and practical. Last year BMW made some noise about FOSS for their cars, but they seem to have since stopped talking about it. Will we see a FOSS option for automotive infotainment systems in the future?" The capabilities of SYNC even without W-Fi look potentially pretty distracting. Unless Wi-Fi is blacked out for the driver, the safety implications of this development are worrisome.
This isn't really that much different than what's available presently. The same idiots that text and drive will have a new possibility. Anybody with any degree of prudence will use this at most to update directions on their GPS in real time. Well, while driving, when you're not driving it's pretty much fair game for whatever you want to use it for.
combined with this product, what's the problem?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Linked with WiMax, this might be useful. 3G speeds are just too slow.
Thet is wot I cowl bed spilling.
Leo Laporte (host of This Week in Tech) recently bought a 2010 SYNC-equipped Mustang, and seems to like it a lot. (Of course, Ford is an advertiser, but otoh he bought the Mustang with his own money.) http://leoville.com/to-the-twitmobile
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
The god damn mother fucking cars should talk to each other with their fucking radios and space the fuck out . What the fuck is so fucking hard about this and or not typing profFUCK anyway then you don't need stop lights. the driver can just sit back. the fucking gps/laser range/wireless car comm drives thef ucking car fuck
Seriously, what good is this to anyone? if you're in the car you would just use your SIM-locked USB modem that you pay 59.99 a month for and if you are outside the car then you would hardly stay connected long enough to send an email before the car you are stealing bandwidth from goes out of range.
I never quite understood this idea behind putting the latest technological gimmick into a car. 802.11g will be obsolete in a few years, 802.11n soon after. The car should last 20 years so that means half way through its expected service life the wifi, the USB connection and the built-in GPS will be almost completely worthless.
If i want my car to have a Wifi AP I will throw my own wifi equipment in the back. same with phones, GPS, all that stuff. Give me a bare minimum car such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrightspeed_X1Wrightspeed X1 but with the most efficient power system, the best batteries available and the highest quality components that won't break. Not putting worthless consumer electronic gimmicks onto a chassis that is supposed to last 20 years.
This is a great idea... except it's in the wrong people's hands.
With it, I'd like peer2peer like distribution. I know these people, and they write scripts (using google wave), performances - both visual and aural.
These are the mobile version. The distribution unit can be housed in the bottom of a block of flats.
This is how my 21st century utopia would begin.
Last year BMW made some noise about FOSS for their cars, but they seem to have since stopped talking about it.
I can't imagine why: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-41146.html
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I seem to recall that my older Honda had something called a 'radio condenser' or something similar linked in with the electrical system. It was supposed to stop the EMF from the spark plugs/solenoids/etc and if I recall correctly from my old haynes guide, the car wouldn't start without it.
So this is just a question for anyone who works in the field: what effect, if any, does broadcasting and drawing current from a car's electrical system have on these hotspots?
I'm just curious because the wireless things in my house seem to slow down all the time for things like my microwave, furnace, tv, etc being on.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
How the heck would you black out wi-fi for the driver? Cone of silence, engage! Besides, when I use my laptop while driving, I sit it on the passenger seat anyway. :P Also, the same people who would be guilty of "distracted driving" with wi-fi are the ones who do it with their phone. Take away their phone, they'll read a book (I've seen this). Take away the book, they'll get so engrossed in talking with their passenger, they don't pay attention. The best method of protecting other drivers is to get people to pay more attention to driving than anything else, not take away everything else. There'll always be some distraction you can't take away.
Unless Wi-Fi is blacked out for the driver, the safety implications of this development are worrisome.
Good grief. Yes - by all means, let's put the driver in a freaking faraday cage so they don't surf porn while they drive. That will make the world safe from the abomination that is mobile internet.
The only worrisome thing on the road to me is the judgment of the people around me. The idiots who can't read the "keep left" signs on the on ramp. Those people. Deal with them first - then you won't need the faraday cage.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Over 12 years ago, I was part of a company that was going to do this concept for Buses in the Denver basin (RTD). The idea was to have one hotspot on the bus, and another doing the link. Then then we were to be given access to the Public Service lights to rig up more hotspots. Sadly, we turned it down.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Correct headline: “Ford's New Cars To Be Wi-Fi Hackspots ”
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Not for driving, but when my car is parked in my garage, the only currently way I have to copy MP3s to it is to stick them on a USB stick and walk them down there.
Why isn't my car stereo having 802.11 and letting me scp files over to it from my home network? I could then select whatever mp3s I wanted to listen to that week from my computer, or heck, even set up a cron job to rotate through my collection each night.
Maybe there are some head units which support this, but mine doesn't (it's about 1 year old, Pioneer model).
> Unless Wi-Fi is blacked out for the driver, the safety implications of this development are worrisome.
I'm not the least bit worried. Just think of the apps you can create for the driver if a car were wi-fi connected. Heads up displays for upcoming traffic problems, weather, etc. Constantly upgrade your car's navigation system with updates and patches that download while the car is parked. etc, etc.
Your fear is based on what you know now. You should instead base your hopes on those good things you can imagine.
Having a wifi in my car sounds interesting. But I cannot imagine you'd keep a good connection while driving around. Is anyone aware of a solution of getting a shoutcast stream to play in a car that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Their is simply no industrial / ebm / futurepop music on the air in the US, not even satellite radio carries any (last I checked, please tell me if anyone knows if that has changed), I just want to be able to listen to Digital Gunfire in my car. I keep asking Santa to bring me this tech, but each year its just more coal.
I can't think of anything else to type, but the title is really good enough.
Unless Wi-Fi is blacked out for the driver, the safety implications of this development are worrisome.
Seriously, kdawson, WTF is the above supposed to mean? WiFi is a wireless connection system. How the FUCK is the driver going to be distracted by a 2400mHz radio signal? This isn't like a TV on the dashboard, or a GPS full of fiddly touch screens, it's a bloody network standard. Even assuming that WiFi to the driver is somehow distracting (maybe a netbook balanced on the steering wheel) how the hell do you suggest they "[black it] out for the driver"? Magic radio curtains? A WEP key that randomly scrambles when you put the car in gear and appears somewhere the driver can't see it?
Give up the attempts at clever editorializing. You don't have the gray matter for it.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Is there anyone else that thinks this is a BAD IDEA? We already have people crashing and killing each-other because of distracted driving... do we need to add to that with giving them something like this?
--E--
the car
Problem? Yes, I'm getting a failure to establish my IPSEC tunnel from the car router to my fixed site and I don't seem to be able to setup for WPA2 enterprise authenticated clients and... hello? hello?
Yeah... all the technology could be distracting. As an adult you kind of need to have some self-control and the sense to avoid doing stupid things that could get you killed or injured, like texting while adjusting the radio while eating while driving a speeding ton of metal down the road.
Ask me about my sig!
Wardriving is going to become quite a bit more difficult and confusing.
Wait a second. Come to think of it... with the right kind of hacking/reverse engineering, this could be a real boon to wardriving!
Not that I condone wardriving. I'm just saying.
Why, no, I haven't meta-moderated lately. Thanks for asking!
And you thought Ford had recall problems before, just wait.
What could possibly go wrong?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you really want drivers to pay attention, mandate some C4 and a metal casing in place of the steering wheel air bag, such that any event that would have triggered the air bag instead sets off the grenade. Require older cars to be retrofitted or destroyed. Publicize the consequences of hitting something widely.
Reuters, December 21-2011
By Anonymous Coward.
Massive traffic congestion clogged major US cities as Ford vehicles equipped with WIFI were hacked by the turd botnet and provided mobile bases for distributed denial of service to traffic computers, According to earlier investigations a Latvian "blackhat" group was found responsible for the evil deed, Microsft could not be reached, as their servers were also compromised by the intrusion.
Ford teamsters said they have no comments yet about what happened, or what they believe should have happened, but they are going to suggest a strike to have their wages increased.
In Soviet Russia, drives war you!
All rites reversed 2010
Can't believe no one has posted this yet: http://xkcd.com/440/
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
BMW is seriously committed to FOSS as an Infortainment platform in their cars - they are not the only ones. They have set up something called the GenIVI Alliance which is an automotive industry consortium which is working together on this type of software: http://genivi.org/ Many other companies have joined as well, like GM, Nokia, Navteq, Intel, Freescale, Nissan, Monta Vista, Pugeot, and Texas Instruments.
Do we have to have networking capabilities in every gods damn thing now?
I'm really hoping that whoever designed this car kept the in car WiFi physically separate from the onboard computer - otherwise you have opened the door for potential DoS (Denial of Steering) attacks. It would of course be the smart thing to do, but seeing as a modern microprocessor can probably handle the car and the WiFi at once, it wouldn't be the cheap thing to do...
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
If any manufacturer made a stereo like this, they'd force you to use their Windows-only bloatware. and ironically the stereo itself will run embedded linux, possibly even with scp installed but not usable
It's pretty much the way things are evolving though, isn't it? Just think how awesome it would be on those long car trips to keep the kids quiet by letting them play online games, and your wife happy by letting her shop on DubLi/eBay/Amazon. I guess I'd like to use it to play any music I want, anywhere. Already got a SatNav.
rd is wet and icy oops aaaaaaaaagh
SYNC works really well and is a huge reason I would consider a Ford vehicle (Fusion or Mustang) over competitors. Of course kdawson will find negatives about it since it's a Microsoft product.
of kdawson showing the world his ignorance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on