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Dashboard Avatar To Replace Car Owner's Manuals
cylonlover writes "At one time not all that long ago, cars had a warning light on the dashboard that simply said 'ENGINE.' That's pretty vague. Really, it might just as well have said 'CAR.' Some newer automobiles now have codes that appear on the console, which the driver must then look up in an index in the vehicle's owner's manual. Working with Audi, Germany's Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) Institute of Business Informatics is now working on taking things a step farther, with the development of an on-screen avatar that will talk to drivers, and even understand their spoken questions."
Or in other words “our cars require maintenance and/or break down so frequently that we have spent a nautical ass-tonne of money developing a automotive equivalent of clippy for you!”?
The number readout is logical .. a major step up from the simple “service engine soon” light. The car already knows exactly what sensor caused the error.. and relating that to the user in something that can be looked up seems sane (although I always figured they specifically didn’t so they could charge you $50 to tell you your oil cap was loose).
A step up from that might be nice... maybe a lcd text readout with a line or two. Just enough info to know what you are dealing with.
The solution discussed in the article however sounds ridiculous. I did of course get a chuckle picturing some lady frustrated screaming “BURNT OUT HEADLIGHT FOR THE TENTH DAMN TIME” at the thing only to hear “the first step in changing the oil of your automobile ”. Crummy voice recognition combined with the frustration that comes with your car breaking down at the exact worst time is gonna make for some interesting breakdowns.
This all has a very “house of the future” feel to it.
Clippy gives me a wizard on how to start a car.
It looks like you're trying to drive over the speed-limit. Would you like to...
- Slow down?
- Alert local authorities?
- Opt for additional insurance coverage?
- Locate a runaway truck ramp?
Something talking to you that doesn't know when to shut the fuck up, and only understands about 40% of what you say
I thought you were talking about women for a minute
It's well known that the current "check engine light" and problem code system is specifically designed to artificially lock customers into dealership service, including car makers suing 3rd party companies that dared to make problem code readers and/or publish lookup tables.
Throw that crap out and it'd be incredibly trivial to display the code to the driver with a one line summary. That gets us 99% of what this new auto Clippy could ever offer.
But Clippy will never happen for the same reason a simple 1 line text summary will never happen: It's still primarily a lock-in system to artificially prop up dealership service centers by making it often impossible for an owner or even the corner shop mechanic to read thus making it effectively impossible to fix without the car manufacturer's blessing.
My
Sounds like the EDsel-209
Good-bye