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How Ford Will Upgrade Owners' Display Screens

Posted by timothy on from the changing-focus dept.

gManZboy writes "'Sometime early next year, Ford will mail USB sticks to about 250,000 owners of vehicles with its advanced touchscreen control panel. The stick will contain a major upgrade to the software for that screen. With it, Ford breaks the model in which the technology in a car essentially stayed unchanged from assembly line to junk yard' — and Ford becomes a software company. This shift created a hot new tech job at Ford: human-machine interface engineers — people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once."

29 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. what a summary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once"

    did MLK write the summary?

    1. Re:what a summary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Workplaces like that are very common today. They're basically two or three American mechanical engineers, coupled with two or three American software developers. They usually have one good manager a level above them, but then another 15 or so useless managers above that. Then there are the 85 off-shore software developers who collectively are less productive than the two or three American software developers. Aside from getting their own assigned work completed, the American software developers also have to do or fix the work assigned to the off-shore developers. But since this whole off-shoring idea was originated by one of the 15 useless middle managers, it's untouchable and can't just be discarded, although it's a complete waste. Then there's a 'user interface designer' that the software developers have to fight with daily. This poor fellow dropped out of art school and somehow became an expert in UIs. He wants to spend all day adding curved corners and gradients to every part of the UI. Then he decides to drop menu bars, status bars, and other useful UI functionality like that, because it's not 'usable'. The software developers battle with him constantly over his stupid ideas, but this designer is the son of the brother of one of the middle managers, so he stays around although he's a complete waste.

    2. Re:what a summary! by billcopc · · Score: 5, Informative

      This.

      Offshoring, in my experience over the past 3-4 years, has been more trouble than it is worth. The time you spend babysitting these novice developers eats up whatever you "saved" by paying them 1/4 of your local wage, and it drives that project manager absolutely batshit insane. And then it takes them at least twice as long to do anything.

      I often get the impression most of these guys can't be bothered to think for themselves. If you tell them "Add a newsletter subscription form", they will add the form, sure, a form that does nothing when you click Submit. It doesn't matter that the same guy has been working on your site for over a year, he's still not going to realize you didn't just want an inert form on your website. If you then say "make it insert into the database", hey great, now it's inserting into the database - in some random table that isn't the subscriptions table! So the net result is you practically write p-code, which they then thinly translate into Java or PHP or whatever.

      Some shops can apparently tolerate this level of mediocrity. We've tried offshoring a few times, thinking maybe we had bad luck the first few times... nope, always the same bullshit, so that's why I now know how to configure and script Asterisk IVRs. We wanted to pay someone to just get it done since it was well outside our expertise, but in the end we had to do it over from scratch because all the offshore contractors we hired were complete imbeciles - so much for calling themselves Asterisk experts!

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    3. Re:what a summary! by smpoole7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not that they love mediocre so much as the "15 PHB Managers" mentioned above delude themselves. They've also been taught that the *perception* of quality is more important than the reality. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak," convince the customers that you're the best and there you go.

      They honestly don't know any better, because they've never actually built anything. All they know how to do is maximize profits. It's not just the software, either, it's the hardware. In spades. Some salescreature from Asia will waltz in and say, "I can build your gidgle-widgets for fifty cents!"

      The PHBs get moist eyed. They exclaim, "we're paying ten times that now!" They pound each other on the back and cry. "FIFTY CENTS? Yay! Halloo," and they sign the deal.

      The new stuff arrives and about half of it breaks. About 10% of it doesn't even work out of the box. The PHBs DON'T CARE. The way they look at it, they're saving so much money that, even if they have to replace the customer's unit two or three times, they still come out ahead.

      The Internet is changing that, though, because most of us consumer types look at reviews before we buy anything. PHBs *hate* online reviews, because they say, "their stuff may 'sizzle nicely, but the steak itself is awful ..."

      (Gosh, I'm awfully poetic this morning. I need more coffee.)

      --
      Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
    4. Re:what a summary! by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, but no.... Just no. He asked for a form that does a specific task. If the form does not do this task, then this isn't about guessing, it's that they're incompetent.

    5. Re:what a summary! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative

      This.

      Offshoring, in my experience over the past 3-4 years, has been more trouble than it is worth.

      The work ethics and habits of American workers evolved over the decades when long career in one company with a gold watch and a pension. They work in certain way. The management on its part should be nurturing the workers who have a deep understanding of the company and the customers, especially those workers who cultivate skills that can not be useful seeking employment elsewhere. But management ditched the gold watch, picked up the golden parachute.

      The work ethics and the habits of the body-shopping firms evolved in a climate where the relationship is definitely not long term. Both sides knew it. Both sides expected the other side to take maximum advantage of it. American management went in thinking American work ethics in third-world prices. But it is not dealing with employees but intermediate contractors. Even if the body-shopping contractors have long term employees who are loyal, they would be loyal to the contractor, not to the outsourcing companies. Further everyone knows the cluelessness of the middle management. So they found every loop hole in the contract, every stretchable point, every exploitable gap and the body shopping contractors took the American management to the cleaners faster than you can say "aloo gobi, channa masala, butter nan and mango lassi please".

      There are world class employees and workers in India. But they (I should say we, because I am a desi who would not work for a desi salary) go up the value chain pretty quickly and are not available for hire at third world prices. What you do get for third world prices are third world class work.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    6. Re:what a summary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      people who come from a range of backgrounds, from software development to mechanical engineers, and who can live in the worlds of art and science at once

      Then there's a 'user interface designer' that the software developers have to fight with daily. This poor fellow dropped out of art school and somehow became an expert in UIs. He wants to spend all day adding curved corners and gradients to every part of the UI. Then he decides to drop menu bars, status bars, and other useful UI functionality like that, because it's not 'usable'. The software developers battle with him constantly over his stupid ideas, but this designer is the son of the brother of one of the middle managers, so he stays around although he's a complete waste.

      I just thought I'd chime in here. Ford has contracted out at least one UI deign project for their new cars to several parallel design firms, including one I work with (sorry NDA prohibits more info). The design is a long term project made up of: one manager below the level of company founder; one graphic designer; and a bunch of usability researchers from disparate backgrounds including: UI design, anthropology, CS, music, and education. They spend most of their time putting together fast and dirty mockups of interfaces and then watching as many people as possible (in the target demographic) try to use them and interviewing those people about the experience.

      It is too early to judge the quality of the end product and even if it is excellent who knows if Ford will go forward with it. That said, I thought it important that people know your vision of how UIs are designed does not reflect the reality of my current experience with their "in process" design work.

  2. Opening by Ice+Station+Zebra · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds like an opening for a black hat to compromise a Ford vehicle with some mal-ware.

    1. Re:Opening by Mantis8 · · Score: 5, Funny

      F.O.R.D. = fix or repair daily will take on a whole new meaning now.

    2. Re:Opening by mikerubin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Format Or Reinstall Daily

      --
      I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
    3. Re:Opening by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That was amusing back when Ford has serious quality issues, those days are by and large gone.

      As others have mentioned this is probably largely MS' fault for not doing proper QA prior to shipping the product. I'd consider blaming Ford, but let's be honest it's not like MS has any methods in place for requiring QA of products built with their products and they do often times deliberately provide work arounds so that the integrators don't have to.

    4. Re:Opening by kmoorman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Consumer Reports has Ford quality way down again, mostly because of this software.

      And if you buy a Ford and blame Microsoft for its problems I guarantee that you will be in the vast minority. Anyone with half a brain will be blaming Ford.

    5. Re:Opening by PPH · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone with half a brain will be blaming Ford.

      As they should. Ford is responsible for their brand's reputation in the final analysis. If they buy crap from some third party, they'll be the ones to suffer.Its the same thing with airplanes. When a Boeing or Airbus crashes, nobody remembers that it was a GE engine that blew up.

      Guess where Ford's CEO came from? Its sad, because Boeing really needs someone who understands their reputation's problems in the face of outsource vendors.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  3. uhh.. article years too late.. by rrossman2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously... the article writer and story submitter haven't been involved with or paying attention to autos for the past.. oh.. 10+ years?

    Most "recalls" anymore are for flashing the software or programming in the ECU, TCM, BCM, or whatever other module. There's a recent 2007-2010 model year Honda recall for transmissions shifting issues that the fix is flashing new programming into the computer. How is that not software?

    Heck, GM radios (yes, made by delco or whoever) come with certain features locked out.. to unlock say the input port to work with XM requires plugging it into the shop computer and basically "flipping some bits" in the radio firmware (for lack of better terms) to enable the feature.

    There are older recalls that are just software updates.. and these updates are as much software and done by the car manufacturer as the Ford update (IE: Ford doesn't make the radios, other companies do.. some companies that make OEM radios include: Fujitsu Ten (Eclipse), Panasonic, Delco, Alpine, Pioneer, Becker, Kenwood, JVC... most of that short list I typed out also still make or made after market radios at some point.

    1. Re:uhh.. article years too late.. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Heck, GM radios (yes, made by delco or whoever) come with certain features locked out.. to unlock say the input port to work with XM requires plugging it into the shop computer and basically "flipping some bits" in the radio firmware (for lack of better terms) to enable the feature."

      Wrong. to enable XM radio you plug in the Receiver module, on power up you press and hold AUX intil the display flashes. it then detects any new devices and enables them.

      They don't plug it into the shop computer unless you call the guy smearing grease and dirt all over the inside of the car a "computer"

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  4. HMI in automotive is not new by hubertf · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know for Ford, but German automotive manufacturers have dealt with human/machine interfacing for a very long time,
    and in the process have not focussed on software/screen only, but also added many more interfacing methods like buttons, dials, cameras facing into the car and outside.
    Names that come to mind are car manufacturers (Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz) and their suppliers (Continental, Hella, Vector Informatik).

    The whole topic has been covered not by computer science or engineers, but very much by information science.
    So maybe you want to have a look there if you are into this topic.
    Keywords: driver assistance, hmi, navigation systems

      - Hubert

  5. Congrats to the lucky ones by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm pleased that they're paying attention to this; unfortunately I bought a 2011 edge without the fancy screen, so I'm in the-hell-of-1974-bad-stereo-control, to the power of many-more-features-shoehorned-in.

    I *am* curious why that touchscreen - which is approximately the size of 2 smartphones - was a $1611 upgrade from the basic controls.

    Right now I (apparently) have the software and most of the systems in my car, but imagine trying to run an mp3 player, navigation system, bluetooth phone, etc with THIS (http://image.motortrend.com/f/2008_ford_edge/2308898196140957893+ppromo_mt_large/center_console.jpg) set of controls?

    I seriously can't wait until all cars have at least a USB port so I can save/store/communicate things like radio stations, seat preferences, etc all just by uploading my own user config. It'd be even nicer to get diagnostic data from the car that way that's a little more comprehensive than "oh, the red light is on".

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:Congrats to the lucky ones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It'd be even nicer to get diagnostic data from the car that way that's a little more comprehensive than "oh, the red light is on".

      Get a ODB-II reader.

    2. Re:Congrats to the lucky ones by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I *am* curious why that touchscreen - which is approximately the size of 2 smartphones - was a $1611 upgrade from the basic controls."

      Because they can. It's also why $12.95 in thin plastic sticky taped to your vehicle costs $1190 in "performance styling"

      All stock Nav systems are crap compared to aftermarkets like Kenwood. yet they cost 3X the price and deliver 2X the features... like real bluetooth from BluAnt or BlueParrot.

      I can drive at highway speeds with the windows down and the other end cant tell I'm in the car with my Kenwood Bluetooth hands free setup.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Congrats to the lucky ones by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      The problem with the aftermarket stuff now is that it seems like, unlike back in the 90s, no one's using standard DIN-sized components any more, so it's nearly impossible to replace your radio or nav system without it looking like shit.

      What are you ever about? Duct tape comes in all sorts of colors these days.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  6. Re:"with it, Ford breaks" by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because "ford sync" is actually Microsoft AutoPc from 1999. I had that abortion in my car from clarion. It's buggy, it locks up, voice control barely works, etc...

    My nephew bought a new Mustang with it, and when he demoed it I about spit. it's the SAME VOICE and is responding the same way... kind of works. he also mentioned that it stops working at times until he shuts off the car and waits 10 seconds and then restarts it.

    Yup. I would hate to tell him how I could lock my version up hard by turning on the ignition, let it boot, then off and on again quickly. I could lock up the autopc so hard it takes a hardware reset and a complete wipe back to factory default to get it working again.

    Clarion got pissed when I did that in their demo vehicle at CES in 2000. Yup, same bug that they would not admit exists from a year ago.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  7. A little background info... by mrquagmire · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The summary is a little misleading. This is not a "major upgrade," it is a complete rewrite of the MyFord Touch system. You see, for their first attempt, Ford decided to outsource the project to a company called BSQUARE who put the UI together using Adobe Flash Lite. For some reason, the results were slightly less than stellar.

    Anyway, Microsoft itself is supposedly helping with the rewrite and Ford is doing the rest in-house (without Flash) so those of us who have been dealing with this awful system for the last year are at least a little hopeful.

    --
    giggity
  8. The real news here ... by DougReed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... is not that Ford is updating software in cars; it is that USB sticks and US mail to million of owners is now cheaper than paying the mechanic to plug-in the car and flash the radio.

  9. Shipping software for your computer-car by anarcat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's different here is that Ford is now shipping software to their customers, as opposed to having their customers go back to their favorite garage and have the mechanic plug the car into a magic computer, that often even he has only a faint clue of how it works. This is a significant paradigm shift. It means that Ford will be able to manage more frequent software releases, and maybe start thinking about changing whole features within the lifetime of the car, outside of regular "oh you need to have an inspection after 100 000km" kind of things. So that's cool.

    Now the bad part is that your "computer-car" stays proprietary software, and there will probably still be no way in hell that you will be able to modify that software yourself, unless you do some reverse engineering. But it necessarily opens up interesting avenues like running Rockbox on your radio receiver, or flashing some controllers with free software for some of us that are into that kind of crazy thing. I say "necessarily" because the car owners do not have the proprietary interfaces to interoperate with the car, which are a significant barrier of entry for us wannabe car hackers.

    In order for Ford to deliver that software to joe users, it means it has to lower this barrier of entry, and that can only be a good thing for everyone.

    --
    Semantics is the gravity of abstraction
  10. Installation: Step One by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    Close all the windows.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  11. Re:"with it, Ford breaks" by Bengie · · Score: 5, Funny

    Car + Crash = Bad

  12. Re:"with it, Ford breaks" by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because non MS software works well without patches...

    --
    Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
  13. Not all off shore developers are bad by Shivetya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Guess I am one of the lucky ones, I have worked with some great developers whom we farmed work too. We had two on the team over there who were better than most of the developers we had locally. It might depend on the type of work involved, my shop is on mid and larger systems and our requirements are a whole lot stricter so we don't see what others might.

    Still to dismiss a whole part of the industry under thinly veiled bigotry does not serve the Slashdot community well. I guess its easy to ride along on the misery train and blame the other guy, but first we must dismiss his ability because if we did not then where we would be.

    So guys, cool it with the assertion that off shore developers are not up to speed, the simple fact is there are many good developers in other parts of the world and many are far better than those who whine about them

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  14. Re:"with it, Ford breaks" by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Informative

    no, Ford does in-house software development with help from Microsoft. I've a relative who does that, he is Ford employee.