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Ford and Bug Labs Shipping OpenXC Beta Kits
MojoKid writes "OpenXC is an open source connectivity platform developed in tandem by Ford and open source hardware maker Bug Labs. Announced this fall, the platform is designed to allow developers the ability to use Android- and Arduino-based modules to interact with a vehicle's in-car tech, such as vehicle sensors and GPS units. The OpenXC website succinctly describes the platform as 'an API to your car.' Ford announced that OpenXC beta test kits are now shipping to developers worldwide, including U.S. institutions such as MIT and Standford as well as India's HCL Technologies."
At the same time (I don't have the news link handy) I think I read that there's a push to make the automakers ensure their snazzy tech gadgets aren't enabled while the car is moving. Presumably to keep peoples' eyes on the road instead of a screen. I'm not sure what to think about that.
until my car is infected with a worm that takes over GPS navigation and directs me to a pr0n store.
and it's the wrong one
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought ford was all about Microsoft. They used to run ads all the time about MS Sync. Many parts of syncmyride.com crash in chrome with .NET errors.
The outside shape is unimportant and noting more than decoration, so changing that has noting to do with the engine or electronics. Simpler may be better for many things but not at any cost, substantially decreasing fuel efficiency when petrol prices are going up because they might look "European" on the inside is monumentality stupid. I do hope that you are trolling, the alternative does not speak highly for your intelligence.
Given that Ford's newer platforms look more like the Eurotrash seen elsewhere in the world - as opposed to US sized and powered platforms such as Panther/Exxx vans - it is a distraction. What they bring to the table looks like something you'd see used as a part of a carbomb.
How about 6 & 8 cylinder vehicles that don't require tuning or exotics, at affordable price points? Yes, that means bringing back behemoths like the Crown Vic while ripping the turbochargers out of every single car and truck outside of the high end. It doesn't matter that the interface is open when it is connected to a shitty 4-banger that makes the thing look like a golfcart with satnav.
How about you yanks start driving cars with less impact on the environment and oil consumption?
It is funny that Ford was the first to start with what you call Eurotrash, and they were the only one who didn't go crying for a bailout. Maybe your opinion of what we should have for transportation is just that, your own. Yeah it is great for you but you've obviously never tried to park at my work. I have a Ford Focus and it is a tight fit.
Alan Mulally and his advisors, or some random guy on Slashdot. As a Ford shareholder, I'm torn. Just torn I tell you. Who should I go with?
Environmentalism only stops the many from getting the car they truly want.
What's with all those high-powered cars that are sitting in UK/European garages that rot, because their owner wasn't rich enough for their power?
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If you don't like forced induction then you, sir, are no gearhead.
I'll take a turbo four over a NA six, as well as a turbo six over a NA eight any day. Today's turbo systems give nice fat torque curves and decent fuel economy. Turbo systems from the '80s really did suck, they were poorly integrated and lagged badly. I love my turbo 2.4l 240sx that I put together. It has 270hp/300tq at the wheels, gets 30+mpg highway and runs 13.5 at the drag strip while passing stock emissions testing. It has been my daily driver for a decade with no mod related issues.
My position on such devices:
Forced induction as a supplement to an already high-powered/displacement engine == good.
Forced induction as a replacement to cylinder count due to overzealous environmental regulations == unholy.
I'll take a well-powered 6 over a turbo'd 4, a well-powered 8 over turbo'd 6, and look at a turbocharger if I really wanted to improve a well-powered 8. Forced induction might please the folks doing emissions testing, but all it does is cut corners for modern-day cars. These aren't the days of the turbocharged Grand National, where forced induction was applied properly, but where it is used to replace cylinders in a not-so-effective way.
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Yours is the only post worth anything in this thread so far.
Quite frankly it sounds awesome and I want it.
Ford did go crying four a bailout, they needed GM and Chrysler to remain solvent or their common suppliers would go out of business.
You might also want to look into why Ford was in less of a threatened position. It wasn't because their sales were any better, it was because they had floated a bunch of loans before the economic crunch that destroyed financial liquidity for everybody. It could even be argued that they put the other Big 2 in bad straights be sucking up all the free cash.
Not going to fret about the car issues, me, I only like their exterior colors, but I hate the interiors. Since it is really easy to paint the exterior compared to stripping out the insides, they lose out.
Compensating for something, are we?
Why limit your sense of entitlement? I want a gold-plated maserati with a blowjob dispenser, for what I have in my pocket right now....looks like about 70 cents. I can compromise on the gold plating as long as the blowjob dispenser is turbocharged. And someone oughta repeal the Clean Air act too! It's my right as a consumer to do whatever I want! If that means those spotted owls get a coating of tar to go with their feathers, well then they shoulda been a consumer instead.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Will they make the engine/... diagnostics available through this API ? Currently they charge the repair garages a lot to have the software to be able to see why that fault light is lighting up on the dashboard. The effect is driving small repair shops & one man bands out of business -- good for Ford since it keeps their expensive dealerships in business.
I expect not, they would not do anything genuinely useful if it damaged profits.
They include MICROSOFT in their vehicles - I can't take anything Ford does tech wise seriously for that reason at least.
Not going to fret about the car issues, me, I only like their exterior colors, but I hate the interiors. Since it is really easy to paint the exterior compared to stripping out the insides, they lose out.
Compared to GM, they look quite spartan for an equivalent tier of car. Chrysler has a bit of the same issue, but at least they give you a V6 under the hood for less money than their competitors. That, and the European influence stays in the Fiat brand unlike GM or Ford.
If things get bad enough with GM, I'll end up going with Chrysler. Less global exposure is an asset when you make cars for the US market.
Putting in OpenXC just looks like windowdressing. All you get is a box that sits on the CANBUS network, and no real way to do anything more than sanctioned reads.
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Part of the brilliance of the OpenXC strategy is that not only is Ford effectively getting free R&D from the open source community, by letting developers in locales far-flung from Detroit have a go with the system, Ford will learn what consumers want and need in a variety of geographic regions.
Ford would be doing a great disservice by disregarding the desires of those in the US market. Oh, wait, they already are given their un-American car lineup.
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I'm actually trying to be reasonable with what Detroit has produced for the masses. You on the other hand, are not.
Confusing that with entitlement to a poorly made European luxury car is not even close to what I'm talking about here.
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Because it's a waste to chase 300 million people to make ridiculously tiny changes when you could just get one or two large freight ships to switch to cleaner gas, and have an equivalent effect. Then we could all just be left alone.
So instead of trying to make us more like you, why don't you worry about where real environmental problems exist. We're not you, and don't want to be.
Does this mean I have some hope of replacing the utter garbage currently installed in my wife's Ford (Microsoft Sync, I'm looking at you). The car itself is pretty good, but the phone/music/voice control system is like some sort of retarded throwback to the '90s, and I'm actually genuinely worried it'll reduce the resale value of the car in a few years.
From what I've read, you want Detroit to produce a car that has a big engine and high fuel consumption. Doing that was a large part of why they needed to get bailed out in the first place. Gas is 3.50 a gallon and rising. That's not something people that are buying cars can afford anymore. You're getting power and economy. I'm not quite sure why you're complaining, exactly. I had an 8 Cylinder Taurus SHO, and now I have a 4 cylinder VW GTI. It is faster and gets better gas mileage. Why would you want to go backwards?
My first app would switch to recirculating air whenever I go near one of the local sewage treatment plants or enter a tunnel. (Or any rectangle I can define via a pair of GPS coordinates, and of course the smell map will be a downloadable crowd-sourced database.) Upon exiting the smelly zone the vent mode returns to whatever it was set to prior. Right now I have a subroutine running on base-brain to handle this task which works well for the frequently travelled areas. But if I forget when driving near that feed lot on I-5, I'm stuck with cow-shit air for *miles*.
So can openxc control things like the air vents? I'm thinking of the Prius which has a recirc button the steering wheel as well as the dash, so it's probably possible to plug into a bus somewhere.
It's just a thing that plugs into the OBD-II connector and translates some of the CAN bus signals to JSON over USB. It's read-only (probably a good thing). All you currently get is vehicle speed, powertrain torque, odometer, ignition status, door status, steering wheel position, fuel level, fuel consuption, and latitude/longitude (if available). You don't get any internal engine information, diagnostic codes, or maintenance info.
Compare the Scantool which plugs into the OBD-II connector and gives you full access to all the engine diagnostic data. They provide documentation on how to decode the bus data directly, and various "user friendly" applications for looking at it.
I wouldn't trust a company named "Bug Labs" to produce hardware and/or software or my car. That would be kinda asking for it.
Personally, I'm a little surprised he didn't go for the 8-cylinder version.
Wow, I really thought people like you were merely a parody.
I really can't tell if you're trolling or genuinely really, really stupid, selfish, misinformed and obnoxious.
Well played sir.
Not to mention the build quality (as in the design of the car, not a reflection of the labour force building it).
Ford was one of the first to realise that they couldn't just phone in the overall design any more when selling in European markets, so they put work into better transmission, suspension, engines, ride quality, the basic interior features etc and it really paid off for them - they have several class-leading, great value vehicles available in Europe and have for many years.
They also joined up with other manufacturers to collaborate on major developments (mainly in high efficiency, gasoline-a-like diesel engines).
So yes, there are going to be low-IQ morons like the OP who feel emasculated while driving a 4 cylinder vehicle with better performance, efficiency, emissions, weight and quality compared to the "patriotic American" 6 and 8 cylinder dinosaur lumps that make him feel like a real man - maybe that's why it took Ford so long to move their winning formula back to the USA after finding it worked so well in Europe, but it seems they're finally doing it.
Ford is doing well over here, and it't not because they're building designs right out of the 70s where more numbers of cylinders = better! manly! rar!
Availability and worse issues with the 4T80-E transmission (versus the 4T65-E). Either way results in a Michigan-built car that has the US consumer in mind; the only fault is that it is front-wheel drive. That, and the 6cyl has a larger fuel tank capable of taking long trips.
By going to that VW GTI, you gave up a lot of room and two cylinders. If you get rid of the environmental regulations, that gas would be a lot cheaper.
I'd have no problem if it meant that I could have my US-sized behemoth and you have your turbocharged golfcart.
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Haven't driven a 4-cylinder lawnmower engine of a car in my entire life, and intend to keep it that way.
They also joined up with other manufacturers to collaborate on major developments (mainly in high efficiency, gasoline-a-like diesel engines).
In short, they found manufacturers that would make golfcart bits.
So yes, there are going to be low-IQ morons like the OP who feel emasculated while driving a 4 cylinder vehicle with better performance, efficiency, emissions, weight and quality compared to the "patriotic American" 6 and 8 cylinder dinosaur lumps that make him feel like a real man - maybe that's why it took Ford so long to move their winning formula back to the USA after finding it worked so well in Europe, but it seems they're finally doing it.
Then Ford should do themselves a favor by replacing their American spokesman with some uppity German. Then hand over the designs to all their large/powerful cars(including the Mustang) over to Chrysler, who still seems to give a care about making cars as Detroit intended - affordable power first, environmentalism last. If they're going to go all Euro, why do a half-job?
It works in Europe because they're used to having golfcart-sized cars(unless you're obscenely rich) and very few straightaways. Overwriting the US lineup with Eurotrash only makes things worse for having blander cars with less power in them.
Ford is doing well over here, and it's not because they're building designs right out of the 70s where more numbers of cylinders = better! manly! rar!
What's wrong with affordable muscle instead of reserving 6 & 8 cylinders for the few? Nothing unless you don't like regular people having something powerful under the hood.
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