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Running Apps From Your Car's Dashboard
An anonymous reader writes "I guess is was inevitable, now that BMW is letting you view and make tweets from behind the wheel, but is it really a good idea to let people run smartphone apps from their dashboard monitor? I guess for navigation you could run your favorite map-app there, but there is nothing to stop people from running other apps on their dashboard too. It might be better than texting from the handset, but I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive."
>> I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive
Here in Boston, we use the same techniques for both.
The same is true for any stupid German car maker who thinks drivers can concentrate on fucking Twitter and fucking Facebook while driving.
I hope they miss all the cyclists they're going to kill while they're distracted in this way.
Why do you think what you want people do to with their cars is any of your business, as long as it doesn't involve hurting you or someone else?
Punish them if they do something stupid and cause a traffic accident... let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences, but how did we get to the point where joe anonymous may get a say via the police over what software people are allowed to run?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
cyclist should realize that cars are real and will win everytime
Could lead to playing Angry Cars inadvertently.
... that people are required by law to wear seatbelts. It's a legislative mandate (sounds familiar doesn't it?) that requires you to do something that is in the best interest of everyone who uses the same public system you do.
If you don't wear seatbelts, it could jeopardize your ability to control your car properly, not every second but when it's crucial. If you do use twitter, of any other onboard app, while you're responsible for controlling your 2-ton vehicle, traveling at anywhere from 44-88 ft/sec (30-60 mph), you will probably be distracted by the cognitive requirements of the app.
Really, it's a no-brainer...
...enabled in car systems?
Until recently, I had no touchscreens in my car, but once I got my new shiny smartphone, it had a rather cool "Car mode", where it made all the buttons large and easy to press, etc...
However nice it was in theory, I found that once I mounted it on my dash, it became a right PITA to operate while driving. While complex things (like setting up the maps) would make sense to stop at the side and fiddle with, other things (like setting the volume, or switching playlists/songs) shouldn't.
The biggest annoyance was the fact that operating the touchscreen required me to look at it, even for simple things like the volume control or music switching. I could operate all the major functions of my old car radio without even looking at it, it was well laid out, and buttons were different shapes and sizes, really easy to learn.
I really think touchscreens are not ready for car use just yet, at least until they develop some overlay that can change its tactile feedback. Anything that requires you to look at it to operate should have no place in the dashboard IMO (if it was mounted only on the passenger side out of reach of the driver, that would be good as well, but then I suspect some people would just lean over while hurtling down the motorway).
I don't know, I feel this will just increase the number of accidents due to people looking at the screen in order to find the song they want, or to tweet or something else... and as someone who has to share the roads with them, it is somewhat of a worry.... :/
"I'm not sure I want people playing Angry Birds while they drive" They just need at add a speed dial button for your insurance company. On the bright side you can play it while you wait for the police and tow truck to arrive.
BMW is hardly breaking ground here.
Ford SYNC has done SMS and Email from the dash for years, and units from several aftermarket stereo makers will link to your phone's Wifi hotspot to run Pandora and other Internet apps.
Nothing in this story constitutes anything new.
But then again, some people drive apparently without having payed any attention in driver's education, and society deals with that too. I think we should focus, moreso, on sense of personal responsibility, in such things.
As far as the app thing: We could try to stop that matter of innovation,but I do not know if we could succeed at halting it. I am, admittedly, biased about it however. I think it sounds like a reasonable development in concepts of vehicle utility - and I am not enough convinced that it would be of any concern for the many responsible drivers around - overall, per capita, and so on.
I'm waiting to see how many posts pile up about voice recognition being the way to go in automobiles. It is arguably a better alternative to controlling multimedia functions in a car, definitely better than anything touch screen based. Frankly I wish the legislators would wise up and ban all touch input built into cars going forward. It is a disaster. Hard buttons are the safest way to control auxiliary functions in an automobile. I am being a bit hypocritical though, as I have considered integrating a really cheap Android tablet into my car for GPS and music. I also don't see there being a chance for any kind of ban given the propensity of GPS to use touch input.
Really, their just need to be better UI design guidelines for automotive use. Car mode on Android is alright, but still offers too much for the average mind to scan and pick from. I always thought the UI styles used in most GPS units was best, never really more than 2-4 choices at a time on the screen.
I could see a TTS system reading feeds from twitter, facebook, rss, etcetera being useful and cool even if I would never use it. Get in the car, get on the morning commute and get your /. feed instead of AM talk radio I suppose.
I joke about voice recognition and commands because as many here are aware, vocalization takes 80% of the average person's brain processing power. That is why so many people can't talk on the phone and drive (besides the fact that they are self-centered, spoiled a-holes).
By your logic I should be allowed to get shitfaced drunk while driving and society gets no say unless I screw up.
Mind you I personally have no problem with this, I've known people that are safer drivers blacked-out drunk than some people are stone sober. They rarely get caught because they don't give off any "warning signs" no weaving, skipping stop signs, etc. But if we go that route lets start actually enforcing reckless driving laws with severe penalties. If you can't stay in your lane and obey the traffic laws what does it matter if it's because you're drunk, texting, or trying to break up a fight between the kids? Your vehicle is just as big a threat either way.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Make the auto manufacturer liable if they made provisions for the driver to be able to display to the driver applications not related to operation of the vehicle.
I do not want my car to run apps.
I want my car to be a mechanical device that moves me from point A to point B.
Not an electronic entertainment center. I have a home already.
This whole theory is significantly flawed. Not to flame the post but here's a little FYI from a current BMW driver:
Firstly. BMW (and german manufactures in general do not use touchscreens). They use a button an dial system which is MUCH better that touch screen because its tactile and you can feel everything without looking at it, bumps and turns don't make it anymore difficult to enter the options you want. Playing angrybirds in my BMW is not an option. The apps need to be modified and loaded into the idrive system before you can use them on the nav screen.
The BMW's navigation system (idrive) - had a lot of research before being put into play. It is systematically designed through a lot of testing using fun caps and optical sensors to allow your eyes to watch the screen but still have full preferential vision of the road ahead. They actually did tests where one car would have the driver staring at the nav screen and a car in front of that BMW would slam the brakes randomly to see how the driver behind reacted.
On the "good" side... the technology increases the chances for many cars getting close enough to run a Beowulf cluster using their dashboard computers.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The other day, I pulled up behind a lady driving a Smart four two. In one hand, she had a phone held to her ear. In the other, she had a cigarette that she was ashing out the window.
Prior to that, I've seen people watching DVDs on portable players on their dashboard while driving.
Prior to that, I've seen women putting on their makeup, men shaving, people of both sexes eating with both hands while driving.
Prior to that, I've seen couples making out while driving.
I'm not going to argue that any of this is good. But the fact of the matter is that some drivers will always be unfit behind the wheel. If they aren't playing Angry Birds, they'll be finding some other way to distract themselves and other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and small furry animals will find themselves at their mercy.
The solution isn't to worry about apps on the dashboard. The solution is to be more careful about who gets a license to begin with and to be more vigilant about taking it away when a driver proves themselves to be unfit to be on the road.
Whether we like it or not, smartphone and app integration with cars is quite inevitable in near future. Apart from opening up a plethora of possibilities with apps, it is also about convenience (just a wild thought: sitting in your house, you plan a road trip with your friends using maps on your smartphone and later simply download them to your car's navigation system). One major example of such an integration is Toyota's Entune.
that the result will be similar to those in the user images for this product:
http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8
In the case of a glancing collision, spinnout, etc you can easily get thrown around the cab by forces considerably stronger than you could hope to resist. A seatbelt will keep you in place behind the wheel where you still have a some control over your still-moving vehicle and can hopefully bring it to a stop without any secondary collisions. An only slightly weaker argument applies to front-seat passengers, since they can easily be thrown into your lap severely impairing your control. Rear seat passengers on the other hand are more a case of "think of the children" since any collision which manages to throw them into the front seat will likely have stopped the car anyway. Though, now that I think about it, without seatbelts children are far more likely to be clambering around the back of the car distracting you, or perched between the front seats so they can see out the windshield (and get thrown around the cab), so there's might be some validity to it after all.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I guess it all depends how well you multitask. For example I'm driving right now and playing Angry Birds while typing this message. I really don
NO CARRIER
Come one, pick some other game. Angry Birds uses a decent physics model at least. Nobody has been thrown off a plane for Angry Birds. What about words with friends?
Where I live (Pennsylvania, USA) using a phone for anything except a GPS while driving is illegal. If course it's impossible for a police officer to prove you were doing something else so the law is generally unenforceable, but it made some people somewhere feel good. Apparently there's still no law against being a complete idiot while driving, but that seems to be everywhere.
Your phone has records and even if you erase the records, the carrier has a record too.
So no ... it is not impossible to prove you were in violation of the law. To the contrary, it is VERY EASY to prove ... and defend when you are in the right.
brakes.sys has caused a system error please hold start to reboot.
I guess is was inevitable,...
Was this submission proofread while driving? Or ever?
- Reading tweets/Facebook posts (and with a flick of the iDrive, it will read the tweet out to you)
- Posting one of five/six canned tweets/Facebook status messages (e.g., "It's xx outside, and I'm driving my BMW!") - so you aren't trying to compose a message while you drive
- Web radio
- Looking at your calendar/address book
- News RSS feeds
So it has the capacity to be dangerously distracting, but BMW's implementation is limited enough that it's not. Of course, the driver could still be distracted if they're reading Facebook while they're driving, but if they're going to do that, they would do that anyway with their smartphone in their hand.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I'm for personal responsibility, not necessarily for government stepping in beyond the limits of basic law, if to enforce a sense of political responsibility - I think that it sets a bad precedent for government, to say the least.
I find myself distracted at the original occurrence of the word, "Infotainment" however. What a shiny.....
Erm, to correct myself, I meant: If to enforce a sense of personal responsibility - though I'm afraid it only becomes political, at which point.
It seems I have a Freudian slip, at the matter. My apologies.
In discussing governmental regulations in regards to such matters, I'm afraid that we overlook the angle on which the matter boils down to a concern of personal responsibility. Not to suggest that we should give up the ghost, but government truly cannot enforce such a thing. Community leaders may themselves be able to inspire sense of personal responsibility in a community - but only if the community leaders, themselves, represent personal responsibility themselves, and then only if it's understood as such.
Granted, there is the concern in regards to public safety, I understand, in the motivation of laws regulating such things as cel phone use on the roads. I can understand that, I simply wish to note that no regulation is a suitable substitute for plain sense of reason.
I think that this is a great idea. It will weed out the idiots - they will play Angry Birds/make tweets/check facebook/etc while driving, get into accidents, dies and viola! More oxygen for the rest of us!
So what happens when federal and/or state lawmakers ban using cell phones for talking and texting all together while driving. Will these embeded smartphone type of displays need to be disabled by the manufacturer?
My apologies, I accidently modded your post as overrated and my finger slipped.
Funny +1
Yo dawg, I installed dis driving game into your car so you can drive while you drive!
Filmed while driving and texting
Community leaders may themselves be able to inspire sense of personal responsibility in a community
Like Oprah and immunization?
What kind of leaders do you have in mind? Politicians? Priests? I'm afraid the people most folks look up to for inspiration these days are talk show hosts, actors, singers and other celebrities. I have a hard time believing in "the plain sense of reason" in most people. This does in fact include myself at times. I knew it was wrong and maybe dangerous but still used the phone and performed other even more unsafe driving activities.
Still see regulations not as a substitute for common sense but as an incentive that raises the bar for unsafe behavior. Something like fear of causing accident plus fear of getting caught equals maybe the call isn't that important.
Why in the actual fuck would we have to jump the conclusion that people would use this to play games while driving? Is people playing games on their smartphones while driving already a major problem?
If you actually give yourself the normal amount of distance between you and the truck instead of riding his ass you wouldn't have your view obstructed.
The BlackBerry 10 operating system, which will be the OS for all future BB phones and all current and future BB tablets, is due out on the first next-gen phones in Q4 of this year. (Please confine your "RIM is dead and/or irrelevant" and "RIM will never meet a deadline"comments to another thread; those issues are beside the point here.) This new OS is, unlike all previous, home-grown RIM OSes, the product of a third party, QNX. QNX makes OSes for automotive use, including both headless and dashboard-UI systems. The newest versions of QNX showing up in dashboards looks and behaves very, very much like the currently-deployed BB PlayBook tablet OS.
If these OSes are anywhere near as similar as they appear, it would be reasonable to assume that someone figures out how to install their own apps into their car OS -- and since there is already a PlayBook version of Angry Birds, how far off is this deathly scenario?
This is such a stupendously dangerous idea, bound to cause untold carnage, that we really need a Ralph Nader to start some class-action lawsuits so the idiots who come up with ideas like "in-car infotainment systems" can be driven to bankruptcy.
If you're that attached to your electronic devices ride the bus instead. Your mind will be liberated from concern about killing other people or yourself in a horrible accident so you can do all those important things in life like listen to mp3s and tweet your opinions about the NBA playoffs. If you don't look up from your screen, or take your headphones off you won't even notice the impoverished single mothers, ex-cons, and elderly people. It's win win win.
This solution seems to imply that all Androids and Blackberries can actually export their screen using VNC, even to displays of different resolution than their own.
Can they, out of the box?
Joe Avg. Upmarket BMW Buyer does not seem the most likely tinkerer to root his phone (or even delve into e.g. Google Play's lengthy ToS to download an app from there).
This should really be banned as it soo risky, people are gonna use it for putting up latest newsitems etc., and no people aren't responsible enough to not use it.. Put a high sentence on it when people where using it and creating an accident.. I already see people watching movies during driving and moving from lane to lane due to it, you really just hope they drive themselves into a lamppost and die..
You speak of this "personal responsibility" as if it exists in fact, instead of as a talking point.
The world is filled with bad drivers who think they are "better than average", which leads to unintentional irresponsibility, and when bad things happen, the reaction is often to blame the victim instead of their own overoptimistic selves.
The third comment on the "Zombies Run!" app used to be "dont play driving or u will crash."
JVC introduced a whole line of products that are built and tested for a variety of iPhone apps. Kind of scary really: http://mobile.jvc.com/mobile.jsp
I'd prefer they will play Car Games and take out their nerves on the game then on the real road...