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Auto Makers To Standardize On Open Source
Lucas123 writes "There are efforts underway within the auto industry to create a standard, Linux-based platform for In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems so that cars will act more like smartphones instead of having only about 10% of that functionality today. For example, Tesla's Model S IVI system, which is based on Linux, is designed to allow drivers to navigate using Google Maps with live traffic information, listen to streaming music from any online radio station and have access to an Internet browser for news or restaurant reviews. Having an industry-wide open-source IVI operating system would create a reusable platform consisting of core services, middleware and open application layer interfaces that eliminate the redundant efforts to create separate proprietary systems by automakers and their tier 1 suppliers like Microsoft. By developing an open-source platform, carmakers can share upgrades as they arrive."
EEE
Just make the damn thing take in bluetooth and HDMI. The car infotainment should have no brains. Just let it run off of a normal device the user already owns.
Doesn't anyone know open source means all the hackers can just go right in and edit your car's source code?
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
We don't need no thought control!
HOLLYWOOD, STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY CAR! yeah, I'm yelling, so what?
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Just like your phone, a vehicles IVI can be updated months or years after the car drives off the line... but how likely is that?
We've come to expect a ~2 year update cycle with phones... and many a manufacturer will simply stop issuing updates well before that time as an insentive to upgrade to the latest & greatest.
Cars have a much longer lifetime on the road, do we really think that the currently shipping Model XYZ from AutoCo with all of the bells and whistles is going to get the latest IVI update in 3, 5 or 10 years?
"Sorry, but you need an IVI 3.2 based system for that upgrade" will be the excuse.
Yes... even with OSS "you can just upgrade it yourself!"... which assumes the average user has the knowhow, skill & a vehicle that is so easily upgraded.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
How many bugging devices do we need???
Great idea, but this will never happen. The auto industry loves their vendor lock in as much as the software vendors. Just look what they did, and continue to do with radios, and CD players.
XKCD Standards
Why not just use Android?
As the say goes: Hey man, that's Africa!
OK, show of hands, how many of us want our cars to behave like smartphones?
Now, the second show of hands, how many of us think this is probably not what you want in the dash of your car?
Driving your car is not the place to be reading restaurant reviews, and once some moron can text from his dash, we'll get the same problem we have with people with their phones now. Hell, from what I can tell if you put most people in a car with the radio off, they still wouldn't be able to safely operate the car.
I don't imagine it would be long before places started outlawing using the screen in your car for some of this stuff while you're driving.
Me, I think most forms of 'infotainment' in a car is a potentially fatal combination. I see enough drivers that can't actually stay within their lane now, let alone while trying to catch up on Breaking Bad while in their car. The last thing most drivers need is even more shiny things to distract them while driving.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
See, when it comes to cars, anything new and exciting is a selling point for the new models. So while the makers of these IVI products could share updates, the car manufactures are going to be advertising the latest version or spiffy new features incorporated only in this new model, and try hard to keep other makers' models from having that upgrade.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
As the the automaker CEO listened to his kids cry about their phone being almost unusable after a software upgrade, he realized the true genius of Steve Jobs.
Place nail here >+
No, that's not how open source works.
Good riddance. These infotainment systems have historically been buggy and lead to animosity misdirected at the auto manufacturer rather than the software provider. Witness the story of Ford. On the rebound after the auto-crisis of 2007, Ford quality grew by leaps and bounds, outpacing the industry in 2008, and resulting in a top-5 JD Power and Associates ranking in 2009. That year, Ford added Microsoft SYNC to their vehicles and called it "MyFordTouch." The interface was so buggy and inconsistent that it lead to Ford dropping from number 5 in JD Power's quality 2010 quality rankings (despite no major overhalls and no new engines that year), to number 23 a year later, and then all the way to 33rd this year. Now Ford customers have launched a class-action lawsuit against Ford.
The sooner auto manufacturers standardize on a infotainment system, the better. The fact that this is open-source and based on Linux (specifically, Tizen) makes it even more likely that updates will be provided many years down the road. (even if not by the manufacturers themselves, by the community; think Cyanogenmod). This makes cars less like disposable toys and more worthy of being the second-largest expense that most households make.
"a reusable platform consisting of core services, middleware and open application layer interfaces"
Sounds like comp sci wankery. Once marketing, legal and design people get involved it will all be so customized, hacked and extended that none of those concepts will remain true.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
l'll get excited about an open source ECU, I'd rather drivers not be entertained at all
Cars last 10 to 20 years. (Mine are 8 and 14 years old, and both are likely to live to 20.)
Consumer electronic crap lasts three years. Four, tops.
In five years, when I buy a 2013-ish car to replace my '00, I will have no use at all for a circa 2013 in-car computer. If the thing is integrated with the stereo, climate controls, etc. it will be a liability that will cost a good chunk of cash to replace. The system will not have zero value, it will actually detract from the value of the used car- just look at any recent vehicle whose climate controls are routed through a touchscreen, and think about who will want to buy that from you once it starts acting up.
What in-car computers need is a standard interface and standard APIs so that your steering wheel buttons, HUD, sound system, etc. can work with whatever phone-like gadget you happen to be carrying. None of the smarts of the thing should be built into the car itself.
And none of this stuff should ever have write access to the network that the engine controller, etc. are on. It should go without saying, but...
That guy's blood pressure must be something else these days.
I would prefer a do-it-yourself KITT.
A consortium of major car manufacturers looking to create an open source standard platform demonstrates that open source is anti-business.
I know how to drive. All I need is a temperature and oil pressure gauge, keep it simple stupid!
Can I replace the abomination that is Microsoft Sync in my Ford? I have tried to enable the "read text message" option with several brands of Android phones, with no success. Ford's suggestion? Reset to factory settings, which does dick-all.
"Could be worse...could be raining." Igor
Man, I wish I had a nickle for every industry that had adopted open source, I would be rich.
Then again, if I had a penny for every open source adopter who went back to proprietary, I'd probably be richer.
Microsoft still licenses their software like it's 1982 and they are the toll collector on progress. You buy a copy of their newest [whatever] program and pay them the fee that they set. They never look at what they provide and ask themselves 'are we providing value equivalent to what we are collecting in tolls?' Auto companies, in contrast, have to do that with absolutely every thing that they provide since cars are very complex performance-driven devices that are competitively mass-produced and consequently sell for little money relative to their high cost of manufacture. Moreover, cars must be both reliable and supported/maintained for 20 years after they are sold. All of these are foreign concepts to Microsoft which can't see any reason why they should not just release V x.x of their 'car OS' and sell it to manufacturers who would eagerly link everything to it. The manufacturer's, though, need to have control over the source code for critical updates, control over the licensing and distribution, and control over the overall structure and software design. Manufacturer's have been putting software in cars for over 20 years and they could never settle for Microsoft's way of doing things...so turning to OSS is inevitable for them.
witness the smartphone makers and Android. can you upgrade your year-old phone to Moldy Pickle, or whatever the latest version is?
hell, no.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
(posting anon because of login troubles on work network)
MS is not a big player in car infotainment. The big players and ones which work the best are BOSE (Linux), Harman-Becker (QNX), and small shops specific to an automaker who generally use Linux or VxWorks.
Personally, I don't like the "lets use Linux everywhere" mentality. Automakers have some amount of diversity, and there are amazing things about working with QNX which Linux will never have. Unification will force everyone to mediocrity without much ability to do things differently or stand out. Yes yes, people will scream at me "But standardizing will produce more stability and ease of deployment". From experience, I don't believe that is true. Many makers will want to customize and need to re-test deployments, so everything will end up non-standard anyway. Developers will get lazy and trust in software which hasn't been properly tested, and won't need as much experience to put a system together, so won't be able to debug problems as effectively.
Some people believe that standardization helps progress. I don't agree. I feel that it stagnates progress and makes everything feel generic and uninteresting. It might be a good thing with consumer-facing things like phone chargers and interconnects, but there's just no reason for it in the fixed embedded space like with car infotainment.
I have long said that I want no further techno crap in my automobiles. I want a decent touch screen with connectivity options such as Bluetooth or a docking port for my phone or future device.
Cars easily last for 10 or more years. I presently have one that is 14 years old. It's navigation maps have not been updated by the manufacturer in nine years! My own home/street isn't on the map! This causes the navigation system to try to correct the car's location onto the nearest street that does appear on the map, which is totally inaccurate.What was cutting edge when the car was new is utterly useless today. My smartphones, which are replaced every two to three years, are leaps and bounds more power and up-to-date than anything a 5 year old car might have. But, thier small screens are hard to read for mapping, especially while driving and using them (via their screen) while driving is illegal in more and more states.
The car needs to just provide a nice display and HID integrated into the dash. Let the phone do the rest. As for Tesla's big fancy screen? Check back in 4 years and see how frustrated their owners will be when Tesla announces no further updates and the owners are coveting what ever is available on a smartphone or newer Tesla models.
Remember when people were bitching about the radio being too distracting while driving?
I swear half the things we've done were just to shut those guys up.
I doubt you'll find a single sane person still advocating to remove radios from cars.
I just want an easy way to check the engine diagnostics codes. It's retarded to still require thousand-dollar connector and software for something so basic. Put *that* feature in a car, and I'd seriously consider buying one new for the first time ever.
I'm a T-Rex.
MS is not a big player in car infotainment.
My new Ford C-Max Hybrid, with the infamous MyFordTouch, has a Microsoft label on the dash and a Microsoft EULA in the owner's manual.
"Last of the Wild Ones", Roger Zelazny, Omni Magazine, March 1981, pp 53+
I thought they also published "Devil Car" in Omni, but I can't track that one down.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I got a ford recently and holy shit does Microsoft Sync blow chunks. It had bluetooth but only in mono?!?! The phone quality was terrible and worst of all the entire damned thing was integrated into every electronic system in the car so when I wanted to rip the junk out and put in a decent head unit (cd player) I had to spend $130 on a small computer to translate everything and keep all my dash lights and steering wheel controls working. The only headunits compatible with MS Sync are $600 kenwood Nav systems.
If you've heard/seen about Tizen at all lately, I know this is one of the big things going for it. Makes sense for car makers to not have to reinvent the wheel: https://wiki.tizen.org/wiki/IVI
Cars already use open source and already track you. A standardized method to track vehicles will make it possible to a) track people en-masse without their consent and b) hack people's cars and turn them into botnets, because manufacturers will never patch vulnerabilities.
SecurityCircus is ranting about this already: http://www.securitycircus.com/posts/automakers-partner-with-google-to-track-your-car
set cylinders=12;
set displacement-liters=7;
set turbochargers=2;
m ake world
There, Now we have the world's fastest Geo Metro!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
You wouldn't download an intercooler?
... cars had buttons on their consoles? You know, actual buttons you could feel and press without looking at them? Not just widgets on a touch screen? When you didn't have to look at your radio to make sure it was on the "right screen" to do what you want?
Granted, I wouldn't mind having my Google/Apple/Bing/whatever maps integrated into my dash rather than awkwardly hanging my phone from the windsheild. But I also don't want to have to pull the car over, flip through 47 menus, wait through three system updates and reboot the car five times to turn on my air conditioning*.
* Yes, I know it's not really that bad. Yet. Just you wait.
Now the NSA will have a standard platform to spy on you in your car.
....to an in-dash touch display.
What's frustrating is how close they already are to being able to do this yet how little interest either side (handset or auto makers) seems to have in actually doing it.
The car would need a touch display, a network->video device that handled the display-side mirroring and wireless network connectivity.
The handset side would need display mirroring and remote touch capability. iPhone already has display mirroring but not remote touch capability.
It would be nice if the display mirroring would also adapt the screen for a different resolution/aspect ratio. I don't know how resolution independent the iPhone is, but it'd be nice if the mirrored image was reformatted for the aspect ratio & resolution of the dash display.
While this would be great for all the usual in-car app functionality, I see no reason why a dedicated window (or ideally, entire display) couldn't be devoted to car operations -- climate controls, etc -- with some physical buttons perhaps for some features.
We have seen this before. Org A says 'We are going 100% FOSS'. Microsoft sends in a 'special fix-it team' and before you know it, the company quietly drops the FOSS statement and smiles as the continue to use MS software at less cost than before.
Nuff said?
Huh? No, I disagree.
I'm fine with the car supporting technologies like bluetooth or offering HDMI connectivity to an external screen. But I don't want it to "just run off a normal device the user already owns". (I'd assume this implies a smartphone for most situations.)
I'd prefer the device in my car to be completely self-sustaining. If I happen to not bring my phone with me for whatever reason, I don't want the whole in-car infotainment/navigation system to be rendered useless! By the same token, I'd rather not have to bog down my smartphone with apps that need to run every time I get in my car, just because my car is just another dumb "remote control device" for it on my phone.
Forget the infotainment/bugging crap - we have that already and it's called a smartphone. What we need is Open Source and Open Standard systems for controlling the car and - new kid on the block - battery management.
Real hardware and software already exist in projects like Tumanako which even have the foresight to integrate with distributed power generation systems. But no, big auto manufacturers still focusing on bling that will date faster than a Miley Cyrus video.
We already have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus
We can send this over ethernet. Doesn't the latest HDMI support ethernet?
Ah yes, the "Sync by Microsoft" warning label. Fortunately I don't have to use it much (C-Max Energi) as I rarely take my phone out of airplane mode and just listen to music from a USB flash drive.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of having a computer everywhere you go and for everything you do, but a standard interconnect interface that would allow you to dock your smartphone in your car, laptop, or other device to bring its functions to the new area would be preferable. There have been some inroads, experiments, and actual devices on market to this effect, but they are always limited in their scope. And... I'm out of time.
By developing an open-source platform, carmakers can share upgrades as they arrive.
By not developing an open-source platform, carmakers can make you upgrade your car to get a software upgrade. Because that's the business they're in.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
It's not the car that will behave like a smartphone, just the radio. Which is normally a useless waste of space that blares advertising, so no loss there.
Twinstiq, game news
I can't wait till the IT department can enforce password changes very 6 months on users cars because the IVI can access corporate data. It'll be sweet!
It all starts at 0
No, just read the reports about MS in Fords. Ford may have been stupid enough to drink the Kool-Aid once, I gotta think they know very well right now just about how useless MS Malware can be.
I present to you- MegaSquirt!
It isn't completely OS, the source code is available but it has some patents on it. It's the closest thing we have right now that I'm aware of. It is also, to my knowledge, the most popular hobby hacker ECU.
I've never had that problem using CM7 or CM10,x on my HTC Inspire and Samsung GS3...but I've always used the latest stable builds, even when the RCs got pretty long in the tooth.
That's just my phone. Can you imagine how careful people would be with their cars?
So what, Linux has the market share in Servers, Supercomputers, cell phones, and now IVI.
I think the only market left that Linux DOESN'T controll is desktop, and that market is shrinking. I think its plain obvious to anyone at this point, Linux is and will continue to be the dominant OS on planet earth for the next 50 years.
The only place its not dominant is niche platforms, like embedded(strong though), mainframes(dying), and realtime operations.
But when you factor in Free software, that jumps considerably.
Free software won. now get over it.
"You get a security hole! And you get a security hole! And you get a security hole!"
just like on Oprah. but not.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
MeeGo had IVI, then there's GENIVI without a common implementation, and now this Automotive Grade Linux. These standards are really not producing products though. Design by commitee just does not work.
Automotive companies and their Tier Ones are doing good profits with existing crappy SW stacks so they are not in a hurry to change.
Don't hold your breath.
Or for the easy to use crowd:
yum update engine
The original Linux car infotainment system. Only 13 years old now.
Yeah, they will all start out with a common platform but as soon as there is any buy-in they will all diverge again. just typical marketing hype. maybe they should start with android instead. At least that would be more compatible with hand-held devices
This is a smart move by the auto makers. I don't know why they even considered Windows at all for these systems. Windows is proprietary, crippled, and there are just a host of reasons that don't make it a good fit for this. GNU/Linux is completely open, scalable, stable (no crashing/rebooting), and far less expensive without licensing woes of Windows.