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Intel Wants To Computerize Your Car
cartechboy writes: 'Google just unveiled its cute self-driving car prototype, and now Intel is the next tech company looking to get in on the rapid digital change coming in cars — a potentially lucrative area for expansion. Intel is releasing what it's calling an "in-vehicle solutions platform" — processors, an operating system and developer kits Intel is hoping automakers and others would use to build in-vehicle infotainment systems. From the developer perspective, there is a chance the Intel release makes building easier and cheaper. But is it good for automakers to be building these systems instead of Google and Apple? So far, no automaker has done so well on software, and some have seriously damaged their reputation (ex: MyFord Touch and Sync, Cadillac CUE).'
Why yes, actually, it is my job to sell microprocessors, and not to ask whether they are the right tool for the job. Why do you ask?
As far as I can see, that solves my infotainment "needs." What exactly am I missing out on?
Wait, since when has Ford Sync damaged their reputation? I've been very satisfied with my Ford Edge, and I've had a few Ford rental vehicles with Sync that I've had zero issues with. I find it hard to drive a car without that type of system in it anymore.
Why won't it work? Just slap a computer on it! From the biggest brand in computing! What can possibly go wrong?
Car makers do two things well: Make cars, and sell them. Not even designing them, too many models are simply butt ugly. But making cars they do reasonably well, and with sufficient thrust they even sell reasonably well. intel likewise does two things well: Replicating fabs and fab process. They're two process nodes ahead of the competition. But designs? Not so much. itanic, anyone? Or, who came up with x86_64 again? There's much more to this, but this'll have to do.
This has historic precedent: Their first (not the first, mind, but I'm going to leave the rest as an exercise) was the 4004, and they're really proud of that. Little known fact: The 8008 was being developed concurrently, and repeatedly got engineers poached to work on the 4004 instead. Because the 4004 was in-house and the 8008 was a commission for a boring client company. Anyway, I digress. They're pretty good at some things and not so good at other things. Take home point is that it's not always that obvious what the good and the bad points are.
For car makers, software is so out of left field for them that it's not going to go right. So using a drop-in turn-key COTS thing from a large well-respected company, after all, just about everyone in the company has a peecee with chips from that company on their desk, don't they?, isn't going to be a firing offense, is it?
Well... maybe. Probably not but it probably should be. It's like picking windows for embedded projects. Just not such a great fit. There are better options, but those require that you know your stuff. And car makers and software? Thus we see that intel will likely have plenty market for this thing, but it's not going to be the right thing. The car makers will have to learn the hard way to make better choices. In the meantime and like a good little consultant, intel will happily supply the rope and the feet-pointing guns, as will certain well-known software vendors.
My car blue screening while hurtling down the highway.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
When a self-driving car enters a school zone and sees the "speed limit 25 when children are present" sign, how does it know whether a person it sees is a child? Does it always brake just to be on the safe side? And if no "end school zone" sign exists, does it keep on going 25 until it sees the next speed limit sign miles down the road?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
We've already seen this in some cars, where they try to prevent everyone but 'certified' mechanics from fixing the cars. None of this is a good thing for consumers. This technology could be a good thing in theory, but asshole corporations and governments will use it for all sorts of nasty shit.
and I am quite happy driving a car without a computer.
How do we stop it? A lot of people don't care; but there is a significant group of people like myself who just want the KISS philosophy in our cars. It's a lot harder to organize a car company than it is a piece of software so the whole peace, love and open source philosophy doesn't seem to apply.
When it comes to things like this it really does seem that you really have no choice but to chose. If none of the choices satisfy because some company like Intel gets all the manufacturers to drink their kool-aid, then you're SOL.
(I'm from the South, and it's already hot enough) I have no problem Intel flogging their kit to car manufacturers.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I try my best to avoid buying any car that has a computerized display that is a wannabe tablet or phone. Car manufacturers think they're so cute trying to roll their own solutions when in fact all they're making is dead end technology that makes their cars more expensive.
God spoke to me
The *only* computer i want in my car is my phone, so i can listen to music if i feel like it.
And yes, i realize that means no fuel injection, or other modern garbage, that has no business in *my* car.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't want infotainment.. I don't want apps or wifi or cell network connectivity, or ads, or remote government tracking. I don't want large lcd panels or nagging proximity beepers either. Absolutely NO microcontroller driven functionality that might decide spurious negative values mean 'floor it', 'dont turn the radio on until the car is restarted', or 'the alternator needs replacing but really doesn't.' I want simple, tactile buttons and sliders instead of touch panels and tiered menus that require visual inspection. This way I can control the basic functions of the car without taking my eyes off the road. The HVAC controls should only have three knobs for the fan speed, direction, heat level, and AC button. Also, let me open the side vents to let fresh air in even while the AC is on. I am willing to tolerate a certain amount of complexity for the radio/sound system, but that's it. In fact, design the console so I can rip the radio out and put in one of my choice without making a bigger mess out of the offensively curvy and effeminate aesthetics of the interior and dashboard. It's a dashboard, not a catwalk for the sexually ambiguous.
Speaking of aesthetics, please stop overdoing it with the curves and folds and bubble look. Kia is the worst offender, but some of the other makes are pretty bad now. Just because you can mold that plastic into any shape doesn't mean you should. It's ugly. Stop. Also, I am an average height 5'11" male with medium/largish sized hands. Please stop modeling the ergonomics for a 5'2" soccer mom with tiny hands. I'm tired of bumping the signal/wiper blade controls randomly when I turn the wheel over.
Many cars sold today are so integrated with the radio that it makes it very expensive to replace the radio (that is if you can fit a standard radio in the dash)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I want to get in, turn the key, drive to my destination, and turn it off. Later, I would like to repeat the process to get home.
Intel and others take note: I do not want to Tweet, blog, Instagram, or masturbate to some kind if computerized entertainment system while this happens. I want to safely arrive where I'm going.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Sorry, I didn't mean to mod you OT. I meant to mod you flamebait. Seems you hate the homosektuals. Just go ahead and say it. Cmon, you'll feel better. Just take your keyboard and type it out. Don't be a pussy and AC it either. Do it! Call me a fag. I know you want to.
I'm honestly curious is this is going to happen. Much like the Smart house story from a few days back I wonder what's going to happen when more of this rather useless crap gets wedged into a car and someone has a real serious failure that results in a crash. Well... actually we may have already had that. There was some rumors out there that the whole Toyota brake system fiasco wasn't actually caused by some weird problem with the floor mat but was actually a software issue.
Either way I'm really wondering if all this extra technology is really all that useful. Compared to just keep the systems in a car kind of 'dumb' and just sticking to hardened PLC style systems for engine management. Nothing flashy, just something rugged that won't fail.
...and they want intel's relevance back.
I want to drive. I want to listen to radio to cut the monotony and to know about delays. Maybe not even that last one - every time I have needed to take a detour - SO HAS EVERYONE ELSE ON THE SAME ROAD WITH GPS which has the net effect of moving the traffic jam from the interstate to the secondaries. But I don't want my car telling me the price of stocks, the dew point in Dubai, or how many kilojoules are distributed between my fratastat and my semi-regenerative gismautch. I'm looking at you, Prius. I don't want Bluetooth integration - a trusty Plantronics M50 is more than enough.
Why do I want this? Would it make my car drive better?
For everything else I prefer BYOD and to not be locked.
My Sunny Sunday convertible was made in the 80s, if it had integrated computer I'd still have to deal with DOS-prompt and keeping 64K clear. Today's cars and electronics will be 30 year old some day. Are you sure you want to integrate them?
The title says it all, right?
I just want my car to be a car. Hell, I barely even use the plain old stereo in mine. Anything some bullshit infotainment system can do, a smartphone can do faster and better. And you won't end up with a two-ton, obsolete, glorified tablet on wheels a year later (or less).
At most, any such systems should be nothing more than a standardized interface for controlling your smartphone. It could even have hardware buttons with standard control mappings, which would be great.
With the latest witch hunt out there for v"distracted drivers", I'm surprised I've never seen a proposal to ban or limit these things. I'm generally against curtailing technology by force of law, but in case, I would say good riddance.
alot more then just that with part time rules and in can very state to state and city to city.
A database may work but who will pay the ticket / points / ect when there is a data mismatch? and who is the driver? some tickets go the other driver other to the car.
autopilot software / hardware has lot's testing / code review and fail back to off when some bad happens.
Autodriver cars will need the same level of testing.
...General Motors announced that they want to motorize your computer. They plan to install a diesel engine and a steering wheel in every laptop. So far, no computer maker has done so well in providing fast-spinning hard disks and easy to use GUI, and some have seriously damaged their reputation (e.g. Windows 8).
and copyright trolls will join the **AAs to make such car not-street legal (even if it has nothing to do with the driving on street) ...so just after the Nth scandal of **AA making fools of themselves after issuing a C&D letter for reason of torrenting against the IP address of a networked laser printer, prepare yourself to read about a warning issued for reason of unlicensed washer fluid against the VIN... of a lawnmower.
and will sue presumed-fraudulent drivers automatic al.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think future will be like, just sit and machines will do everything for you.
Akhil
Getmeplaced.com
Yes, but airplanes cost in excess of 30 million USD. For that amount you can justify the high costs in testing, triplicate redundancy, and hiring code auditors, security auditors, every cable accounted for EM interference, etc.., etc...
You really think that your average car will have that level of redundancy and checks? Hell, the only reason airplanes have it is because it is mandated by the flight authorities. An Airbus or Boeing would not get type approval if they didn't produce certificates, and signed documents from all involved, that all the unit tests/audits were done, and passed successfully.
You really think automakers will do the same? It would drive the cost up immensly, and unless forced to, I suspect you will find most of the code will be a lousy hack-job done by the lowest bidder somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, a bit like most built-in car tech.
The only place this hasn't been the case is the ECU/EMU's. This is:
a) The only people who can do the job are competent already (very rarely can you find cheap, good, embedded programmers.)
b) the ECU/EMU controls fuel efficiency, and emissions, which the car has to pass to be allowed to be sold. Incentive to get it right
c) It is a very simple problem, relatively. Control of fuel/ignition timing, and power output/throttle control.
d) the project isn't very big (a few K of data/code).
e) It doesn't change much. It only gets refined with time (like the IC engine, which, as a concept is about 100 years old).
Also, the whole point of a driverless car is that you would be able to ignore the driving, and just go do what you want. However that level of sophistication has not even been reached in airplanes. Airplane autopilots, despite being around for decades, and generally dealing with a 3D space , in which 99% of it is air, still have software glitches/unexpected situations. That is why airlines still have highly trained people sitting at the controls at all times, paying attention and ready to make corrections if necessary.
I don't think a normal "driver" in a self driving car, will want to sit there and stare at everything around them, making sure the computer is doing the right thing. If you can't disconnect, and be a passenger, then you might as well be driving. Just as much effort, slightly higher risk of error, and you don't end up bored to death.
On the flip side, I don't think they can make a pure driverless car, just because driving is really complicated, and requires the ability to think ahead, and not just react to immediete events. Something AI is not yet able to do. You could make self-driving only roads, which area designed to not confuse the AI, and make everything work reliably. However then you've just really reinvented trains, with roads instead of rail.
The only place where I could see a self driving car working at all is on Motorways, due to their predictable, linear nature, no pedestrians and other obstacles, and clearly defined rules.
The school zone thing is totally open to interpretation.
The road to a friend's house passes one of those elementary school-public park agglomerations, with about a half-dozen baseball fields. He tells me the cops love to pull people over on Sundays when there's a single game at a ball field 2-300 yards from the road and school.
Why? Children present. Sign says "School Zone: 25 mph when children present". Doesn't mean school in session, school kids coming/going, etc, it means any damn minor around.
...are already computerized. The old '98 Jeep has a "check engine" light that has been on for about 6 years that says the oxygen sensor is out, but that was replaced 3 times and the light still keeps coming back on. Obviously, its the frappin' engine computer. No, I'm not replacing a computer, prolly $1200 - dunno, haven't looked - when I can just ignore the frappin' light.
The other car has had numerous failures connected to the computer, from the bad brake light switch that caused a "check engine" light that also disables the cruise control, and other failures that have also disabled the cruise control. The car has a "hill holder" function to prevent rollback and a stability control function that prevents skids which neither work because a "steering wheel angle sensor" is "throwing codes" and disabling those 2 functions. It doesn't disable the cruise control, so I can ignore it, although two warning lights on the dash are on permanently now, because I'm not spending $700 to have the steering column totally torn apart to replace that sensor (that may be a bad computer anyway, just like the Jeep), when I know how to do both of those functions all by myself anyway.
Self-driving car? They better have 3 computers in a "voting" arrangement and prohibit maintenance to them by anyone not having a college electrical engineering degree. These things may kill more than they save if you get Billy-Bob under the hood and stripping wires and putting them back together with black plastic electrical tape which will weather and fall off and then that wire shorts...
Yeah, and wait 'til I open up with a 1000 watt mobile radio that is my ham radio station, right beside the self-driving car, that is then jammed by the high power RF field and does an immediate right turn over the cliff and into the river below. Enjoy your self-driving car, and take swimming lessons.
They need a full-up, C3PO level of intelligence for the driverless car. Probably 50 years... if ever...
Ok.. if Intel wants to set themselves up for a lawsuit. Automakers have designed control system that work well in an extremely hostile environment extremely well. I don't think Infotainment Systems belong in vehicles. Cell Phones and Stereo systems are distracting enough as it is. I do well with my Jeep Wrangler's Stereo w/USB memory. My entire music collection is there. A Wrangler is a ragtop so the last thing I want to do is lure thieves so I have an amplifier mounted under the steering column in line with the stock head unit. I replaced all the 6.5" speakers with Boston Acoustics 6.5" speakers, stuffed the sound bar with sound deadening material, stuffed the dash speaker boxes also. The result is I don't need a sub woofer and the sound is great even with the top off.
Infotainment... nah. The best solution is a wireless interface from my head unit to the phone. That's what I have now. it works well.
To be honest I really don't want to talk to anybody on the phone when I'm driving, it's my quiet time. I just want to drive and listen to my
Rock and Blues collection. I don't want to talk, there's plenty of time to talk later. I only have a phone because I'm level 3 support.. I don't get called much but if I do it won't look good if I miss it.
Remember BMWs gaff with the software system controlling their car and infotainment ?. I think it was around 2008.. random reboots lol.
I don't want my vehicle to drive itself either. I enjoy driving. If you don't like driving where you live, move.
More than likley the traffic commuting for Google employees motivated them.
give me a wide open winding road any day.
What, a car story with no reference to Tesla?
Tesla has a pretty good system. If they were interested in marketing it for other cars, they could probably have another solid business. Of course, they probably want to keep it for themselves to keep their cars more exclusive.
Lot of luddites in here, and this'll probably get lost in noise and posting as A/C because I forgot my login ummm about 3 years ago.
But, makes sense to me, I have a renault clio iV with the renault medianav infotainment centre. Its better than using your phone because, well, its always there, it doesn't go flat or need chargers. It just quietly works and if you need anything you just click it on and it doesn't get in the way, intergrates with the wheel stalk controls etc. The only aspects I hate are the boot time because its completely underspec'd for the job, and the fact that its completely prorprietory.
My beef is its some embedded arm, and renault want to lock you in the firmware on it, happily menavrus has released a hacked firmware, which lets me take control of my device, has filemanager and restores the reversing camera facility without having to pay renault (or dacia) $500 for the privilege. They have gone even worse in the later release, installing a app store to enable you to license features in the car itself, heated seats etc, and they're not transferring that license to the next owner. In fact they want to add all the hardware features then enabled them via this to deliver, huge advantages in cost reduction of model variantions. But taking the license away, banditry if you ask me so I voted with my wallet and the next car I bought wasn't a renault..
I would love to see intel based stuff in this market, because I hope it would be more commodity in that a range of manufacturers will take the dev kit, and hacked firmware's will hit a much larger target,and whee, we'll be able to make our car info systems do what we want and awesomeness will result, especially if renault take it and run with their all hardware options idea, base model renault, reflash new firmware, top of range... This applies to ecu for engine performance levels in some cars too (mercedez-benz...) so could be cars get a lot more well, hackable, without needing to pick a welder up. YMMV but this sounds quite interesting...
BlackBerry owned QNX has today announced a brand new operating system for the car with with a distinct focus on safety behind the wheel. The QNX® OS for Automotive Safety 1.0 will provide the groundwork for such in-car technology as digital instrument clusters, head-up displays and advanced driver assistance systems.
The QNX OS for Automotive Safety – rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it – also has affordability in mind, with a direct goal of reducing the development and certification costs of the sort of advanced features it's capable of powering.
The new operating system has been unveiled today at the Detroit Telematics Conference and is expected to be released sometime in Q3 2014.
A couple of leap years back Zune's stopped working for a day and last time Azure stopped working. If a bunch as big as MS can fail in such an epic way that's a good sign to not be too dependant on date based software. Even if it's working perfectly local changes can make reality not match the database. When a school event is on a night or weekend the software is not going to be informed.
Is there a current model year car in the US that will run without computers today? Engine management, automatic transmission, RFID key systems, remote/button start, airbags, traction control, collision avoidance, backup cameras, auto headlights, the entire instrument cluster, the entire entertainment system.
I'd guess each and every car in production today in the US has at least 20 computers in it, doesn't that seem sufficiently "computerized"?
Understand that the processors in the computers are highly specialized to use the least amount of electricity and be the most reliable they can be. Has you engine every shut off because of a computer failure? The power usage is one that people don't seem to fully grasp. Your car generates its own electricity via the engine drivel alternator. IF you start tossing in high power general purpose CPUs and computer in the car you will increase fuel consumption for the added weight and power draw. It MAY be that the computer could offset those variables with added intelligence. Electricity use is one of the major reasons manufacturers are moving to LED lighting systems.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The inherit problem with computers in cars is that cars are around far too long while the rest of technology is either flexible to be updated or simply replaced. Most mobile phone users changed their phones every 2-3 years while most people keep a car 7 - 12 years.
At the end of the day the devices send commands to the onboard computer. As long as the logic put into these boxes and their configuration is simple (which it isn't in the older versions) than you do not need to worry about the aging of onboard computers as it now becomes the responsibility of the mobile device manufacturer to implement the API properly.
Is there any manufacturer out there that would please just cut the bullshit? All I ever wanted was a decent truck with simple controls, that's not absurdly expensive, and is easy to work on. Fuel injection is great; keep using it, bonus points for direct fuel injection. ECMs are good, please tell us all your "secret" OBD2 sorcery so that I don't have to spend thousands of dollars to fix a 3 dollar part. Give me a regular throttle cable with a TPS module on it, no crazy dangerous servo driven throttle. ABS is debatable, but nothing in terms of stability/traction control is acceptable. Put a transmission in that isn't junky; no weakling autotragics out of some compact car, no exotic double clutch, just a good old stick shift. Drivetrain should be simple and reliable; IFS and IRS are only acceptable if they can take a good beating and are made easy to service. Make the interior safe, long lived, rugged, and simple. No stupid infotainment, just a simple radio, and maybe a good CD player. Show me all the gauges. No flashly LCDs, no touchscreens, no stupid buggy radio talking on the same mission critical CANBUS your ECM uses; above all else nothing major to distract me from the zen of driving. Why can't we have this? The truck can be efficient, safe and go real easy on emissions, and not be an absolute nightmare in every other way you've decided to make them these days.
Will it be you? Or will it be any number of corporations/law enforcement agencies/spy agencies?
Will your car continuously broadcast its position, status, video, audio to unknown persons without your knowledge, and how could you verify that it isn't?
It seems that every other gadget that was supposedly going to revolutionize and make our lives easier, has instead been turned into another node of the Panopticon. They've been trying for some time to put GPS devices on our cars "for road tax purposes", just having enough smarts in the car to do it automatically, invisibly, would be their perfect solution.
Well, given the nature of the industry and how unpredictable the tech sector can be, i can't blame Intel for wanting try get into the market.
I'm not crazy about the info-entertainment systems. People needs vary, they want plug in their Cell phones into a car or they want be able plug in Sirius XM sat receiver into the car's audio/visual systems. Street Maps are nearly extinct, GPS via Phones and other devices is the normal now.
My main problem is having car's vital system more chip dependant on potential open source devices. Car have black boxes, that safety, I'm talking about need to do a update so your car's software will run efficently. I don't want my car hacked while I'm driving it, or when they automate driving and dumb down owners to auxiliary pilots be potentially being exploited by companies for money or worse peopel being kidnapped by hacker/sicko.
I hope people like Intel have their brains on and security in design they chips for the car manufactures. I greatest urg get hammer sometimes. I used program, i know what this crap can do do a device.
I'm an automotive enthusiast, more commonly called a car nut, gear head, hot rodder, or other more derogatory terms. I see these trends as the death of the classic car. Not the old cars that exist now, but the end of any "new" classic cars. Take for example, my wife's new Cadillac. It's a beauty. Fun to drive too. It has a whole dash full of electronics and computers. I doubt it will last 10 years. At the very least the touch screen will be crap. Replacing it would be a nightmare, if you could get one. There is no way a car like it will ever survive to become a classic or an antique. It'll just be junk. That's the direction I see for all cars being made these days. It's sad.
As for future ramifications of this, if the antiques and classics that exist today are all that are ever going to be, that creates a shortage/limited supply and automatically starts driving prices up. Lots of folks use old cars as investments now. They could turn into real windfalls in the future. (YMMV)