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Near-Future Fords to Feature Windows Automotive
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:15 AM
from the clippy-is-my-copilot dept.
from the clippy-is-my-copilot dept.
dpbsmith writes "The Detroit Free Press reports that a Windows Automotive software suite named Sync will be featured in some cars available Spring 2007, all 2008 Ford models, and Lincoln and Mercury models later. The software does not, apparently, run the engine or do anything directly connected with transportation. It will, rather, allow the user to 'use their vehicle as a computer in key ways, such as hands-free cell phone calls or downloading music or receiving e-mail.' Bill Ford and Bill Gates were reported as saying that having high-definition screens in vehicles, speech recognition, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions will set car companies apart from their competitors in the future. 'There are going to be those who have it and those who don't. And even those who get it later are going to be a generation behind,' Ford said."
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Near-Future Fords to Feature Windows Automotive
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This is going to.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is going to.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is going to.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is going to.... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday September 01, @05:03PM)
Re:This is going to.... (Score:4, Funny)
Or
Reinstall
Daily
Re:This is going to.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Examples of technology distracting drivers exist (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.bowlie.com/forum/)
Until we get autonomous vehicles that can take us from A to B without a driving having to pay attention, can we stop surrounding the driver with every means under the sun to not be paying attention.
Re:Examples of technology distracting drivers exis (Score:4, Informative)
I've actually seen a Mac Mini mounted in the DIN slot in a car's dashboard with a small LCD monitor hinged over the CD slot and a keypad controlling it. Apparently, by design or not, the Mac Mini is perfectly sized for this application. And it uses a laptop HDD which just so happens to be pretty vibration resistant.
-b.
Right (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.pyroenvydesign.com/)
Re:Mostly a problem with women (Score:5, Funny)
I'm married, where can I buy one of these headsets?
Rich
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes/No/Cancel
An unknown error has occured. Please tell Microsoft about this problem.
Waitaminute -- it's not April 1... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://127.0.0.1/)
We already have drivers chatting on cell phones. Now we want them downloading music and checking their email while driving?!? Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what your favorite busy intersection is going to look like with that going on. NOT pretty, huh?
Don't get me wrong -- I (like pretty much everyone here) really like technology -- but there are already way too many distractions for even good drivers to handle. We need to either go with laws that require a low-distraction environment (no cell phones, video screens, etc) for drivers, or develop a foolproof autopilot system. And with the current state of technology, I think any "autopilot" option is basically only on the table as a scare tactic.
They still don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Please deliver what we want, not what you think we want.
Specifically:
-Just enough car. You do a good job with your European models, satisfying the market there. How about providing US customers with (!) Japanese-style size, build quality, and engine choices? Here in the US, we can get small cars with too little power or poor gas mileage. We can get medium-sized cars with too little power or worse gas mileage. We can get large cars that uniformly have terrible mileage. Cut this computer crap and build a fundamentally good car, and I'll dump my Toyota and Honda.
-Build for the world. You are probably aware of this, but your vehicle lineup in the US conforms only to US mileage requirements. While truck sales figures might tempt you to think otherwise, most of us don't enjoy spending lots of money on fuel. Why not maximize efficiency of operation and manufacturing at the same time? Build some cars with reasonably efficient powerplants and offer them in the US as well as in other markets in which you choose to compete.
-Stop treating us like idiots. Your consumers won't desert you if you choose to produce and market cars that provide space, safety, and mileage that are far above what you build today, but Ford will get few additional sales from the addition of a new techno-geegaw that saps driver attention. Ford, you've already lost huge numbers of sales to Japanese manufacturers on the low and mid-range, non-commerial/nonfarm customers aren't buying many trucks anymore, and at the high end, well, let's just say Luxury trucks are a dead-end. The smart money is in safe and sane european luxo-sedans and a few odd folks buy Cadillacs.
And yet, when all is said and done - you could have seen your current sad sales situation coming - you chose to keep making giant SUVs and marketing 500-hp Mustangs that only do two things well (use copious amounts of $2.50 Premium fuel and go fast in a straight line). You ignored research and development on the technology that could provide cars that most Americans need in favor simply building lots of copies of the cars Americans kinda wanted during the late 90s. The roads are littered with 96-01 SUV boom Explorers that have terrible resale value and FoMoCo used the money from this unprecedented profitable period to...make more and bigger trucks, and to create the "new" Mustang - a car that while not totally based in 1960s technology, gets terrible mileage anyway and provides little utility for the vast majority of drivers. But hey - the base model sells well in cities where daddy can afford to buy his sorority daughter a new toy during her sophomore year.
So do us a favor, Ford. Stop building cars to make Car and Driver happy. The Accord's been on their ten best list for 23 of 25 years, and not because it's super fast, super-roomy, or super anything - but because it does most things well - why not just create an Accord with a Ford badge instead of spending millions on developing 500hp Mustangs that get laughed out of the automotive press?
Sincerely,
The Pragmatic American Car Buyer
Re:They still don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
So everyone says. The problem is that Ford won't ever admit that its Aussie (and possibly Euro, but Australian travel conditions are closer to American conditions) divisions kick the asses of its domestic designers. So the Australian cars won't be brought to the US unless they're an expensive "premium" product. Too much "not invented here" disease.
Besides, Australian cars are rather "simple" for American tastes - when GM brought the GTO here, everyone bitched and moaned about how bland and feature-less the car was. Very few people complimented GM on showing good taste and restraint in design.
-b.
Re:They still don't get it (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.chriseineke.com/ | Last Journal: Friday January 06 2006, @04:23PM)
We know what you want, but it's too expensive to compete. Congressmen are cheaper.
Love,
Ford
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-critical software on a shared data bus? (Score:4, Interesting)
There was a submission to the RISKS digest a while ago - I cannot recall the exact details, but the problem was that non-critical software was able to cause what was effectively a denial of service attack on the car-wide shared data bus ring, and THAT stopped the brakes from working.
If a software can affect a component or module which is necessary for a critical function, then that software *is* critial. Given the existance of for example shared data buses, pretty much everything is in fact critical.
What Sort Of Warranty, And Who Backs It? (Score:4, Interesting)
My question, based on less-than-satisfactory experiences as a customer with both companies, is "What happens when something goes wrong?"
Will Ford say that it's not their responsibility to fix the troubles from Microsoft? Will users have to sign an EULA that says "This car comes with no warranty"?
What if people try to get repairs for the system under the warranty, and Microsoft shafts Ford on supporting their stuff, the way Microsoft has shafted everybody they've ever partnered with? Can even Microsoft hold off a lawsuit from a major carmaker?
In teh spirit of dumb comments.... (Score:4, Funny)
Zune, Zune!
Heard this before (Score:3, Funny)
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT" Group Licence. But, then you would have to buy more seats..
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was much more reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would only run on 10 percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
11. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft (tm) Gas.
Re:Heard this before (Score:4, Funny)
-- Every time you replaced a headlight you would have to find an updated and signed device driver. If the driver was found not to be DRM compliant, the windshield and stereo would be instructed to go into "lo-res" mode.
-- Every few years, Microsoft would further change the road specification requiring road makers to comply or face the prospect of having no cars on their roads. This would also require you to strip down your car and reinstall everything.
-- Your car would require weekly connection to the internet to verify its authenticity. Depending on the release version, if verification failed you would either be required to pay for your car again before being allowed to continue your journey or a popup window would appear in the lower right corner of your windshield informing you that you are driving an illegal model. Police would be instructed to arrest the driver immediately upon seeing this.
-- Nissan would file a class-action suit against MS claiming copyright infringement on their navigation system. MS would respond with a patch to the road system spec requiring all Nissan owners to install an MS upgrade kit to their vehicle to continue driving on MS roads.
-- Billboards would pop up out of the pavement blocking your field of view requiring you to stop your car and click "X".
I'm confused (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/)
Found On Road Dead (Score:5, Funny)
What about when things go wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.node89.com/)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/12/10525917 31421.html?oneclick=truestory [smh.com.au]
I can hardly wait until "I got locked in my car" becomes a standard excuse for why you're late for a meeting.
System Requirements (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=list&uid=911325 | Last Journal: Saturday November 10, @12:25PM)
In keeping with the resource hogging of Vista, Windows Automotive's System requirements:
Predictions are easy with hindsight.... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://markbyers.com/ | Last Journal: Monday July 24 2006, @12:54PM)
Umm... most people here that want in-car navigation systems are already considering buying them. In Denmark there are tons of adverts for them all over the place, including a huge billboard not far from my home. If Bill Gates want to get Microsoft navigation systems as the standard, they better hurry up because they aren't innovating but just following in the others' footsteps (as usual).
Dumbass marketroids (Score:5, Funny)
No, idiot, the ones who get it later will be a generation ahead.
Yet another speech-driven mess (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, what's wrong with cars now? They go, the radios have knobs, and we all know how to run them. If we want to listen to music that doesn't exist on the radio, we have devices for that, too. And with many new cars now being released with jacks for mp3 players, seems to me the problems are pretty much solved. The way it works now, you can pick and choose what devices you want, install or order them, and you don't have to fight through a whole computer UI (and let's be honest, it probably won't be as intuitive as it could be) to get to the stuff you want.
And really, I hardly think the biggest problem that Ford currently has is the multimedia experience for its drivers. How about cars that run reliably first, and THEN turn your focus to how to bugger up my radio.
Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)
better warn Honda and Toyota! (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.cjseiferth.com/)
The bills are _already_ a gen behind (Score:3, Interesting)