You're forgetting that even if you have cached the maps in detail (e.g. by beforehand zooming in to all the parts you really need on your trip) the navigation still doesn't work without being on-line.

After having toyed around with cached Google maps for years, this year I finally got a (2nd hand) car with navigator built in. No more mucking about when crossing country boundaries. Bliss at last.

For my usage (EU, frequent border hopper), Google maps is excellent for planning a trip. Not so much for actual moving between destinations.

Is he an actual scientist? Did he do any scientific research? Did he merit a the title of university professor? Sure, he did make money, but that doesn't automatically mean he should earn a title that few people get after working very hard, usually without extreme luxury or profit.

The device almost by definition must be autonomous. You wouldn't want your phone to setup a session which attackers could misuse. I'd be fine with using a key like my bank uses whereby the application sends me a challenge which the device encodes and which the application recognises as such.

First decent reaction I see here on /.

Open hardware key where a private key is held and which cannot be extracted (yes, that is possible.) Access to hardware through small keyboard, requiring a PIN/password. Open protocol to challenge private key. Everything is already available. Openness is the key and I think DARPA could apply strong influence in making this possible.

If you watch the navigation screen you see the guy approaching a an exit and the video stopping right there. What happened there?

A few observations more.

1. Considerable effort went into the work around. A redundant device was prepared as cold standby.
2. Why was the driver listening to Bavarian (Bavaria is the B in BMW) radio?

Then, I sincerely wonder, WTF is this article doing on /.?

Not a threat to security. More of a threat to global mental health.

It's Monday and you arrive at work. Somehow you feel you're being managed bin a bunch of cretins but you attribute this to your negative outlook on life. But today is different. In a Tommy-esque way, starting from middle management going up, everyone wares ear, eye and mouth plugs. You think, at first, that your outfit is going to the hounds because vision now truly can no longer be. However, well before the 2nd coffee break, you realize you were wrong. Stuff suddenly works. You feel at ease to communicate with your peers. Stuff that would have take weeks of meetings is agreed upon immediately. Stuff requiring well thought considerations actually gets these. You even start greeting the cleaner at the end of the day. The strangest day of your life passed and you became absolutely convinced that the magic potion for the shop was found. A new and effective way of managing a bunch of developers leaves them enthused. It is patented of course. Magic, sheer magic was cast upon everyone in the company. That night you sleep calm and sound knowing the pointy headed bosses suddenly got a clue and that in "vision without seeing" will be the next hot thing. The deaf, dumb and blind bosses sure play a mean pinball.

And having data reside in the USA at the whims of the NSA is how much better?

It depends. No exact numbers apply here. If you take full control and responsibility for your actions, change when you cannot add value to the company you work for and once you have the opportunity to do so elsewhere. The term "adding value" I chose deliberately. You can only add value (and generally make sense) if you're happy and progressing in the fields you find desirable. IMHO anyway. If OTOH building a career only has to do with knowing people and babbling a lot without going fully into something, then WTF are you doing on /.?

Conway states Perl isn't the ideal fist language and I sort of agree. I OTOH have found Perl awkwardly useful for learning OO. As in Perl 5 you had to roll your own inheritance, you definitely understood it better as a consequence. I transitioned to Java SE and I actually prefer the strong typing as it makes messing up that little harder. Perl is still in my toolbox and I do advanced system programs with it. You know, stuff that both Bourne and Java are bad at.

Could this be used to determine whether certain people are invasive? And they should leave on moral grounds. Or that they will face misery because of a gene they don't possess?

It's quirky. But could also be a symptom of a benign kind of OCD. Then again, perhaps I'm projecting my prospect of live on you. In which case, please ignore cheerfully.

Hail UTC. Everyone should use it. I mean, what's in a number for keeping track when you have to do stuff? Local time is hard enough and then comes daylight saving. Ever travelled by boat from Europe main land to the British isles? Ever had to calculate tides and/or water flow? Ever had an uncomfortable/critical email exchange between Europe and British isles (where the feet-dragger typically abuses any possible source of unclarity)?

Cool time capsule. Stuff belongs in a museum. Great document of Japanese culture.