Technically they do brick the car, that's why you need the tow truck :D

And you can't take it to any shop, you need to take it to a shop with the correct hardware for your manufacturer, the same with the iPhone (well, I know that with the iPhone you are stuck with the prices of a single chain). I do agree with you that the repair procedure should not be available just to Apple, hence my " the manufacturer should be forced to ship a card with the device HW codes so repair shops can reprogram paired parts". On the other hand, the software apple uses to reprogram those components might allow people to do other stuff they don't want (like unlocking iCloud locked devices). I'm not an Apple customer at the moment, so I don't really care that much about the issue, but after Apple's response to the iPhone 4 antenna problem (essentially "ahahah, deal with it!") I don't expect they will change the "Touch ID scanners need to be replaced by authotized apple technicians" policy.

Well, as far as analogies go, you turned your hyperbole right to 11, didn't you? :D

This is a complicated matter and the apple fingerprint sensor isn't certainly the first to make a compromise between security and repairability, just look at car security devices that are paired to each other like key readers and electronic steering wheel locks.

I don't own an iPhone, but as far as I know, the Touch ID scanner is a security device and, even if it's a low security one, they need some confidence that the sensor was not compromised, so I guess it might be a good idea to refuse non-compliant parts. I concede that completely disabling the phone AFTER it was working fine for a long time with the "fake" button is a total dick move, but if Apple argues that those devices were improperly repaired they are technically correct (still dicks).

Maybe in cases like these the manufacturer should be forced to ship a card with the device HW codes so repair shops can reprogram paired parts, the same way we use our car security code cards provided by the car manufacturer at the time of purchase to program keyfobs in locksmiths that are not affiliated with the manufacturer?

As far as I know, those machines usually use linear accelerators to provide the radiation beams, that means the technicians don't get exposed when they are inside the treatment room when the machine is not operational or being serviced. The dots in the screen look like laser dots to me, they wouldn't have the machine turned on with the door open, and in that picture there are violet dots as well.

But that was not a sensor issue or reliability problem, the sensors work perfectly fine, it is an extra piece of code that does the cheating. Besides, there were all the other articles where Bosch already claimed they alerted VW that the feature in question was to only be used as a test mode during development. I guess we'll wait and see.

Another article without absolutely no additional information regarding either the VW scandal or self-driving cars.

"Sensor manufacturers, for instance, may be untruthful about their abilities or, more likely, reliability." Is the author implying that before VW's scandal everyone trusted their suppliers blindly?

I think the explanation as to why diesel engines create more nitrogen oxides and how the EGR works was simple and on point, but the conclusion not so much. I drive a diesel myself, but it is a 2006 model, it doesn't have adblue injection, my exhaust system only has a catalytic converter and a particle filter (and an EGR, of course). Even though it is an old model, like most cars since then it has more than enough sensors to do what VW did: individual wheel speeds for the ABS, steering wheel angle for the ESC, multiple sunshine sensors, front and rear suspension angles for the headlight height control, multiple temperature and pressures sensors on both the intake and exhaust, multiple flow rate sensors, mass air flow sensors, multiple sensors in the cooling system etc.

That's why I find the article a bit thin on new information, I'm certain the embedded engineers at Bosch/Delphi/Siemens/etc. could have done that with far less information that a more modern car has.

Did they all knew about it? Probably. Did they made hardware efforts to cheat? I don't believe it yet, that's the point of cheating, "passing" the test without having to add new hardware, there is plenty of data that can tell you if the car is really moving or in a test chamber.

Is that you, the Alien Guy from the history channel? http://paulabrown.net/history-...

Are you sure? http://www.digikey.com/product...

Mobile phones have very powerful magnets in their speakers and they don't usually cause problems like that, do they? Maybe they have very good mu-metal shields in the sepakers.

That is valid concern but, as far as I know, magnetic cards are mostly being replaced with smartcards or RFID, that might not be an issue in a couple of years. I've not used the magnetic stripes in my cards in a long time, the ICs are so cheap and functional that using smartcards or RFID instead of magnetic stripe is a no-brainer in most applications.

Agreed, Mikrotik routers are awesome, you simply can't go wrong with them. They are also very cheap.

Out of curiosity, my last purchase for the office was an EdgeRouter from Ubiquity. It was a pain to configure, it took me a couple of hours to configure dual wan, but this thing is fast, really fast. 5 gigabit ports, all of them capable of delivering PoE (passive). It doesn't have wifi, though, but that's where the PoE comes in handy to power the AP. AFAIK there is no alternative firmware, though...

I've just watched the video in the article, 720p videos also clearly play at 60fps. 480 and lower all played at 30fps.

The video bitrate was around 4 or 5 mbps, maybe they will add a 30/60 fps selector in the future?

I was waiting for this for some time :)

There may be cars that are not like those I've seen with start/stop buttons, but from what I've seen I don't see any problem.

My car has a start/stop button, when driving above 5 or 10 km/h the button does not shut down the engine when pressed, and it is plausible that it could mechanically malfunction at some time. In any of these cases I can force the engine to stop by removing the electronic key from the slot, either by pressing the emergency release button or simply by ripping it off.

Other than keyless systems, all cars I've seen with start/stop buttons need the electronic key to be inserted in some kind of reader, and I would very surprised if those with keyless systems didn't have some simple way to stop the engine in case of emergency.

Your car is also your property and you can't change the VIN either.

No, that's like arguing you're a plowing cyborg :)