Near-Future Fords to Feature Windows Automotive 441
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."
This is going to.... (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory: (Score:1, Funny)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes/No/Cancel
An unknown error has occured. Please tell Microsoft about this problem.
Microsoft Patents (Score:1, Funny)
Re:A generation behind? (Score:1, Funny)
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.
Found On Road Dead (Score:5, Funny)
System Requirements (Score:5, Funny)
In keeping with the resource hogging of Vista, Windows Automotive's System requirements:
Cntrl - Alt - Delete? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Appropriate union of buggy technology (Score:2, Funny)
KFG
Dumbass marketroids (Score:5, Funny)
No, idiot, the ones who get it later will be a generation ahead.
Re:Mostly a problem with women (Score:5, Funny)
I'm married, where can I buy one of these headsets?
Rich
Does this mean... (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder if... (Score:2, Funny)
In the future news:
Detroit - The first windows based automotive crashed when the driver refused to update the system, filling the windshield with several pop-ups and finally automatically restarting the engine for the commuting driver in the expressway.
Re:Priorities (Score:3, Funny)
You know, that's actually a valid point. Drunks, at least some of them, KNEW they were drunk and at least TRIED to stay on the road.
Our new cell-phone-blabbing, mp3-playing, makeup-applying, pizza-munching bunch of road-hogs is not even aware that they're supposed to be driving, it seems.
Re:This is going to.... (Score:2, Funny)
I think I'll get an iCar instead.
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".
First I had to kick Gates off my computer... (Score:2, Funny)
When I get to be 89 and need an artificial heart and I see them about to stick it in my chest and it has a Windows logo, I suppose that's when I'll finally snap and just start choking people.
Re:This is going to.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Found On Road Dead (Score:2, Funny)
Yes but now we will know who killed it...
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3, Funny)
Driver: "Why can't I turn right?"
Tech support: "RTFM, n00b."
Driver: "I don't even know what that means. Were there zeros in that word?"
Tech support: "(Sigh). Just drop to a shell and pipe the result from eflorp etc/turn/dir to xargs florp -bs7. Use apt-get to get version 0.78 of the xflorp library. Recompile your kernel. Reboot your machine."
Driver: "I think I'll trade this in for a Honda"
Re:This is going to.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is going to.... (Score:4, Funny)
Or
Reinstall
Daily
You're crazy! (Score:3, Funny)