Cringely, Cars, and Networks 148
Boiled Frog writes: "Cringely's latest article talks about Telematics, the art of putting computers in cars. However, the more interesting part is near the end where he talks about mesh networks where every car would have a router in it. I could see this extending digital cell service and mobile network connectivity far into rural areas."
Yes but waht about privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes but waht about privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes but waht about privacy (Score:2)
The internet was always supposed to be a giant distributed thing which nobody can control or take down. One router's broken, you choose another one.
Look at it today. We dial an ISP. We cope with the ISP's connection speeds. If they go down, we're cut off. If they want to monitor us, they can.
I've long wondered how long it will be before the internet becomes distributed again, where everyone's PC has a router, and network cables to their nearest 3 neighbours rather than phone lines to their ISP. Wireless distributed networking seems to be one of the ways to achieve it.
Once something like that is in-place, every PC with a wireless network card and a router, then the net capacity increases with every new PC. Who needs phone lines and cables, when you can bring a new PC home, let it find your neighbours' nodes, and integrate itself into the network just like that?
Putting the same kit in cars is strange, but seems similar. Take a citywide WiFi network, and route it from car to car to cover the highways. No problem there. Park the car at night, and it becomes just another router between the PCs on your street, using other peoples' parked cars to bounce the packets right into the nearest intercity connection.
Combine that with real distributed publishing, along the lines of freenet or of some of the newer P2P networks, and the data gets shifted around to where it's needed without cost of servers, or fear of monitoring. You'll still need servers for dynamic-content sites, but maybe we'll figure out the automated mirroring, caching, and cohosting problems to sort that out too.
Sure you don't trust big business, none of us do. So get a few network cards, get a few old motherboards and your trusty soldering iron, and start playing with it yourself! It's the hacker way!
Transit Area Networks (Score:4, Interesting)
There are horrible security problems that would need to be worked out, but I've often wanted to be able to beam an "I'm sorry" onto the HUD of the driver I just cut off, or something like that.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:1)
Instead, how about a "Thank you" for the driver who lets you into his lane during busy traffic? I have to do that more frequently than I have to apologize.
My greatest fear for a system like that is the potential to fuel road rage with messages like "eat my exhaust, jerk" and others that aren't directly out of a 1950s movie about car racing. I can't figure out how to stop such abuse, though.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:2)
If you've got hands, you've already got all you need to say thanks: wave! =)
Seriously, it's not the letting people in that annoys me, it's when those people think it just happened naturally, or something. You know, the people creeping onto the onramp at lower than average traffic speeds, and cutting in just in front of someone going at least the speed limit, conveniently forgeting that they actually do not have right-of-way.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:1)
Thank you?? Hell, not even Canadians would do that.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:2)
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:1)
I recall seeing someone selling an LCD display for the back window that had the option of a couple of (polite) phrases, and a remote with a couple of buttons for thank you, sorry, etc.
LED signs: one idea, if you're quick (Score:1)
Yesterday I bought 2 apiece of 2 different toys (from the KB store at the Mall in Columbia, Columbia, Maryland):
a) the Be Boppin' Boogie Electronic Groove Tube, a sound-activated plastic tube with 36 LEDs arranged in 3 rows which pulses with received sound (marked down to just under $10 apiece)
b) (I forget model name) scrolling LED sign; has a built-in keyboard for entering messages. Downsides: cannot be controlled remotely, with a serial port say, and can only hold a single, short (60-char) message; upper case only. Comes with a lot of quickly selectable generic messages, too, though, if you want to say "Happy birthday" or (?) "Remember it takes one to know one" among others. Marked down from $80 to $15. This was even less than I'd been told on the phone; I had been prepared to buy just the one scrolling sign for $26.
However, total cost for four toys was about 52 dollars. Now I can have "Ask me about your driving!" sign scrolling at all times, and have a pulsing light show on the sides of the wagon ... at the price, hard to complain. For $150, you can get a big, more controllable LED sign though. Would be fun to have my voice-savvy car-droid react when I say "Droid! Give that jerk a piece of my mind!" but it won't happen with these cheapies.
Both toys use "C" batteries or a (not-included) AC adapter, btw. I have so far opened only one apiece, but the Groove Tube had old, corroded batteries which I had to disassemble the body to remove, but with fresh batteries it works fine.
timothy
Re:LED signs: one idea, if you're quick (Score:1)
We were supposed to make our name (six characters of it, anyhow) come up on the display, written in hand assembled machine code. I was bored with such a pitiful assignment so I made mine scroll 'Eat At Joes Bar And Grill'
It could be done so much more nicely these days with just a PIC and a few latch/driver parts. Those were the days. I remember at the time being politically aligned with the Z-80 chip and resenting that they were forcing us to use decprepit old 6802 chips in lab.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:3, Insightful)
Great idea Big Brother.
I certainly do not mind the idea of my having a record of what my car was doing, but nobody else, including the cops and insurance companies, gets that record until my lawyer and I decide to release or trade it.
As far as monitoring what other vehicles are doing around me, or you, I see no reason why we should not be "allowed" to record that either (passive systems, visual, sonar, etc). However, some courts disagree with me on that as a brief glance through the YRO section will show.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right, it is a legal quagmire waiting to develop. Will it be like a tachograph where lorry-drivers have to show records to the police when asked? Will it stop the policeman-with-an-attitude from giving speeding tickets to people he just doesn't like, or will he just find another undetectable crime to accuse you of?
Will it be any different from people with video-cameras mounted in their cars (latest LandRovers, and most UK police cars) that you can use as evidence against people? If the information is digital, will your car PGP-sign each 10-minute block of data as it records it?
And more interestingly, what happens when most cars have transponders? It means that you can detect the presence of other cars without needing laser, doppler, or radar/lidar. It can sound alerts of impending crashes, it can tell you if there's a car speeding towards you around that next blind corner, it can automatically brake if the car in front does an emergency stop.
However, it will also tell the speed cameras what speed you're doing, it'll log your name each time you drive down a toll-road (i.e. central london) and it'll cause people to trust it so much they crash into non-transmitting bikes just like you'd crash into unlit ones today.
But most of those things can already be done. The police have already done their R&D, on radar, lidar, and automatic numberplate reading. So why not develop some cool kit which'll give that kind of useful stuff to the drivers too?
Sounds interesting.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:2)
Except for this part: However, it will also tell the speed cameras what speed you're doing, it'll log your name each time you drive down a toll-road (i.e. central london)
Until they add Big Brother biometric identification it can only transmit the name of the owner of record and that is only as good as the last database entry by whomever thracks that where it is registered.
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:1)
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:1)
Re:Transit Area Networks (Score:2)
I'd program a series of macros that I could send easily...like, "You know, turn signals work," or conversely, "You've been signalling for quite some time now, do you actually plan to turn?" Or "Given the weather and/or illumination conditions, don't you think it would be wise to have your lights on?" (What would be neat is if it could be programmed to send that message automatically to anybody encountered who did not have them on.)
Or even something like "Please be advised I'm passing on your left and may need to cut in front of you if something suddenly pops up in the oncoming lane."
Would be useful. OTOH, could also be distracting in the same way that DWY allegedly is...
yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine your dashboard flashing "I OWN3d J00!!!" moments before the gas and break pedals switch functions.
Looks like they aren't doing to well (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Looks like they aren't doing to well (Score:2)
There aren't many cars in rural areas, either (Score:2, Insightful)
Telematics is something completely different (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Telematics is something completely different (Score:1)
Re:Telematics is something completely different (Score:1)
Re:Telematics is something completely different (Score:2)
routers == more dependancy on cars == why? (Score:2, Insightful)
For a site that sometimes purpots to be concered with the environment, should we really be so glib to add yet another reason to depend on cars for smooth operation of our social infratructure?
A new, cheaper, postman (Score:3, Insightful)
> concered with the environment, should we really
> be so glib to add yet another reason to depend
> on cars for smooth operation of our social
> infratructure?
I'm a little depressed at the thought of a world whose "social infrastructure" is the internet. Besides which, cars aren't always going to be damaging to the environment. Eventually they'll be electric.
Another, perhaps more fun, aspect of this is the idea of a mailserver vehicle, perhaps a post office vehicle. So that when the postman travels to *reall* out of the way places, not only will he bring paper mail, but his server could be holding electronic mail for delivery.
Re:A new, cheaper, postman (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently you haven't considered the fact that the electricity has to come from *somewhere*.
There are claims that humanity's electricity consumption exceeds our ability to use only minimal-impact and renewable sources of energy. Solar systems are hugely inefficent, and there is only so much wind and hydro power that can be effectively tapped.
So, things might come full circle and your electric car would actually be powered by a dirty coal plant. Some of the first experimental cars were directly coal fired.
Re:A new, cheaper, postman (Score:1)
And to top that off, Guess when Wind and Hydro energy is easiest to get?
(Hint: Think of the weather patterns. )
The Spring and Fall - Unfortunately, most energy is needed in the Summer and Winter.
It is too bad we don't have a cheap way to store energy in 3 month intervals!
Re:A new, cheaper, postman (Score:1)
Re:A new, cheaper, postman (Score:1)
While the electricity has to come from somewhere for electric vehicles, they're still much more enviromentally friendly. Even if the electricity is being produced by coal power plants it is still a much more efficient power source which centralizes pollution rather than spreading it out. And if all those cars stopped using gasoline we could use the oil saved in more efficient oil power plants.
Either way electric cars remain much more efficient than internal combustion engines, and if the electricity comes from renewable or nuclear energy sources they'll produce close to no pollutants.
Hydrogen Power (Score:2)
That's why I drive an environmentally friendly hydrogen powered 1996 Jeep Cherokee Sport. Gets almost 22 MPG of hydrogen. But I prefer to call liquid sunshine.
The fuel sites are being kept a big secret by the (pick any) military-industrial-complex/government/industry/c
They found an ingenious way to mix hydrogen with carbon so it stays liquid long enough for me to drive to the virgin woodlands and feed the trees with the exhaust! Trees love CO2 as well as the H2O that comes out of the exhaust pipe.
I get my hydrogen at Exxon stations. If I buy enough at one time I get a free carwash too!
Re:Hydrogen Power (Score:2)
Nonetheless, your post was once again funny as hell - I especially liked the Exxon reference. You go dude, I'd mod you up if I had points!
Re:Hydrogen Power (Score:2)
LOL, no *I* realize that my hydrogen is distilled form petroleum. All new vehicles burn it clean and it works.
Re:A new, cheaper, postman (Score:2)
Its not *the* social structure, but one of the tennets of technology is that it is impossible to introduce new technology without effecting the social patterns of humans. Cell phones, cars, paper, written word
The introduction of the Internet to our lives has not had a significant social impact on a particular percentage of humans (presumably, those with access and means to use the Internet). In that respect, its not depressing, it just is.
Good point about cars becoming more enviro-friendly tho. I hadn't though of that, and that certainly reduces the significance of my point.
IETF already makes protocols for this (Score:5, Informative)
Routers on cars (Score:1)
Re:Routers on cars (Score:2)
IP routing is difficult enough without worrying about someone suddenly turning off to Albuquerque with your IP packets locked in the outbound queue.
Yup, hence the reason developing protocols to effectively route traffic in an ad-hoc is quite difficult. We get around this by shifting the intelligence from the host to the network card. The transceivers communicate at layer 2 and below, and present what looks like an ethernet interface to the host. It involves a good bit of CPU, and some cleverly designed routing algorithms. But it does work, I show it to people every day =).
Who is going to pay me for carrying the signal? (Score:3, Troll)
Then, 4 years later, GM throws a switch and my car is now part of a mesh network worth $100 billion.
Now, why would I waste any time filing a class action suit againt GM, claiming damages for using my resources without my permission. 1) They could have sold me the car for $30 less, 2) They use up energy that I have to pay for to run the node and to haul it around whereever I go, 3) They steal the use of my resources to make huge profits.
Yep, this class action suit is going to be fun.
Oh wait, all is disclosed in the EULA, and I'm not allowed to resell me car anymore either. It all makes sense now. The only part I have not figured out yet is where Microsoft is involved here.
Re:Who is going to pay me for carrying the signal? (Score:2)
So to address your points: 1) Perhaps. 2) Yup, but it is a trivial amount, and more users use LESS power. and 3) Noone is stealing, you share your resources with the expectation that others do, and help deploy the network, along with using LESS power and enabling much higher data rates.
Huge profits? Maybe, but the benefits for the users are much much higher. Less, or no dropouts. Communication between eachother with no infrastructure. No cell towers. High speed access (MEGAbits per second). Less power use. The list goes on and on.
I don't know what area you live in, but down here in Florida a lot of communities have been enacting very strict zoning regulations, making it more and more difficult to obtain cell sites. We have a lot of those "camoflauged" cell towers that are supposed to look like pines or something. Kind of odd to see a tree that extends more than twice as high as the existing tree line...
Great, so now car companies would be big brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great, so now car companies would be big brothe (Score:1)
Re:Great, so now car companies would be big brothe (Score:1)
Re:Great, so now car companies would be big brothe (Score:1)
Its closer than you think (Score:1)
Some of the GPS-equipped rental cars already do monitor everything, and tried to [slashdot.org] hand out speeding fines for it.
Think you're safe in your own car? Data like how high the engine's been revved, speeds its gone, etc, are all being collected and recorded by some newer cars. This information is intended by car companies only for diagnostic perposes, but just think what would happen if your insurance company could use that black box against you.
Oh great. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh great. (Score:1)
Telecommuting.
Re:Oh great. (Score:1)
It's too late (Score:1)
Safety issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Also remember a formula from physics:
KE = (1/2)(m)(v^2)
and the conservation of linear momentum.
Play around with the numbers. Like Nisley says "You may be terrified at the results".
---
Re:Safety issues (Score:2)
My car has a heads-up display. This can be enhanced to give the driver additional information -- while the driver keeps his/her eyes on the road.
I also installed an after-market stereo which has a remote control, mounted on the steering wheel. This could be used to answer questions posed by the heads-up display -- while the driver keeps his/her hands on the steering wheel.
Other cars have similar buttons built-in -- the Jeep Grand Cherokee has buttons behind the steering wheel, where your fingertips would be when holding the wheel. Right hand is volume, left hand is frequency (radio) or track (CD).
The only other concern is the driver's attention, which I cannot solve with the devices in my car.
Re:Safety issues (Score:3, Funny)
Cars are one of the few places where I think audio interfaces make a lot of sense.
- "Car, play some Saxon."
- "Car, sufficient fuel for Las Cruces?"
- "Driver, to turn south on I25, get in the second rightmost lane."
- "Driver, the speed limit has changed to 45."
- "Driver, DO YOU WANT FREE HOT XXX CHICKS NOW?"
Keep your eyes on the road.Re:Safety issues (Score:2)
Ideas Built On Shaky Foundations (Score:5, Insightful)
Cringely builds his argument for a widespread, car-based wireless network on the premise that the storage required by cars frequently disconnected from a network is an insurmountable problem, given the inability of Hard Disks Drives to survive in the hostile environment of a car. He believes that this problem will not be resolved by HDDs designed to better cope with that environment because the HDD companies can only afford to invest in research that will pay off within a year whereas the car companies plan four years ahead.
IMHO, it's a bit short-sighted to focus exclusively on HDDs; Flash memory makers are currently making great strides in producing chips that, in capacity, compete with miniture HDDs. Their primary financial motivation for this is the perceived huge market for personal MP3 players. I read one article a few months back that predicted a real head-to-head battle between Flash memory and IBM's tiny HDDs.
If we're going to be seeing Flash memory with several GBs capacity, I don't see why they shouldn't be used within cars.
Also, I don't see why the 4 year planning cycle for a new car should be such a problem; that time covers the design process for the car as a whole, no telematics system would be so intrusive as to require being part of that process from Day One. Indeed, it should be something that can be integrated within existing designs.
I'm wary of questioning Cringely's ideas because he does seem to have good sources on this but the direction he's taken that info doesn't seem to have been thought through properly.
Also, it's hard to accept his technical credibility when the software he uses for his site's forum [pbs.org] is so damn tacky.
Re:Ideas Built On Shaky Foundations (Score:3, Informative)
The claim is also absurd from a technical standpoint: if you assume that a drive will be available, design around it. Leave a spot big enough for the drive, with standard connectors, mounting, etc...
No, the real problem is nobody wants a fucking computer in the car.
Where to Begin? (Score:2)
Who the hell wants a browser in their car? What would 'telematics' possibly add to driving? Oh, yeah, that's right, nothing. Getting the shopping list, checking the ball game, etc. can be accomplished via cell phone, terrestrial or satellite radio. Maps can be used with CD or DVD tech.
There's the interface problem. Psychotic interfaces like that on the current 7 series BMW are being blasted in the press.
What are the problems? One more thing to go wrong. And, more insidious:
Take GPS, drive by wire (for those who don't know, connecting driver controls to various computers that actually actuate the throttle, brakes, etc.) and more powerful computers... That's right. I'm going to say it: You speed, your car will pull you over and lock the doors until the local police can get around to giving you a ticket.
Bleh. No thanks. I've got an Olds Diesel wagon in reserve. Computer free, and ready for an EMP.
Re:Where to Begin? (Score:2)
This would enable more than internet access. By putting mesh nodes in every vehicle, you could deploy a broadband network across the entire country, for very little cost, and in a minimal amount of time. The users would subsidize the network, a complete 180 from the current cell phone business model. Since it is IP based, ANY existing IP app would work over it. With QoS support, VoIP could replace CDMA/GSM networks, and sound better too (I can vouch for this, my company [meshnetworks.com] is doing this TODAY).
The problem with a technology like this, and predicting where it will go, is that the applications arent there yet. And they wont be until a network capable of enabling them is deployed. It is short-sighted to claim there is no use for something like this. But I can tell you one app that it could be applied to today, that every Slashdotter would love: internet radio. Think about it, access to thousands of stations, spanning hundreds of countries, thousands of genres, and no Clear Channel in sight =).
Re:Where to Begin? (Score:2)
A problem is that I don't see users having control over the network. As others have posted, control will be in the hands of GM, Ford, DMX, etc. It would require some serious hacking to get user controlled apps. And between DMCA and the OBD requirements, I foresee even more legal battles.
Sorry... (Score:2, Funny)
HAHAHA *ducks*
Way off in the future (Score:2, Interesting)
PDA and handheld device manufacturers are all trying to sell themselves saying "Just imagine accessing the internet wherever you want!". Yeah, it's a good vision. I do believe PDAs have an important role to play in a wireless networked world. Get the network up first. And that ain't no easy task. Mobile phone connections have only become reliable (by my standards) in the past year or two. A true wireless network would be much more demanding in terms of bandwidth, and demand higher levels of performance too. I can accept my phone call dropping out when I drive into a tunnel or a between some big buildings but I'd probably be less tolerant of some IP-based function dropping out. (I don't know why, I just am!).
A network of sufficient capacity and robustness for this level of service, over a wide area, is not coming for a loong time.
Re:Way off in the future (Score:2)
It exists today [meshnetworks.com]. We have ASICs already. Believe me, it IS coming.
Getting the network up ISN'T an easy task. But by making every car a node, we could deploy a fairly robust network across the country in a car model year. The fact of the matter is mesh networking NEEDS to happen, whether my company does it or not. The problems you mention about cell coverage (dropouts, service in tunnels, etc.) would be solved, you could hop from car to car out of the tunnel and onto the infrastructure. When a building gets between you and a tower, you could hop through a subscriber that has line of sight to it. Physics works FOR you, instead of against you. It really is cool, and I get to use it every day =).
..and I thought Cell phones were bad (Score:1)
Re:..and I thought Cell phones were bad (Score:1)
/g AFK while I see if this pedestrian I just hit is OK.
Re:..and I thought Cell phones were bad (Score:2)
If you're a pedestrian, be afraid...
Privacy Concerns Are, In This Case, Redundant (Score:2)
I figure all cars are going to become part of a tracking network anyway, most likely GPS-based, but making concerns about the effect on privacy of car-based wireless networks redundant. In the same way that car rental companies are starting to use technology to protect their interests (CNet article: Rental-car firm exceeding the privacy limit? [com.com]), I expect that insurance companies will, at some point in the near future, insist upon something similar.
They won't exactly make it madatory but their fees for unmonitored coverage will be too prohibitive for the average Joe to consider.
Telematic's problems in the U.S. (Score:5, Informative)
The main problems we encounter are:
Coverage.
Only AMPS can provide any kind of decent coverage in the states. This means 1200 BPS and heavy error correction. We use everything from DTMF tones to stripped down V.27 (fax) data bursts to get the message across. No. Sattelites are too expensive.
Driver attention.
If you are driving a vehicle, you should not play around with an interface. There are also regulations on what you can put on the dashboard when it comes to screens etc. Services has to be kept extremely simple. We are just learning to do voice recognition in an automtive environment with noise, radio, screaming kids etc.
Tech cycles.
A car is supported for approx. 10 years by its manufacturer. Which mobile standard should we use, given that GSM, GPRS, or CDMA gets the right coverage? Forget 802.11 where the vehicles act as nodes in a network. 802.11 only works up to 20 km/h
Conservatism.
The automotive industry have change cycles measured in years, if not decades. It's very hard to match up the mentality of that industry with the dynamic and unstable nature of the computer and wireless business.
Today everyone are aiming at deploying boring, basic services such as theft notification with vehicle tracking, roadside assistance, remote door unlock, crash notification etc. BMW in Europe is probably the leader where the roadside assistance call center can update a map with routes that is displayed in the new 700 series. All European solutions, BTW, uses GSM and SMS messages to transmit data. Its store and forward makes it ideal for low bandwidth mobile communication.
Next generation of services will include traffic, food, gas, service info and geo-ads. Cool things like streaming video is faaar down the road.
When we are playing around in the lab, we look at the possibility of using USB keys as storage (MP3 etc) and ignition keys.
We are also looking into the possibilities of using max-bandwidth/least-cost routing that switches between different technologies depending on what coverage you currently have. You would then have a fixed IP-address that acts as a proxy and forwards packets to the vehicle using CDPD, SMS, AMPS or whatever other links you have to the vehicle this 30-second cycle.
Things are happening, but they are not as fast moving as the rest of the Internet/telco business.
802.11 @ 20km/h (Score:3, Informative)
Voice recognition in noise: why not have a "command" button (ala the Motorola v60). Can mount it on the steering wheel...
No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:5, Interesting)
We've already got cell phones, and in all the places I travel for work, only once in the backwoods of Kentucky did I ever consistently lose the signal. There isn't enough "flaw" left that quality improvement in this direction is going to make much money. Not enough to justify this effort.
And as for internet access, I sure as hell don't need to share the road with some pervert whacking off to www.farmsex.com. And I don't buy the passenger angle either, the last thing parents need is for 2 brats in the back to be squabbling over which web page to visit. This just isn't very compelling.
What I want, and what I think would ultimately be useful for everyone, is a wireless net link that maxes out at about 300 yards. My car would broadcast its location (via GPS) along with everyone elses, and right up next on the dash board, I'd have a little mini-LCD with a map of the current occupants of the road. What's more, we could also send turn signals and such via this link (in addition to visually). Those places you always come to, where visual signals are ambiguous? Well, you'd now have more than just a left/right turn signal. Signaling for straight ahead, the 2nd from the left of a 4-fork road (yes, I've really seen one of thse, 5 roads meeting at a single point), etc.
Then, there is the traffic jam possibility. What if those people up ahead in a jam could warn you in time to get off at the next exit? Hell, we could even have a "thank you" and "I'm sorry" signals... might cut down on some road rage.
And when critical mass is achieved, we could start to do things that would make this even more useful. Traffic lights, for instance, would detect all the cars relevant to it. So if you're sitting at the stop light at 3am, and no one is going the other way, the traffic light would be smart enough to see this, and change the light to green for you, no waiting. Cyclic lights could die very easily... this would be very close to the smart roads they've been wanting forever.
And you know how those navigator appliances that the new rentals have, that always have the road information as it was 2 years ago? This could augment that. If a road worker plops down a orange warning cone, it starts broadcasting its location and that the road is reduced by one lane.
We could even consider getting rid of some of the traffic sign clutter... it could just be beamed directly to the dash. Instead of signs, a small transmitter mounted on the same pole, with a battery and solar cell panel. How much prettier would our roads look? Hell, you'd always know what the speed limit is (you decide if that's good or bad) because it would show on your dash. For me, I just got a ticket 2 months ago, because a road I thought was 55 for years turns out to be 45mph on one stretch. Could be useful.
And depending on how intrusive we want to let the advertizers become, we could even force them to transmit signage that way too. (Before someone gets bent, remind yourself you can turn off the mickeyD's sign on the dashboard, but we can't currently do the same with a billboard). We could concievably get rid of all signage along roads, and do so without (supposedly) crippling advertizers. Might be a bit prettier along the highways.
And why will this never happen?
#1 Idiots in Detroit like nice shiny technology, but that's as far as their understanding of it or its uses, goes.
#2 Politicians and goverment are the most worthless institution to ever exist in the 14 billion years or so of history of the universe.
#3 Some asshole would insist on making my idea more privacy intrusive than I would, and privacy advocates would go into an uproar (possibly justified).
Exactly!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
1. An end to traffic congestion. How? Cyclic traffic lights try their best with weight sensors in the road, etc. to predict where traffic is, yet how much more efficient would it be to have some sort of central network saying "no one in left lane, go" and so on. Traffic jams for the most part would disappear. Really.
2. Accidents. These too would be reduced as the entire system would be more efficient. And when an accident did occur, the data in the computer (cars around it, etc.) would prove invaluable in determining the cause.
I don't want to be redundant, but doesn't anyone else see this as something that could really, really improve the quality of life (driving wise, at least) in the US? Sure I'm aware that's a huge infrastructure upgrade that would cost BILLIONS at least. However I think the gains far outweigh the downsides. Yes there are privacy issues, etc. I think the solution would be to simply limit the scope of the protocol to make intrusive privacy impossible due to the limited nature of what is going over the wire. (Err, through the air.) If all that the system can transmit is location, velocity, etc. then the system would not be able to butt in and gather all kinds of crap on you. Just design a very simple networking protocol (not TCP/IP or something, please, think much simpler....) designed JUST for a 'transit area network' and you are done. I don't see things like wireless ethernet in a car being terribly useful anyhow. Everyone talks about internet on a cell phone -- can a web page really look that great on a 1x1 (if you are lucky) screen? Okay, MS has a cell phone OS that supposedly operates in color -- again, is this really necessary? I don't think so.
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:2)
That's a problem because most people don't actually buy new cars every couple of years, despite what the automotive industry that has so graciously employed me would like you to think. Most people buy used cars, and a lot of those come from private sales, not necessarily dealers. And most people who buy new cars drive them for far more than 2 years. That doesn't make economic sense, I know, but that is reality.
People who live in areas that employ a lot of autoworkers (Michigan, Ohio, etc.) tend to think that most people buy new cars every 2 years and most of those are American cars. That's simply not true. Go out to California. You'll see primarily foreign cars out on the road, and a large percentage of those are 2 years old or older.
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:1)
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:2)
And I don't think foreign automakers would lag far behind, if they wanted to be competitive. This is definitely something that Detroit could do first, and have bragging rights for a long time to come.
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:2)
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:2)
Re:No wonder it's being strangled... (Score:2)
Screw this computers-in-cars stuff. (Score:1)
Now if only Mercedes could do something about their product quality, rather than loading up the cars with gizmos like air conditioned driver's seats (I'm not kidding - it's an option on the S-Class).
Chip H.
Re:Screw this computers-in-cars stuff. (Score:2)
My idea is morer akin to expanded driver visibility (ala that new night vision HUD) and turn signals (more than just left/right).
Similar idea (Score:2)
Something like this would be a boon for online package tracking -- UPS or FedEx could tag boxes with small GPS transponders (Casio can do it in a watch, why can't it be done on a box?). Having a transponder on the box would allow for real-time package plotting against a roadmap. That way, super-important packages get lost much less, as long as they are within range of a freely-accessible wireless network. At the very least, if it drops off the roadmap at a particular location, you would know where to start looking.
My dream... (Score:2)
I ran a fairly "largish" BBS in Chicago that had 8 lines, but only locally, and I figured if I could bounce the modem signals over some sort of packet radio network, I could reach users everywhere.
Of course, being 9 years old, I had no knowledge of the Internet (although I still believe I came up with the idea of TCP/IP around that time without former knowledge).
In the past 5 years, a friend of mine and I have been working on some ideas for a similiar network, progressing now to 802.11b, and it seems to work well, even with up to 5 car-nodes in a small area. I had no idea that Mesh existed, and since it does, we'll probably abandon hope on our project (a hobby, not a profit maker).
This guy is right. The car makers can nuke the phone, Internet, and even radio industry in one fell swoop. Then the FCC will regulate these devices, and everything will collapse, but I don't see why one can't operate something like this "illegally."
Even if you can drop a good 500 or so Mesh-type routers within a metropolitan area, I can see it succeeding, and succeeding well. Co-op the costs of transmissions, and I really believe you will be able to make a profit. For those people who don't want to receive "commercial radio," let them purchase their own "sending modules" and transmit their own information.
You can prioritize bandwidth based on how many people are listening to what "stations" and give those "stations" priority on data throughput.
The idea is scary, methinks, but the idea that the Internet will stay cabled has to come to a close. I hate broadband (I pay $130 a month for IDSL, and I could get 1mbit wireless for $40 a month except for a shitty condo association regulation banning radio antennae). I hate dialup.
I installed an 802.11 router on my IDSL, and within a week, about 10 people jumped on my bandwagon (and guess what, I don't care). I know that the future is to throw bandwidth around EVERYWHERE.
Cars will do it. People walking with WiFi enabled PDAs eventually will do it when battery technology can get you a full 10 hour day without shutting down.
So, the question is, what is preventing it from happening? The idea that hard drive manufacturers won't look far enough ahead is bullshit. I can buy 1 gig of RAM for around $200 wholesale, probably cheaper in bulk. 512MB "storage" for the car is MORE than enough for mobile use, and maps, etc, can be burned on a weekly updateable CD or DVD-ROM that the end user can update as they need to. Screw magnetic storage entirely.
Fuck MTV, I want my Mesh
additional usefulness (Score:1)
If the car has a router built in, and participates in a network, the need for a hard disk in the car decreases dramatically. The example of map data needing to be "in the car" can be countered by having the map data on servers distributed in the area the map data is applicable to. Gas stations, motels, resturants, and so on all want people to visit them.
Get them to put in a server on site with local maps, and they can include their own ad space for their business (at a small additional cost...)
One very specific advantage over carry along map data is regional updates. Road construction, detours, etc, can be locally administered.
As long as you are part of a network, why not pull down a couple of hours of MP3's from your home server? 128M flash is relatively cheap, and getting cheaper. That's an easy two hours there. Most of the US is within a two hour drive of another probable network access, where you can start bringing down more music.
Why force the kids to watch some movie in the back seat. Set up a flat panel LCD on the back of each front seat, give the kids a couple of game controllers, and have them play car wars, or grand theft auto on the freeway and in the streets around you. As the car you are in is known to the router, it becomes the car that the kids are basing their firepower or driving skills from. Additionally the car and the router could be talking, and the actual performance capabilities of the car _at the moment_ could restrict the driving characteristics of the car being driven by the kids.
If you tell the car ahead of time what your destination is, it can check ahead for road conditions for you, and set up trigger points along the way, on the off chance the car breaks down along the way.
As with other security systems described earlier, this car could send you a sms message on a pager or cell phone, if it has been stollen, and could possibly "break down" next to some police for you. Undoubtably there people will mount web cams to the rear view mirrors which will be able to take pictures of the car thief.
Of course if you are borrowing the Beamer from dad to take your girlfriend to the movies, Dad will probably find out if you instead use it to do a Bonzai run.
-Rusty
The Road Ahead (heh) (Score:2, Interesting)
concept: Cars alpha, b, iii, 4, V and six are are traveling in that order, perhaps a mile or so apart. (Chosen from an intelligent algorithm that looks for cars which are spaced from each other but traveling at similar speeds). Every several seconds (10? 30? 60?), a picture from their onboard cameras is taken and melded with the other
cars' pictures. The result is 3D-feeling motion map, provided as a heads-up display on my windshield. With wide lenses (or multiple cams) the result could provide a fair amount of peripheral vision as well, make landmarks familiar minutes before they're actually seen by the real driver.
Video camera on every car (Score:4, Interesting)
Each person would own the camera and control its use. If there was a crime, the police could ask volunteers to check their car cams to see if they got a video record of the incident. The owner would know if they were in the area of the crime or not, either with a GPS/time correlation computer, or just by remembering.
Or, the thing could be automated. The car owner would give permission to the police ahead of time to check their camera, or on a per-incident basis. The police would query the car cam network to find out which cars were near the crime scene at the right time, and be able to fetch the video remotely.
This would be a good thing, and avoid a big brother network. The owners of the cameras are private individuals. The police would have access to the cams only by permission.
The biggest thing is that there's no reason why cam owners have to give their permission to the police. They could give permission to someone else instead, like a citizen's watch group. That way, the cams would not only be looking at the criminals, they would be looking at the police as well. Just like any crime, police abuse happens in private, and these cams would allow ordinary citizens to monitor police and look for evidence of crime.
The simplicity of a car... (Score:2)
Starting simple, with the network side of things, is what's happening. Already these information systems are in cars for one important purpose - maintenance, and feedback on just what's happening within the machine. The difference between the speed of auto and computer development doesn't stop their use together, it just takes it down to the slower of the two.
The computing/auto crossover will keep happening, but always as an extension of what's already there instead of as great leaps, as is always promoted.
Along with a car on a long trip go maps - it would be nice to see mapping systems done and refined as well as possible before also adding in every possible gadget on top.
a grrl & her server [danamania.com]
Self-assembling trains (Score:5, Interesting)
The way it works is there are magnets embedded in the freeway that tell a car where the road is. The cars have transmitters that communicate with the cars in the immediate vicinity so when a car speeds up or slow down, the other cars know it immediately and can react accordingly. You drive onto a freeway and pull in behind a convoy of PATH-enabled cars. The car takes over from there and drives itself until you tell it you want out of the convoy.
Instead of discouraging tailgating, the technology can use tailgating to improve overall fuel efficiency by having the trailing cars draft the leader - much like race car drivers do now except you're not relying on human reactions to make it viable. Human factors come into play as people who have ridden in a car doing 60 mph that's 4 inches behind the car in front find the experience uncomfortable.
The technology has been tested on a section of I-5 near San Diego and actually works. There are of course, reasons why it isn't going to show up in next year's models. Some are technical such as magnetizing enough freeways and dealing with magnets that go bad but a key obstacle is the need to revise liablitiy laws and draft legislation that specifies maintenance schedules and such. Without tort revision, the first accident that involved PATH-enabled cars would kill the technology. People will ignore the fact that we've had non-PATH pileups in the past and focus on "the computer did it..."
Intercar Distributed Network (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it could passivly monitor the "network" and jump to unused IPs every once in a while to avoid being tracked.
Possibly have some type of intercom system, like modern CBs, so that you can thank people for letting you into traffic. This one I'm not sure how to impliment without aggrivating road range.
Since it's standard 802.11 you could even play Doom with everyone while in traffic. Or you could tie the computer into the stereo and put all your MP3 archives onto it and share them with everyone on the road. (It would be nice and easy to update the MP3s through the 802.11 while your car was in the driveway.)
Just what I have come up with while driving around.
So when do we get a permanent Cringley topic? (Score:2)
The problem isn't storage (Score:2, Interesting)
As a software engineer with three years experience in building telematics systems I can tell you that problem was solved years ago by storing the maps on DVDs or CD-ROMs. A DVD can fit the maps for the whole of Europe. And navigation is not the end all be all of telematics either. Usualy what people mean by telematics is some kind of wireless data access to and from the car and it's here the main problem lies. For one thing you need a reliable data link and so far cellular telephone networks aren't there yet, not even with GPRS. They may work but not reliably.
Another more thorny issue is the case for security. If you are going to allow a network link to a car you need to be absolutely sure that that link can't be hacked. Think for instance about what would happen if someone could turn the volume of the stereo up to max just when the driver is trying to overtake another car. And that's only the most mild of possible hacks, for some systems/cars it might be possible for a cracker to lock the brakes or apply max throttle!
Where is R2D2? (Lucas has a bright idea here ...) (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like something more like the R2 units which plug into X-wing and other Star Wars fighting craft. No domed head and swiveling is really necessary, though -- for instance, a laptop would be fine :)
Imagine slipping a laptop (with a microphone plugged into it's audio-in port) into a cushioned and cooled foam sleeve beneath the passenger seat, then hooking a single USB2, firewire, or ethernet cable to it from the car's "assistant" port. Or 802.11, or bluetooth, so no wire necessary. Heck, give that (whatever-it-is) connection the additional chore of carrying a bit of audio, and forget hooking a microphone line separately -- the mic is one of the parts I think could legitimately be part of the car's end of the system. Basically, I'd like one broadish-band connection from car to computer, but with the computer per se quite separate or at least separable.
What sort of things should the car tell the computer?
- sensor readings -- lots of 'em, for instance
...
- Engine Temperature, RPMs
- GPS and altitude (another set I think are OK to be in the car)
- Radar signals (naturally)
- Radio stations in order of reception strength
- Internal and external air temps, precip types
- apparent visibility
- Level and pressure of various fluids (including tire air)
- Horn use
- Speed (this is one which should be wipeable
:))
- Gas tank level (mine tends to ride low)
- Battery levels (a ridiculously underreported but important fact right now -- now even an LED bar indicated current charge)
- Recent fuel efficiency readings
- Cabin air quality -- might want an alert when it's below good levels.
- Light check (headlights, dome lights, map light, keyslot light, etc -- all working and in good order?)
- Doors shut / locked status
- Weight distribution in car
- Image / sound output, as applicable
- Standard webcam stream with one or more cameras either streaming or sending time-lapse images,
- Sonar / low-power radar / IR or whatever other imagery makes sense
- Audio output, two mics each in engine and cabin (for stereo location help) plus
- Direct feed from the a) the car's entertainment system as well as b) from a separate channel carrying any audio messages / warnings from the car itself (door-open buzzers etc).
What should the computer be able to effect through commands *to* the car?Most (but not all) of what I'd like a car computer to do is *collect* data: the point is not what specific data is collected, really, so much as that a number of prioritizeable datastreams are available and self-identifying in a standardized, non-proprietary, format which my droid (whether it looks like a laptop or not) can examine and store, to the degree that I've asked it to -- and that my droid can effect changes both general and situational to make driving easier / more pleasurable / safer.
The car should have the senses (sight, sound, etc) but the brain shouldn't be tied to the car itself -- the most intelligent part of the *car* side of things should be the gathering point for all those sensor's data streams, which should be built to deal with yet-unavailable or un-thought-of streams, so they can be passed on for analysis to the droid when they're eventually implemented.
On the droid side of things, there's no reason there should only be one way to look at or deal with the various datastreams. One person might want a basic black box doing nothing but recording the engine readings, distances traveled and cockpit chatter to a CLI-based utility box stored permanently in the trunk; another might want the whole shebang, down to engine timings and dome-light intensity, controllable from a pretty GUI running on a PowerBook.
If the ins and outs are standardized and available, both of those would be completely feasable. If they're built with some room to grow, the same droid could be updated to recognize and control new things. ("Hey, I added a quartet of over-wheel cams to get a 3D sense of surrounding traffic. I want to record them on my droid.")
There are dangers, sure, but worth working around. I don't want someone else to be able to shut down my engine remotely, not even the California State Police. I don't want a thief to be able to tell my car via 802.11 to open the windows, pop the trunk, and use a built-in olfactory sensor to find money, then blow it out the windows with the fan. Naturally. Current thieves are doing just fine with low-tech methods, though.
OK, I close with a sound of hope, which is roughly "beepTWIRRRdeedeezzzhmmmbeepb'beepsigh ..."
timothy
Re:Where is R2D2? (Lucas has a bright idea here .. (Score:1)
or even the local main dealers. Most of them seem have problems changing a bulb, and charge an arm and a leg for it. My neighbor was charged $60 to change the WATER in his BMW! Imagine the charge to change an RJ45 connector because dirt got in! Its this senario that leeds me to drive an old diesel of the kind that does not need electricity to run, let alone computing.
Re:Where is R2D2? (Lucas has a bright idea here .. (Score:1)
Re:Where is R2D2? (Lucas has a bright idea here .. (Score:2)
For the hackers who want the performance and diagnostic tools, all vehicles since 1996 have a standardized but not openly spec'ed ODBC-II connector with many of the sensor readings essential for high tech tinkering, so this isn't a long ways off. There is sizeable hobbyist following out there and they have built a $20 adapter that lets you read from this port via your computer's serial port, and they have deciphered much of the data stream. There is even software for PalmOS out there to display and store real-time stats. Do some searches on Google, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
The other features you'd like are simply a matter of getting GPS and some extra sensors. Also start a database of interesting landmarks and their GPS coordinates and make it open for submissions. IBM's Viavoice SDK is available for Linux, to tie the system together to boot. I think most of the features you mentioned should be tackled at this point.
There is a lot to a project like this and I've been thinking about it for years, and it only gets more modular and grand as I think about it. Maybe too modular, I might as well be writing an OS. I look back over the last two years though and realize I've been mentally masturbating over these ideas and haven't done squat. When do you stop planning and perfecting and build? Well, anyway, this month I'm going to start by programming a microcontroller to do some simple analog sensor data acquisition and build from there. Ultimately though, it'd be nice to have a modular, more general open source solution solution that any can use. One where anyone should be able to simply plug in a module based on their car's make, model, and year.
Re:Where is R2D2? (Lucas has a bright idea here .. (Score:1)
Cringley out of his element (Score:1, Insightful)
TAN...nah try (Score:2)
or
Special Highway Interstate Transmitter Car Area Netowork, or S.H.I.T.C.A.N, for short.
And run a MS imbedded os, that way when you have a tailgater you can just send a default.ida?XXXXXXXX to get him/her off your back.
.
Defcon Caravan (Score:2)
Bob Cringely should ride along with me this year - maybe it'll happen at long last.
Rural areas, I don't think so... (Score:1)
>> I could see this extending digital cell service and mobile network connectivity far into rural areas...
This may work fine in an urban area, but apparently timothy has never lived in a rural area.
If he had, he would have realized that after 5pm, they "roll up the streets and everyone goes home, and the network is effectively dead, because nobody is on the road!
Privacy (Score:1)
Hard drives in cars.... (Score:2)
Cringely forgets that the shock rating it takes to engender a head crash is pretty large, and that the suspension of the average car will convert the short, sharp shocks that would crash your drive to longer, lower g shocks that wouldn't.
Would I want a standard HD in a Jeep? NO. But in the average car, this isn't as much of a problem.
Re:Mobile Internetwork Bandwidth (Score:1)
What kind of third world country do you live in?
Here in Europe, the mail is sorted by machine before being packed for the postman to deliver in the order he walks the route. That is why we have postcodes (Like zip codes, but with letters in, and in geographic order).