Rivian's Chief Software Officer Says In-Car Buttons Are 'An Anomaly' (techcrunch.com) 129
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian's chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an "anomaly." "It's a bug. It's not a feature," Bensaid said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. "Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice. The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken." To that end, Bensaid said that "every week" he's driving around an engineering vehicle that has an AI-powered voice assistant, though he did not specify which one. He mentioned earlier in his interview with TechCrunch's transportation editor Kirsten Korosec that Rivian has "partnerships that I cannot yet talk about."
"I think the car is actually a fantastic environment for AI," he said, while noting that latency and hallucinations are still very big problems that need to be solved. "The final north star I have is having voice [controls] become the primary means of interaction with the vehicle. The reality is that the vehicle is so feature-rich, that even if we do a fantastic job in the UI, there will always be prioritization that we need to do in terms of having things one or two menus behind," Bensaid told TechCrunch after he got off stage. Bensaid also said he's a big believer in the ability of AI-powered voice controls to handle complex requests. For instance, he said if a driver says "I'm hungry" the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer. Bensaid said the company is committed to creating a unique, integrated user experienced tailored for Rivian owners -- one that won't include CarPlay.
CarPlay "takes over all the pixels in the screen, and it's a replacement of the entire experience, and we truly believe that with the technology capabilities that we have, we can offer a much more refined, integrated experience," he said.
"I think the car is actually a fantastic environment for AI," he said, while noting that latency and hallucinations are still very big problems that need to be solved. "The final north star I have is having voice [controls] become the primary means of interaction with the vehicle. The reality is that the vehicle is so feature-rich, that even if we do a fantastic job in the UI, there will always be prioritization that we need to do in terms of having things one or two menus behind," Bensaid told TechCrunch after he got off stage. Bensaid also said he's a big believer in the ability of AI-powered voice controls to handle complex requests. For instance, he said if a driver says "I'm hungry" the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer. Bensaid said the company is committed to creating a unique, integrated user experienced tailored for Rivian owners -- one that won't include CarPlay.
CarPlay "takes over all the pixels in the screen, and it's a replacement of the entire experience, and we truly believe that with the technology capabilities that we have, we can offer a much more refined, integrated experience," he said.
abd if you are in a noisy enviroment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:abd if you are in a noisy enviroment (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, also tactile interfaces are often way faster than verbal. You can also issue multiple physical commands simultaneously, where verbal commands must necessarily be serial.
I'd also be interested in any studies investigating verbal processing demands on attention versus something like muscle memory.
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Touchscreen is the icon fail of modern UX (Score:3)
Car manufacturer says that they cannot add more ways to monetize and sell services if they have to use physical buttons for the control interface.
Is it's primary purpose to be a transportation vehicle or to be a platform for selling monthly subscriptions?
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You can also issue multiple physical commands simultaneously [...]
With one hand?
I suppose that maybe you can change the volume of the music on the steering wheel while you turn the thermostat down with the knob on the dash. But I won't be turning up the thermostat while simultaneously turning on the heated seats unless I want to take both hands off the wheel.
As for "being faster," I'm not sure it really matters. I'm driving in my car and it's a bit warm. So I turn the knob of the thermostat to 72 from 74F. On the other hand, I could say, "Hey, car, set the thermostat
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Hazard lights in most countries activate automatically if you slam your brake.
But a physical button for that is important. I do not like to navigate through an android menu tree to figure how to activate them.
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Well US definitely doesn't and I'm pretty sure Canada doesn't either.
Not saying it's not an interesting idea but I've literally never heard of this being 'automatic'.
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Having a cold could be enough "cough, cough" - car starts to play Scotch [youtube.com].
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Ah, but in the modern economics of big business, you just ignore a fraction of the customer base. Sure, you make a bit less in revenue, but you make up for it by not having to implement features that the CEO thinks are outdated. Maybe some people get killed because the baby was crying, but it's the price you have to pay to achieve your visions.
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Obligatory video [youtube.com]
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Uh...most cars do a pretty good job of soundproofing. And "Noise Cancellation" is a thing.
I've actually been pretty impressed. I drive a convertible and have done conversations with the top down. People I'm talking to say they barely notice the noise. And the phone speakers are built into the headrest, so I can usually hear them just fine.
And if you're unable to talk? What if your arm/hand is in a cast and you can't press buttons?
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What if your arm/hand is in a cast and you can't press buttons?
Then you won't be driving your car, will you...
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Am I the only one who simply doesn't want to talk out loud to machines to get them to do simple, basic things?
I also don't devices to turn on a camera and broadcast my face to the world every time I try to use it.
The extroverts can fuck off with their stupid thoughts. Not everything is an "opportunity for social interaction".
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I shouldn't be "looking" for something when I'm driving. I should be paying attention to the road. There is room for both AI and tactile response with buttons but going all AI or touchscreen is not a good idea and a large amount of us do not want that.
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People are more important that objects. I do not want to tell everyone to shut up so I can talk to my car. The car needs to accommodate the needs of people not the other way around.
I have a Model 3. I fucking hate the touch screen. Worst part of the car.
Dangerous things, such as driving, need to provide feedback. That's what buttons and knobs do. A touch screen can't do that.
Well, weâ(TM)ll see (Score:2)
Right now Rivian and Tesla have a bit of elbow room in the electric market, but Iâ(TM)m guessing some of the other manufacturers will not take that attitude.
Re:Well, weâ(TM)ll see (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem here are CEOs who stop doing their CEO jobs because they mistakenly think they need to micromanage. the CEO's job is to be a figurehead: Look pretty for the investors, speak the honeyed words, but do not try to run the engineering department, the IT department, the HR department, and definitely don't tell the janitors what to do. CEOs need to let the experts do their jobs. CEOs of both Tesla and Rivian have the delusion that they are the subject matter experts. Just make an electric truck that works, stop trying to make the Jetson's automobile.
Voice control is awful, touch screen control is awful, no matter how cool it seems to a few people.
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Good CEOs set company direction.
Bad CEOs set company directly, poorly.
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"Rivian and Ford own the EV truck market."
A market that does not even exist yet.
Re:Well, we'll see (Score:2)
Very apropos that this was one of the top stories today, Ford shutting down production of their best selling EV truck, the F-150 Lightning [cbsnews.com]
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I suspect the EREV truck market is going to blow the EV one away ... and Stellantis will own it for a while (Changan has one ready too, but China).
Is this about Carplay's UI, or about revenue? (Score:2)
Some things, you really do want a button for. If I'm looking to turn down the radio or turn off the mixing of outside air, I don't want to have a conversation with my car to accomplish those basic tasks.
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I think the animosity towards CarPlay is that it fucking sucks unless the only other thing you have is a 20-year old SBC bluetooth audio connection, or one of those tape-deck-to-headphone-cable adapters.
IDK. Wireless CarPlay and its it-just-works UX is infinitely more useful/reliable than any other touch- or voice-based UX integrated within automobiles over the last few decades -- but having some physically knobs that also control the CarPlay UX would be magnitudes better overall.
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I think the animosity towards CarPlay is that it fucking sucks unless the only other thing you have is a 20-year old SBC bluetooth audio connection, or one of those tape-deck-to-headphone-cable adapters.
IDK. Wireless CarPlay and its it-just-works UX is infinitely more useful/reliable than any other touch- or voice-based UX integrated within automobiles over the last few decades -- but having some physically knobs that also control the CarPlay UX would be magnitudes better overall.
*shrugs*
Personally, I find CarPlay to be nightmarish, because it takes over the entire UI and imposes its own, which is inherently less capable. I liked that it sucked less than some parts of some companies' user interfaces, but I'll take Tesla's UI over CarPlay any day of the week and twice on Sunday, and even that isn't nearly as good as it could be.
What an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I don't want to interact with my car by voice. Even if voice recognition could be made reliable, I do not want to have to yell repeatedly, over road noise, over radio, to control anything. More so, I don't want other passengers, like kids, to be able to control the car while I am driving.
Re: What an idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. Or with anyone else in the car. Is the car a party to every conversation? What privacy agreement do I need to sign to use the car?
Ugh. Eff no.
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Exactly right. How about if the other passengers are sleeping?
Can't wait to see how they fix things for the people who are deaf or mute.
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...not to mention the problems with different languages. Too bad if it doesn't know yours.
"But we'll support all the languages!"
No you won't.
"Well, all the major ones... English, Spanish, and (Canadian) French!"
The more languages they try to support, the worse it will perform.
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I own a Tesla, and my experience with Android Auto convinced me that I want to continue using the OEM software.
Re:What an idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Voice is generally the worst interface imaginable under every circumstance, except with other humans and sometimes even then. I've been hearing this claim since the 80's and it's always been ignorant and wrong. Voice interfaces suck. And, yes, buttons are better than touch screens for well known functions. Everything this guy says is wrong, I'm hopeful for Rivian anyway.
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Because it's impossible to imagine someone making a car with reasonable noise insulation, and a noise filter on the voice input.
It's also impossible to imagine an audio system that mutes itself when you push the button to activate the voice control.
And how are your kids going to control it from the back seat, where they can't activate the voice control, while strapped into a child seat? And are your kids so out of control and undisciplined that you can't ask them to be quiet for 5 seconds?
If these are your
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So I have to push a button to tell the car to do something that right now I can just, wait for it... push a button! Well then why did I need to talk to it at all if I'm still pushing a button?
I'd be okay if there is an option for voice control that is disabled by default in the settings of the car. Those who want to sit there and have conversations with their car can have at it while the rest of us that just want to use buttons and knobs are good to go.
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"Just deal with it" is a great sales pitch. We should have thought of that when I was doing it.
Sounds like a great way to go out of business. I wouldn't buy a Rivian anything after hearing this. They need to reread what Jobs said about touchscreen devices again. "Necessary evil" vs "something good". Never mind voice recognition and all its issues. There was a reason why it was always a third party piece of software rather than built into operating systems for about a quarter century before someone too
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Exactly. Buttons are the established engineering solution for a number of _very_ good reasons. This person is a an completely incompetent cretin.
He's wrong (Score:2)
Voice recognition is what, 95% correct? You need something like 5 words to give one command, so that means one in four commands will fail. Button presses fail far less frequently than that.
Voice commands are useless at things like adjusting volume or temperature. They are too slow for emergencies.
The real reason these clowns are pushing away from buttons is because touchscreens and voice control have become cheaper than buttons.
Does he hear himself speak? (Score:3)
"Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice.
But then...
The problem today is that most voice assistants are just broken."
Why would I want to use a broken system? I've been hearing for the last twenty years that voice commands will be the way to go soon. It still sucks. I've tried several different ways to tell my car to set the temperature to 72 degrees. Nothing ever works. Even if it does work, I can press a button and turn a knob far quicker than I can slowly and carefully tell my idiot car to set the temperature. Buttons forever! And I don't mean 'buttons' on touch screens, those suck too...
how can someone in such a position be such a moron (Score:2)
interacting with voice is very problematic and this idiot has no idea what he's talking about, fire him now.
idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
This idiot loves software and hates cars, does not belong in his position.
Re: idiot (Score:2)
Anomaly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree. Buttons and knobs are safer, less distracting.
That chief software officer is an idiot.
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Indeed. This incompetent cretin has no clue and is unaware of how solid engineering works. My recommendation is to fire him immediately. He is only doing damage.
“We think we can do (Score:2)
Says the car guy. Dunning-Kreuger much?
And he’s against physical buttons? I’m sure, on some planet, this guy’s tech game is strong. His problem is, this is earth.
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Apple's not setting the world on fire with their car efforts. But this guy thinks he knows more than every car manufacturer for at least as long as he has lived, far more ridiculous than the Apple comment.
Trashing physical buttons and CarPlay while promoting voice interfaces and AI will not age well.
Increasingly unlikely to buy a new vehicle (Score:2)
GM wants to take my data. Rivian insists I have to talk to my car because 'buttons are obsolete'. These assholes who insist only they know what's good for drivers just piss me off. Guess I'll run my current 2016 (Frontier) into the ground....
Rivian employee doesn't want to sell cars (Score:2)
For his next trick, he'll be designing guns with no controls. Because training and reaction time is meaningless when robots exist. "AI is a fantastic weapons platform."
Voice is terrible way of controlling a car... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the time it takes to say, "Dim the lights..." and the computer responds, the approaching car will have already passed you.
"Turn up the radio" ... "Turn it up more" ... "No, not that much" ... etc...
Some things are just done so much more easily with mechanical controls. Sometimes, you don't want the kids to be able to turn on the entertainment system, or change the climate control settings. Sometimes, as a parent, I don't want the children to know there's a McDonald's just five minutes away when I've already made up my mind that we aren't stopping there.
Yes, being able to say, "Find me a local restaurant" is nice, but most people don't even need to ask, because they already know where they want to eat and how to get there. Sure, it will come in handy for the rental car market, but I just don't see people using these features very often.
And sometimes, you don't really feel like talking. Imagine being unable to drive somewhere because you've caught a bad cold, and the car doesn't recognize your voice anymore.
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I have a current-gen VW with their voice activated assistant (and Google-sponsored entries, groan) but THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE is the unreliable network connectivity that impedes/delays voice recognition, directory searching, or even confirming that I've said anything!
Before anyone responds and talks about connectivity: I have 5G UW, 5G/4G LTE, and other network options all over the house and within a 150-ft radius (in a dense low-rise urban environment with multiple generations of
JFC, these guys.. (Score:5, Insightful)
JFC, these guys..
Where humans are concerned, tactile is best.
Look at airplanes. Yes, flat-panel MFDs everywhere, and your flight plan and checklists and wx are now all on an ipad.. but the way you talk to the airplane is still manual. Hand controls for all the important things. Yokes, sticks, pedals, throttles you move with your hand, flaps selector, gear switch, all of that did not get moved to a stupid touch screen.
This new trend in cars.. ugh. Double-ugh.
Cameras went through this. Touch this, menu that. And then in the early 2000s a miracle occured: the aperture ring and shutter dials came back. Huh. Almost as if 100 years of camera evolution dictated it be so.
A pox on touch controls, or even worse, voice controls. Give us manual controls, they work best for humans.
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Don't forget, it's even worse. Leon Musk thinks the car should just guess whether you want to be in forward or reverse. His plan for the Model 3 was no steering wheel.
The car industry has a big problem with worshipping the con man. Musk is to blame for this regression of technology.
Strike that car maker off the list... (Score:3)
Sorry, but voice activation is not a new thing. My ride has it. It takes far longer to tell it to call someone than it does to just twist the "recent caller" dial, and hit the OK button. Even then, I'm not often calling people from the car.
Sorry, but I don't want to have to beg my car repeatedly to do a function by voice, like it is a toddler about to have a tantrum. There is a reason why car UI/UX design exists, and part of it is to be able to set something, and ensure that whatever is set works right.
Just when you think car makers can't get any worse than 100% touchscreens that force you to look away from the road in order to do something basic, someone has to come to the table and one-up it. At least some car makers are getting back to buttons and dials.
Why not just give people what is desired -- buttons and dials, then throw the voice control in. Best of all worlds.
He must not have kids...or friends...or good music (Score:4, Interesting)
2. He must also not have friends. I don't want to interrupt someone when they're talking just to adjust the temperature.
3. He must also not like music...I hate stopping my favorite song to turn up the volume.
That's not even considering people with thick accents, language barriers, noisy environments, a dog in the car, or even just a sore throat.
We all like buttons. It's like keyboards. No matter how cool you think an iPad is, very few people stopped buying laptops/desktops and replaced them with iPads. We hate touchscreens. We accept that sometimes a touchscreen makes more sense, but people like buttons and tactile feedback and being able to adjust things without looking at the road. And voice commands?...they suck. Neither Siri nor Google nor Alexa get my commands right 80% of the time and I use them often, have a perfect midwestern newscaster accent, and have been using them for 10 years now, so am very good at annunciating and speaking slowly.
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Touch screens in cars are dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
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I like my car's screen for one thing and one thing only: The backup camera.
I would be perfectly happy with a non-touch screen that's powered off except for when I'm backing up.
Screens are cheaper than buttons. (Score:2)
It's basically just engineering laziness. It's way easier and cheaper than arranging mechanical buttons. Plus they can charge you a fee down the road to refresh the interface. More money for them without all the work. I love my Grand Cherokee but it's highly annoying to have to use the touch screen to turn on or off the heated seats. But it made them a few more pennies.
Rivian's CEOs is dead wrong. Few are asking for big screens and no buttons, but we do need vehicles so we choose from what's offered, ev
Idiot tech bros (Score:2)
Voice-controlled? What could possibly go wrong? A driver and a passenger countermanding each other? Even if the passenger is in the back seat?
A car should not be feature rich. The more features a car has, the more distracting it is and the less safe it is.
I hope at some point there's a class-action lawsuit against all of these high-tech car manufacturers that are making unsafe cars. We really need Ralph Nader 2.0 to take on these idiots.
Nope (Score:2)
>"Ideally, you would want to interact with your car through voice."
Um, no. I don't want to talk to my car to bump up the seat temp, to perform a single wipe on the window, to skip song, to adjust the dash brightness, or lots of other functions. Things that should be fast and simple, and don't interrupt a conversation, or music, or whatever. We should have physical controls for all common operations in a vehicle. Want to ALSO have a touchscreen? Fine.
I also want a real dashboard, with useful displays
He's never considered the threat model (Score:5, Insightful)
If they restrict commands to the owner, then they're going to have to solve the speaker recognition problem, which is difficult under ideal circumstances and gets still harder when it has to account for edge cases like the speaker having a cold or laryngitis. So assume they solve that: how do they plan to distinguish between the owner and a recording of the owner? How is this going to handle multiple drivers? What if someone is an emergency driver? (Last year, I tossed my car keys to a friend so that they could transport a patient while I stayed behind.) What if someone in possession of a recording standing outside the vehicle plays it loudly enough that it's picked up on internal microphones? (Owner's voice: "Start yourself and unlock the doors.") What if...I could go on, but the point is that this clown has clearly not considered how this is going to work (or not) in the real world, with its anomalies and threats, some of which are difficult to distinguish.
Nobody needs a touchscreen, or voice control, or AI in their car. Nobody with any sense wants these things, because they're pointless complexity and they make driving LESS safe and they make the vehicles LESS secure.
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You can get devices that attach to glass and make the glass itself a speaker. this wouldn't even need to play that loudly to be heard inside.
"Hey rivian, open all windows!"
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While using a deepfake of the owners voice.
I do NOT want... (Score:2)
...voice control of my car! Ever!
I prefer tactile buttons and knobs for stuff I need to do while driving
My Tesla touchscreen in nearly impossible to use while moving
Rivian's Chief Software Officer is clueless (Score:2)
Or at best, an annoyingly chatty passenger. Obviously not a car guy.
I'm in tech, have been my whole life. I LOVE gadgets. I LOVE technology. But I also LOVE cars. Shoving ever more tech gadgetry into cars makes them undeniably worse. Don't misunderstand, there's a lot to be said for actual tech, like seat belt pre-tensioners, variable impact airbags, anti-lock braking and active handling assist. Those have saved countless lives. Closed loop engine controls, electronic ignition and the like have made
I see (Score:2)
" "I'm hungry" the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer."
And if you say "It's raining", the in-car assistant makes it stop raining.
"I'm hungry" = go to the place that paid the most (Score:3)
"I'm hungry" = go to the place that paid the most for ad placement.
Morons everywhere (Score:2)
Physical buttons and dials you can operate by touch without taking your eyes off the road are superior to any voice assistant and far, far safer than any touchscreen will ever be.
They ought to be mandatory for safety reasons.
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Rivian, noted (Score:2)
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And then there are the "nanny" defaults. Those where you do have control, but not really, because every time you start the car, the damn thing reverts back to what is mandated to be "safe". Drives me crazy.
It is like my cruise control. I can't just turn it on, because it DEFAULTS to laser-guided, which I hate, and for me is dangerous. So I have to freaking hold the button down for 5 seconds EVERY SINGLE TIME to disable it and have NORMAL cruise control. This is now common for lots of functions and it i
Typical tech deafness (Score:2)
Customer: "We really don't want touch screens!"
Tech: "No YOU'RE the problem!!"
No. (Score:2)
Off is the direction in which you can fuck.
Extactly how many cars did they sell already? (Score:2)
Hmmm, right.
how to overcomplicate something simple (Score:2)
why should i talk to the damn car instead of just pressing a button?
Self driving anomaly? (Score:2)
I don't talk to inanimate objects (Score:2)
That includes cars.
More importantly, I don't talk to online things that have a microphone and a dystopian company listening in on everything you say.
Oh fuck no! (Score:2)
YES, I KNOW, he's talking about 'voice commands' -- which I think is even more pants-on-head stupid than touchscreens.
Common functionality should be physical controls within easy reach of the driver. That way, once you get used to the cockpit layout of the vehicle, you don't have to take your eyes off the road to do something, you just reach out because you alread
Gah (Score:2)
If I can't hear someone talking from the backseat, phone, whatever and want to turn down the fan, close sunroof, roll up windows, or turn down the radio, I don't want to have to wait for them to finish to not interrupt, then explain to them I'm not talking to them but the car, then command the car. Just let me reach over without looking and turn a f'ing dial!
Also losing your voice is a thing.
No touchscreens please.
Fuck you. (Score:2)
Give me buttons and knobs.
I do not want to fondle a piece of smooth glass with no tactile feedback that turns into a useless, smudgy mirror in the afternoon sun.
I do not want to bark commands at my car having it do nothing or worse, something unintended, nor do I care for the idea of my car constantly listening to me all the time.
Just give me a fucking button. That button should do exactly one thing, so when I want to do that thing I know exactly where it is and don't even have to look at it. Bonus points i
touch screens are a danger in a car (Score:2)
his bias from being a software developer is likely to blame for the idiocy spewing out of his mouth.
Do car manufacturers not know about usability research?
Single function knobs and dials are king when it comes to function over form - and that should be the goal when it comes to an environment where every distraction can cause an accident.
There is a reason most jurisdictions ban the handling of a phone while driving.
Adding voice function is one thing. Replacing a safer solution with a more dangerous solutio
Hm maybe but I don't want to talk to my car (Score:2)
I want to talk to my passengers or someone on the speaker phone. My car needs to STFU, never talk and never listen either.
Give me buttons and knobs and fuck off with the voice bullshit. I don't want to talk to a computer like it's a real person.
Design choices are "bugs" now? (Score:2)
This fool really jumped the shark with the "it's a bug, not a feature" talk about buttons. Physical UX is comprised of design choices. By definition, conscious design choices are not "bugs".
This kind of attitude is why Rivian is in such poor condition.
Thumb accessible horn button(s) for safety (Score:2)
So I rest my thumb on the small physical horn button on the side arm of the steering wheel, while maintaining a firm grip on the wheel with both hands.
This allows an instantaneous and usually effective warning honk should they initiate the dangerous move.
Accessibility problem for speech-impaired people! (Score:2)
Forcing people to use voice control of their cars is also an accessibility problem for speech-impaired people. Several deaf people are also speech impaired and cars' speech recognizers may fail to correctly recognize their speech.
Fortunately my car still uses buttons for most functions. The only function I use in my car, which needs touch screen use, is Waze and I interact with it when my car is stopped anyway.
Asshat clown (Score:2)
In the first place, passengers sometime sleep in cars. As the driver, do I really want to risk waking up a passenger by having to talk to my car to adjust climate controls?
In the second place, sometimes I like to play music loud when I'm driving. Should I have to turn the volume down so the "AI" can "hear" me to turn the wipers on? And even if I am willing to do that, how can I, when there's no manual volume control?
In the third place, if I'm having a conversation while I'm in the car, I don't want to inter
Idiot claims nonsense... (Score:3)
No, buttons are not an "anomaly". They are how people with an actual clue do things. For bonus points, make the buttons not only different by location, but also tactile. This person is an utterly clueless cretin.
"Ok Google"... (Score:2)
"mute navigation"
"Sorry, I don't know what you mean"
Fix the simple stuff before going all "AI".
Car, turn the music down! (Score:2)
Car! Why can't you hear me! I said Turn. The Music. Down!
On phone calls or when talking to other person? (Score:2)
Tell me you never talk while in your car without explicitly telling me...
The choice of using my voice to do things in my car? Sure that might be handy, depending on the implementation...
Being limited to only using my voice for many actions? Bad...
Similar to how touch controls aren't as good as physical for certain situations... A physical volume knob is just better. Easier to use without staring at it. Can shift by small or large increments intuitively.
Ignoring any human factors research... (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a degree in Human Factors engineering, or any other discipline that's actually relevant to the design of human/machine interfaces.
We've been studying HF since about World War II, starting with trying to improve the performance of military hardware and the people using it.
While our ability to design and build systems has evolved significantly from those days, people's mechanical and cognitive abilities have not significantly changed - our muscles don't work any
Partnerships (Score:2)
Rivian has "partnerships that I cannot yet talk about."
Most likely with a bankruptcy court judge.
Translation (Score:2)
The equipment that was installed in cars for the last 100 years, is wrong. Go look at modern furniture, go look at (paintings of) furniture made 400 years ago: Notice a difference? No, the human body hasn't changed a lot (We've gotten taller, fatter, long-lived.), so the stuff that goes around it; beds, chairs, handles, hasn't changed.
Translation: Bringing you tomorrow's Johnny-cab, today. No instruments, no cockpit: A microphone and speaker, and a parking brake.
Translation: We put a touch-screen in,
I think Rivian is on their own with this one (Score:2)
I won't buy a touch screen on wheels. Voice commands are slow, inefficient, unreliable and awkward with passengers. When "clouds" are involved they are an unacceptable privacy risk.
"The reality is that the vehicle is so feature-rich, that even if we do a fantastic job in the UI, there will always be prioritization that we need to do in terms of having things one or two menus behind"
Sounds like someone is so enamored with their BS they are losing sight of what actually matters.
Re: (Score:2)
I see plenty of them driving around, and they're working deals on the back end with other auto manufacturers - all those electric Amazon delivery vans are Rivian, and they're working deals with VW who is the largest auto manufacturer in the world, and recently discovered that EV software is hard.
Re: (Score:2)
What country/state do you live in?
I've seen exactly one Rivian but have lost count of the number of (butt ugly) Cybertrucks in my area. I saw 2 just today.
Re: (Score:2)