A victory for Right to Repair - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 01:09:19 am
content: This is good news. Apologies if this was already posted elsewhere - I haven't seen it here yet.New copyright exemptions let you legally repair your phone or jailbreak voice assistantsThe US Copyright Office has made it legal to hack your tractor

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 01:46:59 am
content: Brilliant. A win for common sense!

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 05:56:42 am
content: It's time that anti-repair mechanisms on cars were outlawed. I'm talking about the kind of software booby-trap where replacing a part with a genuine item causes the system in question to shut down unless you have proprietary software to reactivate it.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 10:12:40 am
content: That is good to read about. Some people laugh at the tractor part. That dispute has been brewing for a long time. For example, JD will make a series of tractors, say call it the "M series" with a variety of horsepower options. Of course, higher HP meant higher price. It was discovered long ago that the only change needed was software to increase the HP. Engines were identical.The question in users' minds was whether increased price was just pure profit or was justified by greater development costs. From what I read, it was the former. So, unlocking the full performance happened and the fur started to fly.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 10:26:11 am
content: Good, my equipment I paid for it I want to be able to break it and restore it however I want.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 10:33:15 am
content: I was waiting for a class action by farmers claiming loss of income because they had to sit around twiddling their thumbs awaiting the reprogramming of their tractors.Off topic:- By the way, in what universe is "chorus" regarded as a legitimate replacement for "tractors" ?Safari thinks it is!

author: @rt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 11:14:43 am
content: So does Louis get his batteries after all?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 12:05:33 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on October 27, 2018, 05:56:42 amIn theory, I agree with you. What complicates the matter is the legitimate need for security in automotive systems (and phones, etc). There’s a very real need for auto components to authenticate the communications with other components, and make sure that only authorized components can issue valid commands. There have been proof of concept attacks on cars via Bluetooth and WiFi, where insecure systems allowed researchers to control the engine (and possibly brakes? My memory isn’t clear on that.) remotely. You could kill someone by doing that. And that wasn’t on newer cars with self-driving features like automatic parking or Tesla autopilot that can also steer and brake. On those, every single part of the drivetrain and steering is computer-controllable. Imagine such systems without encryption and authentication: if you managed to find a vulnerability in, say, the stereo system, you could issue rogue commands to the brakes and steering. Or someone could do the same by plugging in an OBD-2 device. (How many people even know where their car’s OBD-2 port is? How many of them routinely check it for unexpected devices?)Of course, this is not likely to happen to an ordinary person. But imagine controversial politicians. Or celebrities. (Remember the movie “Speed”? Well, you could blackmail someone pretty much the same way, except that instead of a bomb, you’d just control the vehicle directly and prevent it from stopping.)So while I absolutely agree that people should be free to repair their phones and cars and stuff, it’s hard to reconcile that requirement with the requirement for hardware security. (Presumably, the activation processes that “marry” components are providing them with encryption keys and such.)

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 12:48:27 pm
content: Car companies may not get to withhold that function from governments.Once one government gets the ability from a car company, they all likely will gain an equal right to demand the ability, thanks to trade-based treaties that are totally human morals-agnostic.Will governments gain the power to arbitrarily control cars? I think we can count on that being the case soon. After all, they control the political stuff. Thats their area. For better or for worse.Quote

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 01:49:36 pm
content: Where did the government angle come from?! I’m talking about resilience against intrusion. Most cars’ control systems are woefully underprotected.My point was that there’s a real conflict in right to repair and the very needed security improvements. I don’t know how you could marry those requirements.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 02:53:04 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 27, 2018, 12:05:33 pmI agree but, given that history shows how the manufacturers across many markets (JD, Mercedes, Apple, HP...) abused this requirement for extra profit, that is what brings a great sense of suspicion to the whole ecosystem.In the automotive case, IIRC the crux of the matter was poor design - overlapping of safety and entertainment systems in the same bus. Obviously that OBD would have a deeper access to the more critical systems but, even still, a complete separation between diagnostics and real-time control has to be designed from the start (and the end manufacturers are not to be blamed here, but instead the electronic part suppliers such as Bosch, Marelli, etc.) - but I am pretty sure you know that already.

author: GeoffreyF
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 03:03:23 pm
content: Tooki - your logic is reasonable and thoughtful. However, extending your concerns: Should there be limits on the purchase of potentially harmful products albeit with a legitimate use? Should there be limits on the content of chemistry texts? Limits on electronic texts or programming containing information that can be legitimately useful but also used to cause harm?The answer to my question might be "maybe sometimes but also not always". In fact the means to prevent hacking for harm or dangerous activities includes an informed and vigilant, therefore knowledgeable public.With respect to cars or other complex systems, a diagnostic and production of a checksum, encoded with the hard-coded serial number could be enshrined in law. Then when I start my car, the start up display would display that code. If it changed for some inexplicable reason then the driver should be concerned. Yes there are ways to bypass that but it would also be protective.People have "Souped up" cars as long as there were cars. From time to time there has been injury and loss of life, including to those in other cars. Subsequent investigations show there was irresponsible conduct and the perpetrator is held to account, as for any act of recklessness.What has really changed?

author: TK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 03:12:49 pm
content: Quote from: @rt on October 27, 2018, 11:14:43 amI don't think so because it had nothing to do with Right to Repair.I wonder if companies are required to publish the schematics of their products or they are still protected by copyright laws?

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 03:27:32 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on October 27, 2018, 10:26:11 amYes, you should be able to do that! But don't expect the manufacturer to help in any way and clearly, they won't provide source code.I don't have a problem with "Right to Repair" but I don't see the manufacturers getting into the retail sales of internal parts. If an end user can find a replacement laptop screen and they want to repair their computer, fine! But don't expect the manufacturer to sell replacement screens.I expect eBay to be the seller of parts by way of just buying another unit and cannibalizing it for parts.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 04:15:29 pm
content: 'Victories' can be challenged- and often are in international bodies that exist in a space above countries and laws and voters -Thats the way things are now, and people should be aware of how intricately these things are sometimes choreographed to get binding global legal precedent in the other direction- which is rendered virtually unchallengeable by totally unaccountable international bodies.Those are the kinds of rules that voters cant challenge. They last forever, or are supposed to. They can't be reversed just because they are wrong or oppressive.The foes of right of repair would need to lose a case, a loss which could then be challenged, in a trade body, ideally both would be in forums they controlled, to win what they want, a binding international rule that voters and voting anywhere could not change.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 06:08:45 pm
content: That's an interesting move but let's keep our eyes open. I'm still a bit wary.Thinking about it, I think the very basic private property rights should allow anyone to do whatever they see fit, including of course repairing it, with anything they own, as long of course as it doesn't harm anyone. No additional rule or law should really be needed.The problem arises in a society in which the economic model slowly drifts away from private property, one of the reason being that private property naturally hinders infinite growth which has itself become the holy grail. There's an increasing number of products that you can buy but don't *own* anymore in the true sense of the word. That's probably something that we should think of addressing one of these days. The "right to repair" is just a band-aid IMO.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2018, 06:12:32 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 27, 2018, 12:05:33 pmThe problem is that currently cars turn out to be both woefully insecure and hard to repair due to artificial restrictions. It's a lose lose situation for consumers. As soon as manufacturers start taking vehicle software security seriously and make things right, we can discuss how repairing that side coincides with vehicle safety. I'm not seeing it happen any time soon, though.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:36:14 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 27, 2018, 03:27:32 pmI wouldn't normally buy closed market things for that reason and I don't expect any help let alone source code from them unless I paid for some kind of onsite warranty contract where I don't pay a penny for some broken part to be replaced the next day and as long as I take care of it and I can show that it is a manufacturing defect but most agreements I get also cover accidental damage. After the product lifetime window where the warranty expires it is mine to do what I like.With old out of warranty Apple things I had difficulty in the past finding decent parts for customers outside their closed market but now thanks to Ifixit I can get parts quick without having to worry about the likes of "is this ribbon cable long enough to reach?", "will it go in flush?" and "Is this lithium battery safe and will it hold the rated charge?".With Ifixit the price and the weight seems consistent to what I would expect and no problems since.

author: jh15
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:53:55 am
content: An example of being locked out of a repair is my Honda Element.Stupid TPMS tire stems were too short for my air chuck so I bought a set of valve stem extenders from parts store.They began to be crappy soon after, spring inside broke, etc. So I went to remove them, and by hand, was seized. Snapped right off at the wheel, the oem stem.I could not find after market programmer to sync my replacement.Sears told me when they replace my 4 tires, they could do it. After 4 tires sold and mounted, they said sorry, didn't work.You have to go to a Honda dealer for $50.00 each to sync them.They only last for 7 years, and I'm sure many here drive with a TPMS light on. I taped mine over and got a nice pressure meter dash mount much better than OEM for around $100.00.Another reason I love my Tesla S. NO dealers.

author: tombi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 02:13:02 am
content: I wonder if anybody has thought of the idea of letting market forces deal with this problem.Basically instead of a right-to-repair bill you put in place requirements for the manufacturer to disclose what repair information is available. So 5 start means full schematics, mechanical diagrams, source code etc but 1 star might be adjustment guide and major component breakdown. Fines if you claim 5 stars but don't provide the information when required. This could be a bit like the way ingredients of foods are called out on the packaging.Then people can decide up front if they want to buy a piece of equipment with zero serviceability outside of the manufacturer or dealer. Maybe you could charge more for equipment with high serviceability levels. It also lets manufacturers of $2 toys not provide any service info (as lets face it most people would be ok with this). But then a $1.5K laptop with no service info - yeah maybe not so much.Tom

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 am
content: Quote from: tooki on October 27, 2018, 12:05:33 pmThe real solution here is to get rid of all that garbage. I cannot think of a single reason why I'd want WiFi, Bluetooth or anything of that nature in my car, especially physically connected to anything related to drivetrain or safety systems. Cars are so full of distracting gadgets that it has gotten ridiculous. Whenever I have to drive a car that's less than about 10 years old I find myself cursing at it. I'm not anti-tech, but I very much dislike tech for the sake of tech. My car is transportation, I don't want an infotainment unit, and I certainly don't want it to connect to my phone. That ought to be outlawed, study after study has shown that talking on the phone is distracting, roughly equivalent to driving drunk and hands-free makes no difference from a safety standpoint. Phone integration in a car makes as much sense as a built in beer holder in the driver's seat.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 02:52:24 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 27, 2018, 03:27:32 pmI damn well do expect them to sell internal parts, if they can't be bothered to provide repair parts then the should go out of business to make room for manufactures who will. Car manufactures are required to provide replacement parts for a significant period of time and there's no reason any company wishing to sell any other products should be off the hook. Provide the parts or don't do business, simple as that, the smart companies will figure out a way to make it happen and they will survive, the rest will disappear, good riddance. I'm sure companies would kick and scream and claim it can't be done, just as other companies start doing just that and the world doesn't end. Goods will cost a bit more but that's fine, goods need to cost a bit more, everything is absurdly cheap, part of the reason that it has all become so disposable.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 10:39:07 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 amTo an extent, I agree with you, but to an extent your reply is perhaps a bit... dare I say “curmudgeony”?Quote from: james_s on October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 amWell, some of that is for passengers, too. Bluetooth is used to integrate with onboard handsfree phone (I’ll come to that later), which is still better than handholding a phone.Think about a parent with kids: is it better for the driver to have them yowling in the back, or letting them listen to a story on the stereo (or, I suppose on some cars, watching a DVD on their screens in the back, with the movie audio through the speakers)?Now, I for one would rather have cable-based integration instead of Bluetooth, but for various reasons, that’s not how the technology originally developed. Only now with CarPlay and co are we moving to integrated, well-designed car integration. (Bluetooth came because that was the first open standard for handsfree systems. First cars just used BT to read the address book for use in the car’s own carphone. Then they began to stream the audio from the phone itself. Then the iPod came along, connected via USB to the stereo. Then smartphones merged the phone and iPod, but the phone and music took different routes into the car. Parallel to all this, we had the development of satellite navigation, first standalone, then in the car itself, and now on our phones. And now finally we’re getting properly integrated systems like CarPlay, which allow us to leverage the smartphone’s vastly superior computational ability.)In terms of the technology itself, therearegood reasons for having automobile systems connected. For example, OnStar. (Non-Americans: OnStar is this service in USA where the car has built-in mobile connectivity, and on the one hand gives you some roadside services via speakerphone, but the big thing is that when the car systems detect an accident, it automatically contacts the OnStar call center to summon emergency services. So even if you’re unconscious and cannot call, emergency services will come.)And true self-driving cars, while not quite ready yet, are practically inevitable, and promise huge improvements in safety. (A self-driving car is going to be a MUCH better driver than a tired, drunk, or distracted driver.) And those really do require connections both to automotive systems and the outside world. If anything, the external communication must grow, so that cars can communicate with the vehicles around them.What is clear is that the automotive systems must be designed with security in mind, to be very selective about data sources they consider.Quote from: james_s on October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 amA lot of the time, the problem isn’t the presence of tech, but of bad tech. Car electronics have a knack for havingterribleuser interfaces that increase cognitive load, which is obviously the exact opposite of what you want while driving. This is why Apple CarPlay and the Android equivalent are so important: they take the UI and put it into the hands of people who actually do good UIs. But also going back to basics, like physical knobs for core functions like volume, air conditioning, etc. That and doing really good natural-language speech recognition, which we are very close to having.(I read Bob Lutz’s autobiography, and in it he recalls the story of an early voice control system Oldsmobile was working on. Even after a few executives nearly crashed while trying to use it in prototype cars, nobody had the cojones to kill it until he came along. Apparently, it was along the lines of “Select climate control menu. Select AC. Select temperature. Increase temperature”, where you were just navigating menus — which you couldn’t see! — by voice. You couldn’t just say “Car, increase temperature”! After he intervened, they went back to good old knobs and buttons.)Quote from: james_s on October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 amWhen I commuted by car, I certainly did want music while driving, and these days, that lives on my phone. And it’s certainly better to have a good car UI (like CarPlay) than to be dicking around with a handheld player.Quote from: james_s on October 29, 2018, 02:45:51 amIt’s the lesser of two evils, for sure, but I personally never really like talking on the phone while driving. But we need to stop focusing on phone calls, and instead address impaired driving more broadly. Anything that distracts, be it chemical impairment, fatigue, emotional stress, eating, doing your hair and makeup, an unruly pet in the car... those are all very bad.The only reason in-person conversations in a car work is because the passenger can both see what’s going on, but also see how the driver is reacting, and scale back conversation as needed. (When I am forced to drive and talk on the phone, I’m extremely aggressive about pausing or ending the conversation if I need to concentrate. I will say “Hold on, I need to focus on traffic for a moment” and mute it if need be.)I think the issues with mobile phones are ultimately the same thing as with every other telecom innovation: it takes a few decades for the social etiquette around a given telecom mode to develop. For example, how with landlines and radio and TV shows, people developed the etiquette that it’s rude to call during dinner or a favorite show. With cellphones (in general), this process is still not done; we see older folks answer their phonesreligiouslywhen they ring (cuz they grew up with landlines, where a missed call was difficult to return) even though we have caller ID now, or even when receiving a text, whereas young people let it ring and focus on what they’re doing in real life. (We get annoyed that people don’t reply to texts immediately, but IMHO it’s a good thing that people are starting to learn to prioritize their real-life tasks, such as spending time with a friend.)I think that eventually, a better etiquette will develop around cellular calls and texts, especially while driving. I think we will get to the point where it’s frowned upon. The big opposing force is bosses who expect employees to be on-call 24/7. That, too, is a cultural artifact that must change.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:17:37 am
content: The idea they are obsessed about is data collection. Various entities will pay them for data on you. Also upselling. Thats where the margin is. They might not make much money on the base product at all, all the profit is in the add ons that they sell with it. Also, imagine when cars are all automated.Just like when they were rolling out HD video everybody who wanted to have the latest had to buy a totally new TV every few years or be left behind, there may be two or three iterations or more while they are getting the autonomous cars right.That means everybody has to buy a new, insanely expensive car (my best guess is the bare minimum autonomous car will cost $50k) or stop driving on (some? all?) roads. Sure, they save money on urban highways (they will be able to move more traffic through cities once people give up manual control) But at what cost? People will lose whatever shred of privacy they once had of course. (its been that way for a while, but worse.) Also, they have to keep buying new cars or be excluded from this privilege they have grown accustomed to (driving) Thats like a wet dream for car manufacturers, a year of Christmases all rolled into one.They love to attach tech gadgets that age quickly to cars because that means (especially wealthier, status obsessed) people may upgrade the attached car, faster.Car GPS maps no longer work right, and they wouldn't update them? "BUY A NEW CAR!" Thats what they want you to do. Will it ever end?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:23:32 am
content: Having a good car UI may be a good idea, depending on who you ask. The issue seems to be that they tend to be not so good, and that the expected support is nowhere near the lifetime of the car. That means you may end up with an outright dangerous car UI, as they've already been the entry point into the rest of the system. These kinds of electronics and cars have different lifecycles and integrating them into one product means ending up with trouble, unless something is going to change significantly.None of the manufacturers seem to observe a proper separation between the multimedia part of the system and the car's internal systems. It's a ridiculous shitfest and it's inevitably going to kill people.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:31:44 am
content: I think we should be going in the other direction, simplicity. Make cars work better mechanically and operationally as cars, even if their batteries go dead or something breaks in the electrical system, have the system work in its basic mode using its own self regulating systems that fit it all together intelligently. Build cars to last decades with only the basic maintenance and replacement of parts that predictably wear out every few years on schedule but are cheap. (Tires, regular oil changes, etc.) And repair information should be free on the manufacturers site, and comprehensive in scope. Cars should also have a modular design so owners can perform upgrades to things like safety equipment as needed. Even the cable harnesses and types of interconnects used should be designed with an eye towards avoiding obsolescence. It should be possible to add more or remove the interconnects over time so a car can remain viable and technologically capable and relevant for as long a time as possible. They should aim for cars to last and remain road legal for 30 years or more.Cars should be treated like a generic computer case platform (ATX for example) is with (free and public) standards to allow manufacturers to address its internal interfaces to car electronics, loggers, power sources, external charging, radio stuff, GPS options in their own individual ways but so that the various products complement and work well with one another. Similar to how avionics work.This would please everybody in the long run, it would support a healthy competition between vendors to incrementally improve their offerings without encouraging the worst aspects of corporations. This is especially important now to prevent people from having to buy all new everything every few years. Because thats what they are heading towards otherwise, and that would exclude many from roads, eventually. The system I am describing would offer benefits to people at all points on the economic spectrum and would offer the best chance of even poorer people being able to successfully make the transition to autonomous vehicles and especially have safe cars regardless of how much money they had to spend each year on it.Cars should also supply data busses for add ons that monitor their internal signals and add value by optimizing their interactions. Not a walled garden that traps you into one manufacturer's overpriced and limited products.Components should be standard parts as much as is possible and it should be possible for a tech-literate layperson with a basic set of instruments and tools to diagnose and fix most problems.That is the kind of car I would pay more for, new or used.Cell phones should be like that too (although obviously smaller) An open hardware platform.

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:32:43 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on October 29, 2018, 11:23:32 amI'm my car the entertainment system is on its own CAN bus. A select number of messages can pass through a firewall between this bus and the instrument bus. The drivetrain CAN bus is also firewalled from the instrument bus.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:38:01 am
content: Quote from: jh15 on October 29, 2018, 01:53:55 amYou might want to research some of Tesla's anti-third-party repair attitudes before getting excessively comfortable there. Great tech. Great fun to drive. One of the more closed platforms on the road today, IMO.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 11:49:43 am
content: Quote from: cdev on October 29, 2018, 11:17:37 amThis is already happening and has been for decades in the car culture. People with money (or seemingly equally often, who want theappearanceof having money) obsess over the fact that the new taillights on this year's model are subtly different and signal that you have the newest model. You wouldn't want the embarrassment of showing up and having the valet put your 20 month old car in the back; you want to have the newest model so they valet it right up front. (It's signaling for the restaurant/club as well, of course...)It's possible that self-driving tech will be one more dimension on which this operates, but lots more people buy new cars more often than is mechanically warranted already, by the beauty of carperpetual financial servitudeleasing. I'm not sure we'll see some massive uptick in buying of new cars just because of self-driving tech. People with the means to buy or lease are already doing that and those of us who choose to buy their excellent condition hand-me-downs after 3-4 years and keep them for 10-12 more will continue to do so. Unless there's a road network that only allows autonomous cars, those cars will largely do the same utilitarian thing as the cars we have today. Theymight besafer soon and once they reach level 5 will be more convenient, but not enough to make me plunk down for a new car even though I could qualify to finance nearly any car sold (mostly by virtue of not continually doing that...)

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 12:52:28 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on October 29, 2018, 11:17:37 amThis is only an issue in places without data privacy laws, like USA. In Europe, the types of data collection and sharing that happen routinely in USA are outright illegal.This has become one reason that I continue to use nearly exclusively Apple equipment and services: all of the location tracking is device-local (unless you expressly share it with someone), they’ve invested a ton in privacy (both in ters of making the hardware tough to get into, as well as things like differential privacy, which through mathematical sorcery allows for anonymized crowdsourcing that doesn’t allow individuals to be picked out), and above all, Apple’s business model doesn’t rely on selling their customer data to others. (In contrast with Google and Facebook, whose entire business models are based on undermining your privacy.)Quote from: cdev on October 29, 2018, 11:17:37 amI think that’s a disingenuous argument, since the emergence of HD was the first meaningful upgrade to TV since the switch from black and white to color. And purely coincidentally, it happened at the same time that flat panel TVs became affordable. This produced powerful incentives to upgrade, especially for people with old TVs already approaching retirement. But it’s certainly not true that you have to “buy a new TV every few years or be left behind”. The TV makers tried, but totally failed, since nobody cared about 3D, and nobody really cares about 4K or HDR. (The vast majority of people are happy with their HD LCD and don’t upgrade unless it dies or they want something bigger.) Early adopters had a few oddball TVs without HDMI, and they might legitimately need to upgrade, but HDMI was ubiquitous by the time HD really caught on, and that marks the commoditization of HD.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:01:54 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on October 29, 2018, 11:23:32 amOut of curiosity, who would argue that a good car UI is abadidea?!?Anyhow, yes, a huge problem has historically been the long lifespans of cars compared to other electronics, and the historically quite lengthy delay between when a new car model’s electronics are finalized and when the model ships. (Back in the early 2000s, when iPods were ubiquitous, it was about three years between electronics design finalization and shipping.) As such, they’ve been consistently obsolete even at release.The other problem is the historically quite dreadful UIs of most “innovative” car systems. (Heck, even simple ones sometimes got messed up, often in the name of aesthetics.)This is why Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are huge: now that we all carry a powerful and generally reasonably current pocket computer/phone/satnav/music player in our pockets, there’s no reason to duplicate that functionality in the car itself. So CarPlay and Android Auto essentially present the smartphone with an external touchscreen and a few steering wheel controls, plus audio out and microphones. This way, the car lets the smartphone take the lead. Not only does this mean that it’s not obsolete, but also can grow as the phone software and hardware improves. And another advantage is that you’re presented with the same UI on every car, which is better for reducing cognitive load.Quote from: Mr. Scram on October 29, 2018, 11:23:32 amAs glarsson said, this is beginning to change, as well it needs to. The downside is that the inherently needed security of such things also makes third-party repairs difficult or impossible.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:13:28 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 29, 2018, 01:01:54 pmThe argument is not between good UI for a function vs bad UI for that function, but rather whether that function has a valid purpose in a car at all. (People who might argue against a good UI on an included feature might prefer that driving and that feature not overlap at all.)As an example, I wouldn't want a good UI for Facebook videos in a car. I do want good UI for music and podcast playing in a car.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:40:20 pm
content: That’s averydifferent question than the one I was responding to. Mr. Scram wrote “...a good car UI may be a good idea, depending on who you ask”. So it’s aboutwho, notwhat.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 01:50:11 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 29, 2018, 01:01:54 pmI would argue even a good car UI is a bad idea. I need my car to be the best car it is and I need my multimedia device to be the best multimedia device. I don't want them mixed unless I have solid guarantees that things are going to be safe and supported in the long run and that has never been the case. SmartTVs show us how things quickly devolve into something nasty and I'm not hurling myself down a highway on top of my TV. A single standard supported for a long time seems unlikely, because that's exactly what you'd expect from TVs and never happened. The very nature of our current approach to software seems to prohibit the prerequisites from happening. Of course most implementations are terrible to begin with.The security argument isn't an issue, as things are currently both completely insecure and DRM'd. There's a world of work to be done on making things secure and if that is ever going to happen, we can talk about how to combine it with third party repairs. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but as of yet we're on another continent.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 02:31:59 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on October 29, 2018, 01:40:20 pmWhoyou ask is going to focus on differentwhats when evaluating the question.I give Scram enough credit that I seriously doubt he was arguing "some people prefer bad UIs".

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2018, 05:53:36 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on October 29, 2018, 11:49:43 amI want to play with battery cars. I'm a retired EE, of course I want to play!OTOH, I don't want to own the battery and by extension, I don't want to own the car. There are some valid reasons for leasing!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2018, 12:41:54 am
content: I never said no music in cars. Cars have had music to listen to since long before I was around. My cars have standard DIN slots allowing me to easily install whatever tech I desire and upgrade it as needed. I've had several different head units over the years, the life cycle of that technology is far shorter than that of a car. Building a glorified tablet with a life cycle of ~5 years if you really stretch it into a car with a life cycle of 15-30 years is just beyond stupid. There is NO good reason for tightly integrating that into the car. I don't even want to get started on the UI idiocy but at least in a sensible design that doesn't try to roll controls for the HVAC, defroster, seat heaters and other stuff into buried menues in the hopelessly pathetic infotainment system you can still use the car.Nothing comes close to the usability of physical knobs, switches and sliders for that stuff. Controls I can easily operate purely by feel without taking my eyes off the road.Oh and self driving, what a joke. I cannot fathom why I would want to own a car if I don't even get to drive it. If I wanted to just sit there I'd take the bus or a cab. I could buy a whole lot of Uber rides for the price of a self driving car, and I don't have to have a place to park it. I love driving but personal cars are a horrendously inefficient way of transporting people. Self driving doesn't fix any of that, it just enables people to be lazy.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 30, 2018, 02:12:02 am
content: Google wants self driving cars because they will sell more ads during that time. Governments want it because they can cram twice as much traffic through existing pipes. People like the idea because they can catch up on work or sleep or whatever instead of paying attention to the road. The problem is the business case for a commute centric huge investment may be vanishing along with the drive to work every day type job. So they probably don't need them, if the purpose is just to allow them to have more traffic on existing roads.So there is a big element of cargo-cultism there.Converting highways to self driving cars isn't even going to create many if any jobs. If you ask me, my gut feeling is that considering how many driving jobs will likely be lost eventually, I suspect there will be a huge net loss of jobs from that alone, even if everybody has to buy new cars.