Deconstructing Code

Black Boxes in Cars

CNet has a good overview article on black boxes in cars. Nuggets:

In a June 2004 announcement, the NHTSA proposed requiring manufacturers to include information about black boxes in owners' manuals for cars equipped with the technology. Although the federal traffic agency continues to gather feedback on its latest set of black-box recommendations, it's too early to say how the input will shape the agency's final ruling, a representative said. For now, the NHTSA has left it up to the courts to decide whether to admit the data as evidence.

In North Dakota, Republican state Sen. Ray Holmberg has submitted a bill that would require automakers to disclose the presence of the boxes in new cars' owners' manuals and require dealers to disclose information about them in purchase contracts. The bill would give control of data collected by black boxes to vehicle owners, stating that the data can be downloaded by someone other than the vehicle owner only if it's being used for safety research or diagnosing problems, or if it's court-ordered or needed for crash reconstructions or investigations by law enforcement.

Various estimates show that 15 percent of the 270 million cars on the road in the United States today contain some type of data-recording device. Roughly 65 percent of the 16.7 million new cars sold in the United States during 2004 were equipped with them.

Posted by rshah on March 10, 2005| Comments (0)

Clearview Font

The March Wired has a little about the use of the clearview font on road signs.
It is a replacement font that is much more readable.
Here is a nice blog entry with pictures of the new font.

Posted by rshah on February 20, 2005| Comments (0)

Tough Road To Quality Code

Tough Road To Quality Code
Automakers are using software to build better cars but struggle with the challenge of developing error-free code.

Posted by rshah on March 31, 2004| Comments (0)

Altering Your Engine With New Chips

Altering Your Engine With New Chips
Mr. Farrell is just one of an increasing number of car owners using computer chips or software downloads to get better performance from their cars. E-mechanics are reprogramming systems to overwrite factory settings and take advantage of higher-octane gasoline. That allows advanced timing, increased power, sometimes even better mileage.

Posted by rshah on February 13, 2004| Comments (0)

Police call for remote button to stop cars

Police call for remote button to stop cars
Police are urging Ministers to give them the power to stop vehicles by remote control. In what will be seen as yet another example of the in-creasing power of Big Brother, drivers face the prospect of their cars being halted by somebody pushing a button. Stopping cars remotely sounds futuristic, but the basic technology is already available and used in lorries to limit the top speed to 56mph and in new systems to immobilise stolen cars.

Posted by rshah on December 30, 2003| Comments (0)

Cars that Nudge You to Drive More Safely

Cars that Nudge You to Drive More Safely
The aim is to turn the car, which Chrysler has been showing to journalists for the past few months, into a virtual driving coach — an electronic back-seat driver turned front-seat friend — to help reduce driver distraction.

Posted by rshah on December 27, 2003| Comments (0)

Gadget may wreak traffic havoc

Gadget may wreak traffic havoc
Now anyone can breeze through congested intersections just like the police, thanks to a $300 dashboard device that changes traffic lights from red to green, making nasty commutes a thing of the past and leaving other drivers open-mouthed at your ability to manipulate traffic, MIRT.

Posted by rshah on October 26, 2003| Comments (0)

New Luxury-Car Specifications: Styling. Performance. Aroma.

New Luxury-Car Specifications: Styling. Performance. Aroma.
Automakers like G.M. are recasting cars, and particularly luxury vehicles, so that the things that potential buyers smell, hear and touch are increasingly a result of engineering rather than chance.

Posted by rshah on October 25, 2003| Comments (0)

Smarter Ways to Stop, Turn and Cruise

Smarter Ways to Stop, Turn and Cruise
YOUR car is becoming a much better driver. It can already pump the brakes to avoid a skid far better than the most skillful driver; turn on its headlights when darkness falls; activate its windshield wipers when it starts to rain; and avoid spinning the wheels on slick pavement. Enhanced Cruise Control. Electric Steering. Better Brakes

Posted by rshah on October 21, 2003| Comments (0)

Automakers Block Crash Data Recorders

Automakers Block Crash Data Recorders
Highway safety could be vastly improved if black boxes that record information about car crashes were standardized, experts say, but they contend that vehement objections from the automobile industry are thwarting efforts to set a standard.

Posted by rshah on December 30, 2002| Comments (0)

BMW M3's sequential manual gearbox

BMW M3's sequential manual gearbox
Press the right buttons in the right order and the car will launch you from a stop after revving the engine to 5,000 rpm. But don't look for a how-to in the owners' manual—this feature is undocumented, an inside joke of sorts.

Posted by rshah on November 01, 2002| Comments (0)

Why Not a 40-MPG SUV?

Why Not a 40-MPG SUV?
Technology exists to double gas guzzlers' fuel efficiency. So what's the holdup? To get a sense of the auto industry’s progress in fuel efficiency, look no further than the 2002 Chevy Blazer. The model with automatic transmission, six cylinders, and four-wheel drive gets 18 miles per gallon (mpg), two miles less than a comparably equipped Blazer did in 1985. I

Posted by rshah on October 17, 2002| Comments (0)

Supercharged with Silicon!

Supercharged with Silicon!
Some of these techniques are still in use, but any engine modification these days also requires new engine-computer chip strategies to manage the revised operating parameters. The revolution in automotive electronics has spawned an $80 million industry supporting more than a dozen aftermarket chip companies.

Posted by rshah on July 25, 2002| Comments (0)

High-tech carpool lane

High-tech carpool lane
Engineers installed three 25-foot-tall net assemblies, the first in Texas, on the highways because the single carpool lane will reverse directions daily. Northbound traffic will use the HOV lane in the morning, southbound in the afternoon. Without the nets at HOV lane entrances, motorists conceivably could enter them headed the wrong way and cause head-on collisions.

Posted by rshah on March 10, 2002| Comments (0)

Ultimate Jam Session

Ultimate Jam Session
It takes more than technology to solve the world's traffic problems. While Singapore succeeds with an iron fist, the United States waits for the invisible hand.

Posted by rshah on February 04, 2002| Comments (0)

It's the Cars, Not the Tires, That Squeal

It's the Cars, Not the Tires, That Squeal
As the technology gets more sophisticated — allowing, for example, the state to monitor violations of emissions standards remotely — privacy advocates fear that the incentives to share information will only grow, along with the possibility that tracking data could fall into the wrong hands or even be sold.

Posted by rshah on October 30, 2001| Comments (0)

Toyota, Sony develop mood-sharing tail-wagging car

Toyota, Sony develop mood-sharing tail-wagging car
Called the pod,'' the car, which has been designed to show emotion and learn from driver experience. The face of the four seater, 1.5 litre engine pod has U-shaped grooves that light up to express emotion, the headlights positioned mid-way to look like eyes and side-mirrors postioned to look like ears.

Posted by rshah on October 18, 2001| Comments (0)

Magic Bus

Magic Bus
It has always been the commuter's ride of last resort, the chariot of the plebes. But thanks to an infusion of 21st-century technology, the humble bus may soon be the fastest way to get you to the office. Are you ready to climb aboard?

Posted by rshah on October 05, 2001| Comments (0)

Where the Code Meets the Road

Where the Code Meets the Road
With millions of dollars' worth of high-tech gear behind every car, Formula One racing has become the greatest IT arms race in sports.

Posted by rshah on October 05, 2001| Comments (0)

Driving the Info Highway

Driving the Info Highway
The Internet has hit the road.Drivers can now access anything from custom traffic reports to spoken e-mail messages to video games. But is it safe?

Posted by rshah on September 27, 2001| Comments (0)

GPS Races to Speeders' Rescue By Locating Cameras

GPS Races to Speeders' Rescue By Locating Cameras
But a British company has pushed the feud to a new front with technology that pinpoints the location of stationary cameras used to catch speed demons by using the Global Positioning System. Morpheous' Geodesy uses a constellation of 24 satellites orbiting Earth to map out the position of the speed cameras relative to the client's car.

Posted by rshah on September 25, 2001| Comments (0)

Fuel cell system could help nab drunk drivers

Fuel cell system could help nab drunk drivers
An engineering team at the Fort Worth, Texas, school has developed an electronic technique that enables policemen to identify drunk drivers among passing motorists remotely. The technique provides probable cause for law enforcement agents to pull over impaired drivers.

Posted by rshah on September 10, 2001| Comments (0)

High tech buses

High tech buses
Today, in a growing number of communities, buses are getting high-tech makeovers that speed them past other traffic under the guidance of computer-aided dispatching systems more sophisticated than those used for air traffic control. Perhaps most impressive, information from these systems is becoming accessible to riders through simple interfaces on the Web and even on cell phones, which could allow some buses to offer the efficiency of trains combined with the convenience of taxis.

Posted by rshah on August 21, 2001| Comments (0)

Getting the Show on the Road

Getting the Show on the Road
We are broadening the definition of a car," said Johannes Reifenrath, of General Motors' product life cycle division. "It's not just a pure focus on transportation -- it is also helping you fulfill your daily tasks: communication, information, navigation and entertainment."

Posted by rshah on June 25, 2001| Comments (0)

Remote Keyless Entry: Staying a Step Ahead of Car Thieves

Remote Keyless Entry: Staying a Step Ahead of Car Thieves
That is why remote keyless entry systems adopted a more robust code system in the mid-1990's. Instead of using transmitters with fixed identification codes, these systems use rolling codes that change with every press of the transmitter's buttons. The list of stored rolling code numbers matches those stored in the receiver. Since the receiver expects no two signals to be identical, code grabbers that play back the same signal are simply ignored.

Posted by rshah on June 07, 2001| Comments (0)

The cap that stops drivers falling asleep

The cap that stops drivers falling asleep
Future drivers could be seen sporting an Australian developed "cap" that reads their brainwaves and warns them when they're about to fall asleep. According to Dr Lal, countermeasures developed to date have tended to rely on indirect assessment of drowsiness, such as monitoring head nodding, lane deviation, or hand movements on the steering wheel. "But by then it could be too late," Dr Lal says. "Our system involves an online, beat to beat continuous feedback of brainwave activity."

Posted by rshah on June 07, 2001| Comments (0)

Traffic Control

Traffic Control
Lost time means lost money for mobile business. Real-time traffic data via roadside sensors and the Web could ease congestion and speed deliveries.

Posted by rshah on June 03, 2001| Comments (0)

Volvo Safety Concept Car (SCC)

Volvo Safety Concept Car (SCC)
The SCC employs a variety of new technologies that enhance personal safety; many of these features aid the driver in making the right decision in difficult traffic situations.

Posted by rshah on May 26, 2001| Comments (0)

Yellow lights getting shorter

Yellow lights getting shorter
The report concludes that many local governments using red-light cameras have shortened the duration of yellow lights, allowing those jurisdictions to reap revenue from traffic tickets given to unsuspecting motorists.

Posted by rshah on May 24, 2001| Comments (0)

Forward collision warning system

Forward collision warning system
The Ford-GM Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership -- in cooperation with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Delphi Delco Electronics Systems -- has developed a preliminary version of a forward collision warning system. Researchers hope the device will make a big dent in rear-end collisions, which NHTSA says comprise about 23 percent of all police-reported crashes in the United States.

Posted by rshah on March 26, 2001| Comments (0)

Computer controlled speed limiters on cars within 5 years in the UK

Posted by rshah on February 03, 2001| Comments (0)

Motorola is betting that a new vehicle camera system can help people avoid accidents.

Motorola is betting that a new vehicle camera system can help people avoid accidents.
MobilEye's technology will enhance a driver's ability to see surrounding dangers by warning that they are wandering from their lane and by reacting to nearby vehicles. The technology uses three algorithms to evaluate road safety based on images captured by a camera pointed in front of the vehicle.