I was out with one of the Karens a few years back when we realized her car’s console display was entirely dark. The speedometer and other instruments weren’t digital, so we’d been OK going down the road, but the clock, radio, climate control, and everything else was out.
Once we realized there was a problem, we pulled over, shut off the engine and after waiting a few moments, restarted the engine. And then I started laughing.
Karen’s look of confusion turned into her own laughter as I explained, “We just rebooted the car!”
One of the bits of internet flotsam that frequently shows up in my inbox is a piece titled, “If Microsoft Built Cars.” It includes such scenarios as only being able to use “Microsoft Gasoline,” cars crashing several times daily, and so on.
I’ve never taken it too seriously. Sure, today’s cars do make use of embedded computers for a number of purposes, but the list was really just a bunch of overblown generalizations and exaggerations. Cars and desktop computers don’t really have much in common, right?
Honda sent me a postcard last Tuesday. It seems that they need to install an upgrade to some of the engine control software in order to correct some problems. Or, put another way, Microso Honda was releasing a patch to upgrade my car.
Hopefully this won’t lead to the Blue Screen of Death!