hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0854.txt

Episode: 854
Title: HPR0854: All In IT Radio0007 - Should Cars Get Smarter ?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0854/hpr0854.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 03:38:35

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Music
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Hello and welcome to all in IT Radio.
Join us as we talk about everything related to information, technology and some other random stuff as well.
Help us as we try to find how IT relates to each and every one of us and what the story headlines really mean.
This show was recorded at Friday 24th of June 2011 and once again we have gathered in our all in IT radio podcasts submarine and we have hauled the anchor, we have put up the periscope and what else you do on a submarine.
It's not yellow but we are really happy to be here and we are in this case me, Kenneth and you have me and Rick as always and we have another person, me, you one, that's you here, oh great, the new guy, the new guy.
Another person we can make fun of, here at our all in IT radio submarine. So what are you doing here?
Who invited you? You just cold. Splendid, now that's a good answer, that's a really good answer and we will get to know you more in the coming show.
We will talk a bit about who you are and what your interests in life are but we'll talk about quite a lot of other things as well.
Do you have any examples guys? Yeah, the Nokia, MiGo system and I have a little thing, a little thought about Windows and Kinects.
And we will quickly mention the new Firefox 5 release and what Microsoft think of that and when we talk about Nokia MiGo we will probably get into a lot of trouble by branching out to subjects that are tightly linked to that.
But we have to try our knowledge about cars and other such interesting technological things.
So what do you say anything else to say in the intro or are you ready to rock this boat?
Well ready to sink this boat.
Haha, this is only two life vests, I think that's a very good idea and we'll leave Kenneth behind.
So let's go. No, I want to come along. Please.
Do you know how you sink a Norwegian submarine? Yeah, if we're down to the knock on the door.
How do you sink it again? That I don't know. You swim down to it, you knock on and they will open and say,
Oh, come on, you don't think we're getting it on that twice.
You are terrible. Anyway, as always, true. Let's get this boat underwater and let's get this show on the road people.
Yep, here we go. Here we go. Go go.
Hello, my name is Jooffo Barrie. All right, Jooffo Barrie. Let's talk a bit about you, shall we?
Who are you? Do you want me to lie down on my sofa too? Now, I'm a 32-year-old married with no
children and I'm very interested in all that involves tech, computing and all this stuff. I try to
read as much as I can from the internet and not blowing my brains out.
What kind of technology are you interested in? Is it just anything or something specific?
More or less anything. It's more specific. I very much adore mobile phones and anything that
is handheld, but more or less everything. If I find some kind of magazine about technology,
no mining what it is. If it's course or if it's power plants, I find it most of the time very
interesting to read about. Okay, what kind of computer user are you? What operating system do you use?
Windows and just because it's always included in the delivered PC and I spend too little time
learning about how to get to know something else since I find most of the time the hardware
more interesting the software. All right, so you are a mobile computing expert and you like
hardware. That's interesting. Just let me ask you one more question about Windows,
which version of Windows do you use? My own PC runs XP and my wife's is running 7 and our
HTPC is running 7. Okay, so you still have an XP box running back home? Yes, familiar and easy.
But let me ask you one question because you said you were interested in mobile phones. Do you
have any favorite brands in the mobile phone world? Well, I'm very into HTC. I have had two of
that brand and I've read about it since they started making Windows phone, although I would never
have bought one, but I'm extremely satisfied with that brand. All right, and especially
interested in Android, now the less what brand it's having just Android in general. All right,
and it seems like you and Henrik might have something in common with that interest for technology
in cars. Well, we might have. We'll see about that. All right, which is the best car? I like
very much different cars. Are you asking for a brand name or a model name? Both, whichever,
doesn't matter. I want conflict. I don't care. I'm very into Lexus right now. Lexus. But because of
their technology using electric petrol. Electric engines. Yeah, electric petrol engines mixed.
Hi, brids. Yeah. Hi, brids. Interesting. I don't know anything about that.
And Henrik, what do you say about cars? You like Japanese cars, don't you? I can't say I really
like an in Japanese cars more than others. But it's hard to answer what car is the best, but I would say
car brand name that interests me the most is for the moment it has been for quite some time the
switch brand sob. Mostly because of their design, but also because of their development on the
technique side, on the IT side, the latest concept car included some kind of
operative system based Android interface. Yeah, exactly based on Android icon or what
I was called. Yes, that's right. It's really interesting. Yeah, and I find most of what sob does
in with the software appeal and what they make of it in their cars is it's very fascinating.
I haven't so far seen any other car brand that has done the same. So that's why they interest me
for the moment. I know two things about sob. No three things. They are a Swedish company that
that much I know and I know they are good at making tractors and I know that they did not pay their
employees last month. That's about it. Tractors. Yeah, what did you get that from? Those things that
plow the fields. I haven't seen a soul tractor, but maybe way off. Are you thinking about Scania
when they cooperated with them? I don't know because Scania makes trucks, not tractors. Every sob
looks like a tractor to me. Well, you're a tractor face. All right. We have to check his site.
Will you book appointment for the eye doctor? Yeah, I will. Sure. Good. But for the moment,
we can simply settle on. Can't you're wrong? So let's get on. Perhaps I need Gunnar's glasses.
You surely need. All right. No, I have no interest at all in cars, but I have enjoyed a lifetime of
mocking people who love sob. So don't mind me. Well, I don't. That will be easy. It is easy.
But that was rather interesting. You mentioned that they have some, and I think the term is
eye the eye in vehicle infotainment. That is a system which is meant to inform and entertain.
It's a horrible word. It's a horrible phrase, but still that's what they use.
And they base this on Android. So that if the kids in the back seat, they can look,
they can watch a DVD or serve the web through an Android interface. And in the front seat,
the driver, he can look up GPS coordinates and stuff through the Android interface. Is this true?
Yes, more or less. And do different settings. They also include mobile. How to use the mobile
photo connection to your mobile phone, right? And radio sound, whatever that is through radio and
through CDs, maybe, or you have a hard drive in your car or setting how you want to use your
your AC units. All right. I haven't heard anything about this. What stage of the development is this?
Does it exist in any car you can buy today? Is it only SOB who produces this interface,
who uses Android in these systems? Yeah. Do any of you know? As far as I know. From what I... No,
as far as I know, SOB are the only brands so far that has done something based on a system
as Android. And it comes from themselves? Yeah, exactly. But I don't think they have integrated this in
a working model, something you can actually buy. Yeah, exactly. They used it in their last
concept car Phoenix. But this is very interesting and it ties very well into the topic that we
actually wanted to talk about today. And perhaps we should just slide right over to the main topic.
What I know about IVI in vehicle infotainment systems, like this one that you mentioned,
running Android in a SOB, that I learned reading about the MIGO operating system.
All right. Yes. Because MIGO is an operating system that is not only targeted at vehicles,
but also phones, of course. Yeah, but it's not only phones and vehicles, any kind of
display, more or less, that's that you look at that you interact with. Exactly. Any embedded system,
including TVs and, uh, true touch pads. Yeah. True. Henrik, do you know the story of MIGO? Can you
recapulate it? I'd not sure I remember correctly, but I'll try Nokia and Intel. Started working on
operating system together based on Linux. And the original operating system was called MIMO,
M-A-E-M-O. And that's what they're implemented in their mobile phone N900. But that later,
they continue developing on MIMO. And I'm not sure they must have implemented something else
when they branded it MIGO. I don't remember that correctly. No, no, you're on the right track,
but MIMO was Nokia's system. It was based on Linux. Yeah. And it was a phone operating system.
And as you said, MIMO. But Intel had their own Linux system made for embedded devices. And
that was called MIGO. No, it wasn't. That was a new name. What did Intel call their system?
Oh, well, I remember it. So what they made was a fusion of MIMO and Intel system. So MIMO was
Nokia's from the beginning. More or less, yes. Yes, that's true. All right. I'm trying to find what
the name was. Yeah, me too. Same here. And nobody finds it. Moblin, there it was. Yeah, okay.
That's it. So Intel had a Linux operating system named Moblin. Nokia had a Linux operating system
named MIMO. And they merged these two and created MIGO. And MIGO was thought to be the next
great operating system for all kind of handsets and embedded devices like in vehicle
entertainment systems. Yeah. But it didn't actually go that well. Since Nokia was the only
handset manufacturer, the only mobile phone manufacturer that was on board with Intel in this
endeavor, the only hardware manufacturer. So they bet everything on Nokia's
problems to deliver MIGO phones to the market. All right. But as we all know, Nokia hired a new
CEO, a new boss, who previously worked at Microsoft. Yeah. His name is Ilop. Yeah. And Ilop,
one of the first things he did was to scrap everything connected to MIGO and invite
Microsoft over and say that sure, Nokia will make only Windows phones, seven system,
seven system, seven phones. Yeah. That's Microsoft operating system. It's called something like
mobile phone, Windows, seven system, seven mobile phone system, something like that, I believe.
So Nokia will release only Windows seven phones in the future together with some
Symbian phones, which is their older operating system, which we talked about earlier. It was
based on the Sion computer operating system, which was named, which I don't remember either,
whatever. So Symbian will live on. Symbian will live on on the simpler phones from Nokia.
Yeah. Only on the 40 series, not the smartphones. Exactly. The smartphones will only have
Windows phones, seven. Yeah. But there were some phones in the making. They were actually trying
to get these MIGO phones to the market. And one of them has just been announced that Nokia N9.
Have you seen the announcements? Have you seen the pictures, the movies? Yeah, I have at least.
It's not a new, the MIGI pictures since last year, August, September, last year about this phone.
Maybe they're trying to do the best they can, but nonetheless, it's taken too long. They're doing
a very good phone, but they can't spend this much time from an almost finished product to a
actually market-released product. That's my initial response. So what will happen with it?
Well, I think it's some sort of fusion or mixture of the N900 and the N8, which run on Symbian,
as far as I know. And well, it was quite weird of, was it Stephen L. Lapp? The rumours about him saying that
in the future we will not use MIGO and any other phones and we will not support it. And he was
saying that just by the day after the initial official press release of the N9, and that's kind of
weird if you want to promote your products to say that, well, we won't use this operating system
anymore after this phone and they haven't all released it yet. Yeah, that's quite right.
The only one I think I heard of other except Intel talking about MIGO's operating system is
LG. I can't find articles, so I'm not quite sure. Okay, interesting.
They were showing TV sets with the MIGO operating system, but if a large company like
Intel can't get the manufacturers with them, it doesn't look good, especially when Nokia has
been talking about MIGO since was it January 2010 or was it before? I can't remember.
I think it's even earlier, but don't quote me on that. When they started using MIGO, were what?
Yeah, they were beginning to talk about MIGO and the joint venture with Intel.
Yeah, well, the N900 was released in late 2009 and it runs on MIMO. So I think it was
sometime around there when they launched N900 that they started to discuss with Intel
about the fusion between their operating systems. So when N900 were launched with MIMO,
I think MIGO was in the buzz. Well, it sounds buzz, right? Yes.
And it's quite interesting. I read a comment. I think it was in the RS Technica article that
what Nokia has released isn't even pure MIGO. It's really MIMO, but with a MIGO interface on it.
So it's 100% compatible with the MIGO interface. It looks exactly like MIGO,
but it's still MIMO underneath. So it's some sort of hybrid built on the legacy MIMO 6 code.
But what was the big thing when they made the fusion and created MIGO? Because I on my N900
are using MIMO and I've only used it. So I haven't really experienced MIGO at all, but what's
the main difference between MIGO and MIMO if you know that? Well, I know that Moblin and MIMO
used different package managers. So they had different systems for managing installed programs
and such. One of them were based on RPM and one of them were based on Debian, I think.
I think it was as easy as that. So Moblin was based on RPM, that is Red Hat's package system.
And MIMO was based on app, Debian's package management system. And MIMO was, MIMO's interface was
based on CUTE, which is a Nokia technology which they bought. They bought a company known as
TrollTech that developed the CUTE libraries, which also KDE is based on to take another example.
And CUTE is a very good cross-platform library, which means that you can develop, you can develop
an application on your desktop and very easily run it on MIMO. Yeah. Since it also is dependent on
the CUTE libraries. So what Nokia and Intel did when they tried to merge these systems is that they
took more or less everything from Moblin under the hood and its interface and package manager,
but they used the MIMO CUTE libraries to create MIGO. So MIGO is essentially Moblin, but with
a CUTE interface on top. So more Moblin than MIMO? Actually, yes. Because Nokia had to give a lot of
slack to Intel to get them to use the CUTE libraries. All right. Okay. So MIGO is a fusion of these two,
but as I said before, Nokia didn't even release a pure MIGO phone, but still the N9 is compatible
with the specifications for the MIGO interface. So it looks exactly like MIGO. And I don't know,
I really think that MIGO is a good operating system. I like the thought behind it. Yeah, sure. But
I didn't. The idea is excellent. It is. It is an excellent idea. It is very much more open than
Android is. Android is even though it's based on Linux, quite close system. Google has a rather
tight control on it. But I think that where MIGO will succeed is in the area we talked about
before, the in in vehicle in containment area. Okay. There is something called the Genevieve
Alliance. And I've had a talk actually with a few people who are from the Genevieve Alliance.
And if you go into their members list and look what companies support the Genevieve Alliance,
which goal is to get MIGO to be a competent in vehicle in containment system. That is what the
Genevieve Alliance is about. And the companies that support this, that's Intel, of course,
but also ARM, which is the other great processor creator. Yeah. And we have Persho, Citroen,
Jaguar, BMW, Delphi, Windriver. I don't know who those are. We have, let's see, Mitsubishi, Renault,
Nvidia, Nokia, of course, Texas Instruments. Let's see, we have also Clarion, Digital Airways,
Frances Silicon, GM, Honda, Green Hill Software. Let's see, there's a lot of names here. LG
Electronics, Nissan, Pioneer, Qualcomm, Samsung, and about three times or four times as many.
And those are the companies that support MIGO as a real IVI solution. So these are companies
that will use MIGO in their cars. And you heard there were a lot of car manufacturers there.
So, but they haven't produced a car yet, which has MIGO in it. And they haven't shown anything at all,
actually. No, they haven't. So that's why I'm interested in what SOB is doing with Android. Are they
actually doing something yet? Or is it just... Well, we can't know because as probably everyone
more or less in the world knows SOB is on the verge of complete breakdown. It seems
unfortunately, because building cars and doing things with engines and so on and so forth,
they always been good at. But if they can't produce any cars though, well, it's going to be split up
and sold off, probably. Yeah. So maybe that's what will come out of this, unfortunately. I say,
it's a suite that SOB won't exist as a car company. The pit bits and pieces will be sold off
to different places just to save everyone's behinds. But in that case, Icon definitely will
become an operating system part of the entertainment parts of cars with more than just in one car.
Yeah. That's what I think. And I think that was mainly the big problem with SOB or IS. They're not
dead yet, but they put so much money and resources and time and energy and effort into research.
They made great concepts. They made crazy ideas. They were first in many areas, well,
have been during these decades with different things that has later been implemented in the car
industry. Yeah, everyone uses simple ideas that they developed. Yeah, exactly. And as they put
so much time and effort into developing these things, the cars they make obviously will be a bit
more expensive. And they have to produce smaller volumes. And they are because they only have one
factory in Troletta. Yeah. And yeah, essentially, I think that was a problem. But if I were trying to
the IVI, from what I've seen of their system Icon, I think it's very nifty. Well, obviously,
I haven't heard so much about it. I've only seen some videos and screenshots of it. But if they
had implemented it in a real car, I think it would have been really interesting to try out, at least.
I haven't heard anything about ego in IVI as you speak of, but I'm sure that will be interesting
as well. Because that's really the thing with IT all over the place right now. The latest
yes, more and more, it has gone mobile. And that's not hard to see because people don't want
clumsy desktop computers so much anymore because they don't use all that power that you get with
a desktop. They rather have a netbook or a smartphone. Yeah. Everyone's just surfing the net more
or less right now. Yeah, exactly. And the main thought behind an I functional IVI, as I said,
is that you can integrate with it. You can integrate with your smartphone with your IVI,
your network with your IVI. So you can sync things together. The problem has been a long time
that there are so many closed and separate systems so that you can't really get them into each other.
You can sync files via Bluetooth and USB, but really it's nothing more than that. And it would
be better if you could synchronize it more tightly. And if you use a platform as meGO for this,
and you also have it in your phone, probably it will be a lot easier for you to actually integrate.
Wasn't that when the first Intel and Nokia started talking about meGO that was a general idea
that was supposed to run meGO on any platform. And just if you want to more or less
move your, the move you were looking at if you were leaving the house from the TV to the mobile phone
or whatever device you were you wanted to use. But on the other hand, it looks like Android is
moving in that direction too with the Google post boning, Google TV. And with the latest version
that can run on just watch bigger screens, there are a bit different attempts to use Android in
TV sets. There is a manufacturer, I think it's from Sweden too. Isn't it lava?
Yeah, I think so. They tried it. Yeah, I thought about it.
Maybe they've been paused in the area they were talking about being first.
Yeah, but if you look at it generally and more and more companies have I think at least
realized this, that you really have to get away from these separate systems and separate devices.
You have your TV and at your TV you have your PlayStation or Xbox or whatever media console you use
and you have a computer and you have a telephone and you have a laptop. But we have seen with
example Samsung's smart TV boxy. They've come in the past year. They've been presented quite some
different alternatives where you can, well in this case, sync everything in your network together.
And that's for what I think are want to get into these vehicle systems as well.
Yes, everyone wants to visit the cake. But I'm quite skeptical to this actually.
All right, I can understand why you would want your phone to interact with your car.
That you would like your car to be like an extension of your phone so you can make phone calls without
having to touch your phone or wear a headset or something like that. So that is a function I can
understand. And you can sync your, I don't know, playlists and such things so you can continue listening
to what you had in your earbud outside of the car when you get into the car and you go out on a road.
Sure, there are stuff there that is convenient and nice to use. But actually, how much interaction
do you really need with your car? Well, think about it. How much do interaction do you use when you
just drive to work? Maybe you change the seat and especially more expensive cars. They have
electric maneuvering of the seat. So is that of touching a button for that? You have a touch
button on your screen with your operating system and this share is immediately set to your settings.
And there are a lot of buttons for the AC unit and quite a lot of buttons for the radio set.
Is it right? Am I wrong? No, you are correct. And of course, if you have your phone with you,
the car knows who you are. It's sort of an identification. And thus the seat could be
automatically reclined as much as you left it when you got out of the car last time, even if your
wife or your friend borrowed the car in the meantime, it doesn't matter because the car knows
this is you. You like the car at this temperature. You like this channel preset on the stereo.
You and your wife can have different preset channels on the car stereo if you like.
All right, yeah, sure. I can see that as a source of good interaction with your car.
But still, it sounds like something that is a pure luxury. It's an indulgence. Of course, it is.
Of course. And it sounds like some sort of security risk as well. Do we actually want our car to
be that smart? When will the hackers get into our cars? Well, you really have to think about
also that much of this is, of course, marketing and branding. If you look at, for example, as we
were discussing, sobs system icon, they briefly wrap it up by saying that they claim that they are
the first in the car industry to combine the best from smartphone applications with the possibilities
in an infotainment system. So if you scale it down, smartphones are very hip at the moment.
They are more or less new and apps and different gadgets are the thing right now. And if you
as a car brand want to stand out. Yeah, exactly. Stand out and market yourself on, for example, a
car exhibition with your concept car. Have a software in the car where you combine a smartphone
interface with an infotainment system. So you get all these things that you have your
phone, you have your browser, you have your media player, you have radio, you have an app store
connected and all these things that you mainly use on a phone, but now they integrate it also
into the car. Okay, maybe the need isn't there, at least right now it isn't, but for a concept,
at least it's good promotion for the brand. And it has always been like that. Yeah, that's right,
initially the consumers will probably demand it. They will get used to taking their pads with them
to interact in the course. And then in some near future, they will think that why do you have to
have my pad in my lap when it can be built into the car right away. So initially we will get there,
but there is actually one thing that the main car manufacturers want with this because a car,
you try to get this low weight as possible. The only thing you want to weigh is the security
porch more or less in the car. But if you can have as little weight with you as possible with cables
and everything, it will save gas, which is whatever car manufacturer trying to get as little as
possible right now. And that has been a big problem for a long time, at least in home information,
technology and electronic devices. You have to use different cables for different things,
and you have to use a lot of cables if you have a lot of devices. And more and more they are trying
to get this, get away from this problem. Definitely. And it's especially a big deal in a car,
because if it is somewhere you don't want cables all over the place, it's when you're driving,
because it can be a safety risk. So that's a pill of it as well. Most definitely.
Where have you gone, Kenneth? I miss your opinions. No, I just enjoy listening to you guys.
You have interesting thoughts regarding this subject. And I can't really say that you are wrong,
but as I was saying before, this is making our cars more vulnerable, because even though of course
we are not putting Windows systems at least in our cars. Thankfully, still, no system is completely
secure. We had last summer, I believe, some reports of hacks being done through the tire sensor systems,
so that someone could actually drive up alongside your car and get into your car's main computer,
the brain in the car that controls all these little systems. And they could get in there and
change temperature and all those kind of things and actually give you false readings through
the sensors located at each tire to measure the tire pressure. And with a more intelligent car,
of course, this wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a harder thing to do. It would be easier. Yes, of course,
but if you combine that with what Sob did, I think you sent me that link, Henrik. They were doing
some kind of self-driving version of a Sob, and Google has made self-driving cars. So how long will it
take until someone can hack into your car on the highway and activate your brakes? The experiment
that I sent you with Sob was some experiment conducted by two people at Chelmers. A technical
university in Gothamburg in Sweden. Yeah, exactly. In Gothamburg. And the thing about that system,
I say, called it Robo Sob, was that when you test drive your concept cars or your car models,
sometimes you don't want the human error to get in the picture. Sometimes you want the car to
drive exactly the same circuit, exactly the same speed every time so that you can measure things
correctly. And that was what the system was built for to use in testing. It was not the peel of
having it in traffic, but that's all right. It wasn't an autopilot system. No, exactly. But as
far as I know, that's what Google are trying to develop with their cars. On the other hand,
exactly. That was the aim for Google. Yes, you won. A system with a self-driving car has been
quite a long time now. Mercedes made a car that could drive itself in mid-90s, and I think it was
16 cameras around it, so it could auto-run on the highway that we're trying it in Germany,
that we could change lanes and do overtakes and so on. So that is not a new idea. But on the other
hand, it's like when you find the first fault, great example. Unfortunately, it's so near
entertainment when with our PS3 servers and this, extremely, what I've heard or read,
easy hack. That's made everyone more or less anti-sonic. When you get to that point, when you find
this, it's going to probably quite easy to get up a higher step in security. Problem is there
always a race between the hackers and security people. That's much of the problem these days,
if you look at the car appeal, when they get more and more electronic devices that control
the main systems in the car. Obviously, it's a security risk, and also it's a problem for the
consumer who bought the product, because then it gets more and more like when you buy a cell phone
and it gets broken. You have to get it back to the manufacturer for repair. All the costs you
can do repair most of the things yourself, because most of the things are things in the car are
mechanics. But more and more, they're building in computer systems, the control things, and then
they often stop you also legally from messing around on the hood, so to speak, with anything there.
And you have to get it back to the manufacturer for repair if it's needed.
But remember that these are two separate systems we're talking about. That is the in-vehicle
infotainment system with your GPS and all of that, and it's the brain of the car which actually
controls the engines throughput and all of that. And the danger is if these two systems merge,
which I guess they should be doing right about now, because they are trying to put two very
advanced computers in a car. Of course, they are trying to make it cheaper by only putting in one
expensive computer. The thing is, will they really do that attempt to combine these two because of the risk,
because as we speak about it, hopefully the designers have thought of it too. And because of the risk
that the two might drop of this, the risk that it could develop, especially with just a mobile phone
connection, they could stop traffic. Well, a hacker could stop traffic in a big city just by
click of a button. Exactly. Or if you buy a phone with Windows Phone 7 system,
7 operating system, it might crash your car if you don't know that. But yeah, that's mainly
the moral and ethical aspect of computers and cars, and as we were talking about auto-driving cars,
even if it works theoretical and practical, and even if they would fix potential security breaches.
So they are one step before, and when they think about this, even then I think it would be really
hard to launch a product like that, a car that drives itself. Because legally and ethically,
it's very hard to take that leap from having the driver responsible and controlling the car
to the step that the car controls itself. Why? Sorry. How much time have you flown a plane?
I. Yeah. How many times I have flown? None. I don't mean if flown a plane is a pilot,
as a passenger. Well, I haven't flown any time. I've been in three countries.
You never been on a plane, Henrik? No, I've been in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. I've never
been on a plane, thank you. All right. Well, if someone's listening that's known a little bit
about autopilot in planes, they know that the planes flies itself, and there are not much
worry about the planes flying straight down for any reason that the computers have been hacked,
although theoretically it is possible if there could be any kind of interaction with the
plane's computers. You have a point there, because what I think we miss in this equation is that
an autopilot from Google in your car would probably derive that car better than you
yourself. I'm sure, but the problem they have to face is, as you mentioned before, Henrik,
the legality of it all, they will have to approach this on a government level and get the
governments to actually say that, yes, this is legal. You can have an autopilot in your car,
which they are doing in different states over in the USA. So this is coming, even if we like
it or not. And I would really like an autopilot in my car. I can tell you that. Another thought,
if I might hear what your opinion about it is, what we are talking about now is embedded systems.
Yeah. I mean, it's different when we talk about computers, your laptops, or your mobile phones.
These systems you replace every year, every couple of years, perhaps. But how often do you change
your TV set or your car? Well, it's a lot longer. It's a lot longer period before you change cars.
So if you have software in your car, will that software be the same during your ownership of the
car? Will it not change in 40 years? Or will it have some form of update function? Will that
happen in the car? Or will it be done through a mobile phone connected to the car? That is a
security risk as well, I think, to have unupdated software. And you don't want an in-vehicle
infotainment system in your car that is three years old. I mean, who wants a three-years-old phone
today? Yeah, most of the day. But it probably would be the same as when you go and change your oil.
The shop will also shake the version of your operating system. Yeah, exactly. So that will be just
the same as, well, as I said, change the oil. Interesting thought. Most cars these days already have
some sort of software or computer built-in. That's no lie to say that. But those don't have any
interfaces to the user, to the driver. So those don't have to be updated. Or am I wrong?
More or less, I would say, because they already have some sort of interface towards the user.
Many cars have that. Often you have some sort of connect your phone already to it, to the car.
And that's mainly to the stereo, to get the audio information into it. But some cars these days
have a GPS unit built into the panel. And that GPS unit isn't only a GPS unit, but it's also part
of the computer software in the car. So from what I know, when you leave it to your car into service,
regularly, they also update the software. As far as I know, I can say that every car
manifested this, but I've heard about it, at least. Interesting. I didn't know that.
This is a very interesting discussion, but still to get back to the point where we started it all.
Niko. Yeah, exactly. Niko is quite a good operating system. I like what I've seen, even though I
haven't seen any real gadget running it before this N9 phone. And if it arrives in my car, of course,
that's great. I would like that. But what do you think about Migo's future on handsets? Because I
think that Migo still has a chance to make it on the IVI scene since there are so many companies
that are backing it. But what do you think on the handsets scene? Does Migo have a chance?
Honestly, I really don't know, but at least I hope so. I can't be more. Why do you hope that?
Well, for what is it? Half a year since I bought my N900, I've been using Mimo. I haven't tried Migo
yet, but I can imagine it's quite as good as Mimo is, probably even better than Mimo. And if we
look at Nokia, because they are the only one currently who are using Migo, I really can't see the
point why they... Well, of course, I see the economical side of it, but I can't really see why they
scrap Migo all of a sudden and bring Windows Phone 7 in on everything. Of course, it's marketing.
That's what Microsoft want. But I really can't see why they are scrapping it because it's
very interesting system on a handle device, at least. And so far, on Nokia products, I think it's
much better and much easier to use than Symbian. I've tried N8, which run on Symbian, and if that phone
would have been released with Migo, I think there would have been a huge much better success than it
was. Maybe not commercial success, but at least as a device in its own, I think would have been
much better than with Symbian. So I'm really not sure if Migos are going to survive on handle devices
because Google already support Android and many other manufacturers use Android. On the other
hand, we have iPhones with iOS, and then we have Windows phones, who really doesn't manufacture any
phones on themselves, so they are... They depend on somebody else who can make the phones,
and so far they have gotten out of Nokia. And what do you think you want? With all the... on paper
back up, Migo will definitely stay, and if more people use the NiveEye system, they're going to
and are comfortable with it. They're definitely going to want to have it in a phone or any other
health hand device, but it depends on whether they actually get it on the market, because as we're
talking about, we haven't seen anything from anyone as yet. But would anyone actually dare to buy
the N9 from Nokia with the Migo operating system on it, when they explicitly say that it will
be the last of its kind from Nokia? Yeah, I think there will be quite a lot of Nokia fan users that
will get it, because Nokia is still a worse leader in mobile phone manufacturing, so they have
quite a lot of potential customers, but whether or that's going to depend on what happens with
the Migo system, I have no guess whatsoever. I think it's pretty, if you compare with the N900,
which was a very advanced phone, even in its UI, when I were looking for a second hand or a used
N900 to buy. Well, I read another bit of a statement from a 25-year-old girl who was saying that
a woman, who was saying that this phone N900 was too hard for me to understand, I didn't even
found the message function, but the N900 sold quite well, as far as I believe, it sold a couple of
million units, 1.2, 1.3 million units or something like that. And I don't know the cell figures of an
eight, but I think the N9 will sell quite well, but if you look at the Migo aspect of the
operating system, even if I wanted to survive, I'm not sure if it will, because people who want to
buy a cell phone mainly look at aesthetics and how it will perform. They only look at the surface,
and when they look at the surface, they look at what's popular and what's hip, and the things that
are hip currently are, of course, iPhone, and then they have heard of Android, and maybe they're
even heard of Windows Phone system. And I'm not sure if Migo fits in the mental picture of
potential customer who wants to buy a smartphone. But Henry, you have bought an N900,
which is the only one of its kind since it runs the Mimo operating system. There isn't any other
device that runs that and will probably never be another device that runs Mimo. So what convinced
you to buy the N900, even if you bought a used one, to get the price down a bit? Where did you
come from? What kind of system did you use before that? And why did you choose that system?
Before my N900, I used another Nokia phone, but much simpler. I used their very basic model 3110C.
That's a very basic simbion model that I used for mainly sending messages answering the phone,
but not much more than that. But what I started to look into was, of course, I need a new phone because
my old one was on the lens of breaking together. And I wanted to update myself and maybe have the
potential to get into some new habits of how I use a cellphone these days. So I wanted the
possibility to surf the web, I wanted the possibility to check my mail to run maybe different programs
of my own choice, have some sort of camera that was pretty okay and maybe even a GPS unit.
So really you wanted an iPhone? No, that was why not? That was, well, because, or an android, I mean,
they can do all of those things you said, why did you go with a me, no, a Mimo phone? Of course,
when I, when I look at, that's a simple answer. I'm sorry, I have to take this from you. You just
wanted to have an advanced, really advanced Nokia again. Yeah. And there aren't really any advanced
Nokia's. You partially write that because when I started looking what I want for a type of phone,
where I started was, of course, at Nokia because that's the only, more or less, own the only
experience in cell phones that I've ever had. So Nokia was the initial start place for me to look.
And I was very clear from the beginning that I didn't want any Apple product. And we have
talked about that in early episodes. Why? And while I was looking into Android units, but I really
couldn't find any Android unit that I liked 100%. I was looking into HTC, actually. I was looking
at the wildfire model, but that didn't suit me quite too cheap. No, but there was these little small
things that just weren't annoyances. Yeah, exactly. The screen resolution, I thought we were talking
to people who have used HTC wildfire. And one, for instance, said, he had a slight problem with
the screen resolution, for example. So when I took that into mind when I was trying to decide,
I looked at the HTC model about that desire. But the thing that made me not go for that phone
was the price because it was at that time fairly new on the market. And it was too much money for
me to lay on a phone simply. So when I was nagging down, I really like Nokia. So that's one thing.
And N900 was a really cool phone, actually. So that was mainly what I based my decision on.
And it had been on the market for about a year, but the specs of the phone was still in the same
classes that smartphones have released today. And in some case, even better. But for a much cheaper
price, as I could get it in second hand. So well, that was mainly why I decided on an N900,
not so much because of the operating system behind, actually. And this is more or less what you
said before, Johan, that those who actually like Nokia and want good Nokia phones will probably
buy the N9 as well. Yeah. But you want you use an Android phone. Yes. Is this the first Android
smartphone you have ever had or why did you buy this one? What's your history? What's your take
on it? I, when I used to use the touch ring, there was just Windows and there wasn't Windows
phone. It was Windows mobile. But of course, and when I used Windows mobile, there was it's a
horrible operating system to use on handle device because it's more or less the idea of using a
mouse to click and the pen, of course. So when Apple came with their operating system, the iOS,
I thought, well, they've done a really good thing with that operating system, but they've done
a horrible thing with a phone. They got, they released the GSM phone as the first product. And
then you've seen how top-controlled Apple has been by Stephen Jobs. So I want the system that
was easy to maneuver, but also advanced because I tried to be an end-line user, but also someone
that's not an end-line user should be able to explain it to an easy way. So that's a really good
operating system. So that's why I jumped from Windows to Android. I'm sorry, what mobile phone
are you using? The HTC Desire HD. Ah, right. Okay. And what will your next mobile phone be? I mean,
you have some idea, I guess. What will you move to? Will it be another HTC phone? Will it be another
Android phone? Would you buy, for example, an HTC phone with me go on it, or would you rather buy
an Android phone, whatever brand it happens to be? Well, I'm not sure. You're open for suggestions.
The development is going so fast and I also locked myself up for the operator I use. So we'll just
have to see what happens. How long a contract are you on? One and a half years to go. So that's
that point of view. It's quite a bad idea, but on the other hand, the caller minutes is included
in the price of the phone, more or less. Okay. But please promise me you won't use a Windows
phone 7 phone 7 system 7 system OS phone. That's highly unlikely. Thank you. I just have to ask
the the desire HT as you use. Is it that model that came with with without a separate keyboard?
This without that the desire said. Yeah. Okay. But how do you experience to use a smartphone with
well as a screen keyboard as you have to use? Well, on this it's quite easy. If I have to use
100 it comes up very smoothly and they have done a really good job with guessing of the words
because if you miss click on the button, it's trying to determine what button you were supposed to
click on according to the surrounding. I think you know what I'm right. And then it guesses the
word you were trying to use. So it works really well. And then you just slip it if you want to
use both films. So the reason I'm asking is because on my an 100 I have the possibility to use
a screen keyboard. And I try that just because of not using the slide so much. And the thing that I
experienced was that the screen keyboard takes so much place off the total screen space. So yeah,
of course. Yeah, if I want to see something as long as I'm typing, I found it to be very crowded
on the display. Yeah, but that's the point of use having a built-in keyboard, right? You don't have
to use it on the display. No, exactly. I have a slide out keyboard, physical keyboard. But I tried
to use the screen keyboard and I found it to be very naggy. But the HD it has how big screen do you have?
4.3 inches. All right. I don't know how you can divide an inch into harts like that. But anyway,
that's what they're right. Yeah. But yeah, then you have much bigger screen. Yeah. Is there any
other phone that has a screen that can match that size that the DSi range DS? Only the Dell Striek
it has a 5 inch screen. All right. But unfortunately, there is not so quick with the release of new
Android operating systems. All right. What does it use the Dell? Android. I think it runs 2.2 right
now. Oh, okay. Yeah. But then again, when you get up to these big sizes, you're more or less
going towards a small tablet rather than a big cell phone. Yes, of course. But on the other hand,
you're probably more likely to use a headset of some kind. Yeah. Because you don't have the
reason to pick it up. And for me, I'm just waiting for Google to finally get the voice command ready
for the Swedish market. Because when I'll try it in English, it has a really, really good potential.
And if that comes, you more or less don't have to pick up your phone out of your pocket.
So then it doesn't matter how big the screen is. You just talk to the phone and it's
performs the test that you want to do. Whether it's typing a text or calling a friend or
guiding you to a hotel in a foreign city, for example. It's interesting to hear your opinions,
guys. I would just like to, if you don't mind, add my own phone experience to the mix before we
wrap this subject up. Yeah. Do you know what kind of phone I use? Yes. Yeah. What is it? An old phone.
Correct. Is it E Nokia E52, if I remember correctly? That's true. It's Nokia E52. And before that,
I had an E51 and so on. That is the Nokia work phone. It's their high-end dumb phones. So it's
not a smartphone. It doesn't have a touchscreen. It has an ordinary keyboard. And that is perfectly
everything I need. I like Symbian. I can do SSH on it. I can surf on it. I can use Twitter. I can
use Identica. I don't have any other real needs. I use it as my podcasting device. I listen to
podcasts in it. And I am dead set against touch screens. I hate them. I really, really, really don't
like touch screens. They don't work with the way I try to use a phone. I want a keyboard. I want to
be able to send messages without having to look at my phone. I want to be able to talk to someone
and still appear to be polite. But on the other hand, I want to be talking to someone else on IRC.
And I can do that with a traditional phone. So I'm not really interested in getting a smartphone
as such. But still, my next phone will have to be a smartphone because that segment of phones that I
like will be gone when I need a new phone in a year or so. There are blackberries in the United
States. They are here as well, but not to that greater extent. And blackberries are, well,
rim is going down. Just like Nokia, rim is about to disappear from the market. They're up for
sales I heard someone say. So perhaps they will be bought up by some other company. Doesn't matter.
I don't know. I'm a bit tempted by the N9, but I think I'll have to agree with Henry can say that
I really need some form of keyboard. Still, even though I will also have the touch screen.
I'm in quite a tight spot. But since I'm probably more or less alone in that spot, I will just have to
gilla leget as we say in Sweden. Or maybe you have to change your habits of how you use cell phone.
But why? I'm not going to go with that argument. But on the other hand, I've seen you type on
this phone. And I think you would actually enjoy having a quote-unquote real keyboard to type in.
Well, sure, I don't have a query keyboard. I have the traditional one, two, three, four, five,
six, new row, and so on. A traditional traditional phone, of course. I mean a phone keyboard.
You know, everyone knows how a phone looks like. A candy bar phone. Thank you.
It is a common phrase. But then on the other hand, I really would like to have me go on a phone.
Since I'm a Linux user on my desktop, so I would of course blow to have Linux on my phone as well.
And I've seen what Henrik and other friends of mine who have the Nokia N900, what they can do,
what they are able to do with their phones. And I like it. I have no more or no less than three
friends, including Henrik, who has the Nokia N900. And they can really do some nifty things with
that phone. So soon or later, I will have to give up as well, I think. But I will continue to
fight for my right to use a smart dumb phone. You can always find it in the museum.
All right, now you just plain nasty. All right, that was a bit under the belt.
Okay, guys, this has been a really interesting discussion about
in vehicle infotainment system about handsets, about me go Android and other stuff.
I really liked it. It was interesting.
So let us just take a second to look at the news flow as it is. And see if you can find
a few thoughts about things we talked about before. One of the things that happened recently was
that Mozilla released Firefox 5. And you might remember that we mentioned that when Firefox
has been released in a new version, the team who produces Internet Explorer has sent Mozilla a
cake with an i.e logo on it. And since Mozilla is trying to get more release numbers into their
product and they will release 3, 4, 5 major releases this year, they didn't get a full cake this
time. For the number 5 release, they got a smaller cake. It is quite cute. And we will put a link
to it in the show notes so you can see the nice little Internet Explorer logo on it.
Maybe that was what Mozilla was thinking when they wanted to speed up their release pace to get
more cake from Microsoft. Not unthinkable, that might actually be the thing. And that was even
better thinking about Microsoft that I don't give the colleagues too much pastry. You think it's
a dark secret plot to make the Mozilla team fat? No, I think the cupcake is much smaller than
what it looks like what they have sent before. So if they get the same amount in size or
they're just getting it more often. Okay, understand what you mean. And you, Joanne, you found
another new story of interest regarding something that I and Hendrik talked about in an earlier show.
Yeah, you were talking about the Windows 8. And these tiles that they have shown the same
as we see in Windows Phone 7. And Microsoft has released this developer's kit for the
Kinects to connect to the PC as it seems. And what my thought was if they wanted to make
instead of a touch screen for PCs, especially now with these tiles, instead you have this gesture
because it seems like if they're trying to do something very new and innovative, it's supposed to be,
I could think of gestures to maneuver your computer back and forth and doing the same as we see in
there was a clip. I think it was Microsoft's own clip on the internet where they were using the
tiles. So that's my thought about it. We'll see. Interesting idea. What do you think about that,
Hendrik? Would you use such a system? No, no, not the slightest bit I won't.
But I'm just thinking about the way they would manufacture this more correctly rather than this little
image that we can see here. I would love the slogan, connect, connect, computer.
I didn't say it was a good idea. I said it was a possible idea if they want to do something really
innovative. Yeah, I think it's very anti-Microsoft to do this kind of thing. Most definitely,
but we'll see what will come out of this. And remember folks, you heard it here first.
Then we are at the section where we wrap things up. No, we talk about how to get in touch with us all
and you can reach the show at Twitter at all. What's the Twitter handle?
Altenamite. Altenamite. All right, there we go. Altenamite at Twitter and Identica,
which is A-L-L-T-I-N-O-M-I-T, or the IT in Swedish. On Identica, you can use the group name A-I-T-R,
which on Twitter translates to the hashtag A-I-T-R, of course. Hendrik, where do people reach you?
You can reach me at Twitter by using my handle workfuss, W-A-R-P-F-U-Z.
He did it again. Great. And you want how does people get in touch with you?
I'm untouchable. I'm out of control. Well, I can be reached at show sh-o-w-at-a-i-i-t.se. That's our show's male address.
So if you want to send anything to us or specifically to Johan,
you can send it to that male address and we will make sure that he gets it.
That's great. And today's theme music was very nice. Wasn't it, boys?
It was very nice. Yeah, really good. I loved it.
And it was made by the Swedish artist labbed. You can find the track on
gemendo under creative commons by a say 3.0 license. And it's called fire retention.
And we are very grateful that he or they, as it may be,
lend us this for this show. So I think we're done here. It's been an interesting show.
It's been really nice having you on, Johan. And who knows? Maybe you will get to come on the show
in a future episode as well. I hope so. Any last words? Well, not nothing in particular. Thank you
for having me. Yeah, it was really interesting. Great. And you Henrik, are you satisfied?
I'm very satisfied, as always. Great.
Then let's go out with a bang and listen to some music, shall we?
Yeah. Yes.
Good bye. See you next time. Bye bye.
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