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Google has taken a major step toward turning Android into a complete operating system for cars that doesn't require the use of a phone. The company announced partnerships with Audi and Volvo today, ahead of this week's I/O developer's conference, that will see those carmakers build new branded infotainment systems using Android 7.0 Nougat.
The manufacturer-tweaked versions of Google's operating system will power the cars' main touchscreen displays, as well as the digital dashboards behind the steering wheel. They will add new services like Google Assistant to the apps and integrations already available on Android Auto. But Android will now also control basic functions like heating and cooling, seat position, or opening and closing the windows. (It won't go as far as controlling critical safety systems like brakes, though, according to Google.) Volvo says it plans to launch its Android on new models within two years, while Audi will show its version off in the new Audi Q8 Sport concept.
Audi is owned by the Volkswagen Group based in Germany. Since the 2010 sale by Ford Motor Company, Volvo Cars has been owned by Geely, a Chinese automotive manufacturer.
Source: The Verge
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:28PM (11 children)
Interesting project. I'm working on something similar.
I have a 1961 Mack B61 truck. Since I was a kid I loved trucks and went to shows and all that until I bought my own. I like the older iron for the reasons you stated, all mechanical. Hell the injection pump doesn't even have a fuel cut off solenoid, instead a cable runs from a stop leve on the injection pump to an engine stop knob you pull out. You could remove the entire electrical system and that truck would still run drive and stop as nothing is electrical save for the starter motor, heater blower, and the lights. Even the wiper motor is air driven from the air brake system which also has ZERO electrical control save for the stop light switch which only operates the brake lights. I could switch the engine to an air start (I have a few old air starters from IR and Gali) and remove the need for electrical starting. My only gripe with that setup is the large air tank needed and limited cranking capacity. Not good for cold climates.
I'm keeping the entire truck as stock as possible though, I do want to add some smarts to the truck. I'm thinking of building an ultra capacitor starter and pairing it with one or two deep cycle marine batteries as the truck does a lot of sitting. I have the caps, 18x Ioxus 3000F @ 2.7V for a total of 1500F @ 16.2V. Still working on the charger design, would be a simple switching charger with a small uc for switching control as well as cell monitoring. I'm thinking of using the CAN bus and J1939 or even CANopen or keep it simple and use RS485 and modbus. Be nice to export a bunch of values such as charge voltage, charge current, starter current, and fault monitoring.
I'd also like to log things like engine hours, average speed, fuel consumption, and possibly gears used. For fuel totalizing I'd have to log both the fuel pulled by the injection pump and the return line and record the difference. For speed monitoring I'm thinking about a simple inductive sensor counting teeth on... something. I could also use an analog tachometer or somehow piggyback off the current speedometer. I'm also thinking about antitheft too. Probably a fuel cutoff valve paired with an ignition disable hidden away in the engine compartment and possibly a third disable mechanism.
If I used an HMI i'd probably go with a pi display in a plastic box. Cheap and simple and I could use existing HMI pi projects. But for now I'm still on the mechanical restoration phase and I'm busy getting things operating mechanically and getting the truck rolling again.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 18 2017, @06:30AM (3 children)
Those old Mack trucks. Built to last. I love the pure simplicity / robustness of these old beasts.
Mine is an old Ford 7.3L IDI. No turbo. E4OD transmission. Like you, I am keeping the base powertrain stock as can be, but gussying up the display/dash as a lot of the things I want to have are either missing or nonfunctional. You probably have the same situation in your truck. A lot of the dashboard stuff is old and has been exposed to the elements. Besides, there are a lot of new tricks I want to teach this old dog. I have driven a manual all my life, and being used to making the decision as to what gear I should be in, I would still like to have the final say in the matter. I want overrides on whether I want to lock to torque converter or not. Same for the coast clutch sprag lock.
I am also disappointed in having no tach or exhaust gas temperature gauges in this thing. I would also love to have a real water temp gauge, real coolant pressure gauge, real oil temp gauge, and real oil pressure gauge instead of the idiot switches that came stock. I would also love to have my transmission oil temperature and line pressure shown. I want real analog linear pressure transducers and type K thermocouples watching everything so I can get plenty of advance warning if something is going amiss.
Being shown I've lost my coolant at the same time the engine seizes is not all that useful to me. On my car, the idjit that designed the coolant sensor put it at the top of the radiator. When I had a real problem, there was no water in the radiator to trip it. I screwed up the engine in my car that way. I did not know until the engine started acting funny and I pulled over to find out why. That's why I want to know the coolant pressure and oil temperature.
I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. I simply hate it when crap like that happens.
I have worked with instrumentation all my life. Like you, I know exactly what I want and how to implement it. And that's why I want it programmable. By me. Personally. To do this, I have to build my own controller. Nobody makes anything close to what I want. Arduino and Raspberry PI are the closest. I chose the ATMEL as I will be going as far as personally laying out all the PCB for the processors and interfaces. It will have substantial memory for tables of historical profiles of expected pressures and temperatures, and if any deviate, I want my HMI to show it.
I have had things like stuck thermostats and leaky hoses cause me humongous problems as by the time my primitive instrumentation detected it, the engine had already suffered irreversible damage. No more. I want this thing instrumented so I know if something goes amiss long before I hear the engine complaining over it.
You may want to take advantage of using your fuel injection pump as a metering pump, as its kinda tricky to monitor diesel fuel flow rates accurately. I was looking at the same thing, as I put in electric lift pump ( Carter P-4070 ) to make priming the fuel system easier as well as give me an electrical control I could shut down if I were trying to screw up a theft attempt. Being mine has a stock automatic transmission, it came with a throttle position sensor ( ummm "Fuel Injecton Position Lever?" - Diesels always run throttle wide open and lean ). I can use that sensor to tell me how much fuel per squirt, I know I get four squirts per engine revolution. I bought some fuel flow sensors from China [aliexpress.com], but with all the variables ( cold fuel, hot fuel, and trying to take the difference ), I thought I was setting myself up for endless calibration. I settled on using a VR sensor counting gear teeth on the engine, and having the sensor interrupt the processor... which deducts the appropriate size of squirt from the tank according to TPS. There is another VR sensor mounted on the differential. I want to eventually figure out the exact fractional ration of the transmission, so I can count the engine gear teeth, and compare it to the amount of differential teeth , and know exactly how much slippage is taking place across the torque converter, or if I am having any band slippage at all in the transmission. If I have that thing locked, I should have an exact ratio of teeth passing each VR. If I know I am having slippage issues, I want to know about it immediately before it takes the transmission out.
Last but not least, I want to alter this thing enough so if anyone else tries to drive it, he won't know how. I have this fear that if the events ( however unlikely ) transpire that this van is designed for, I don't want some thug simply driving off with it because he could wag a gun in my face. I want to make it capable of being such a pain in the ass that he will have to rewire the whole thing before he can get any use out of it. Thereby making it a lot easier on him if he just takes someone else's stuff. Since I have control of the fuel solenoid on the injector pump, the fuel pump itself, and the transmission solenoids, I can cause a lot of nasty problems for a thief. Things like deliberately causing air to get sucked into the injector pump by shutting down the lift pump. Now the thief has to spend about a half-hour or so bleeding the air out of the injectors before the engine will start. Then he's gonna have the problem of getting the transmission to work right.
I have noted a lot of microwave human presence sensors becoming available. I want to use these to detect if anyone is even *near* my van, and to wake up the electronics enough to verify whether a threat is sensed, or if its just me. I found some neat little keyboard/RFID readers that I can program to make operations easier for me, but make it necessary for a full vetting if the scanner cannot see the correct RFID code come back.
There are cellular telephone interfaces out there which know exactly where they are at all times ( actually Google does the hard work ), and hook them up so the van looks like a cellphone to the phone company. I can only talk and text to it, like a cheap phone, or can call it on a smartphone and find out exactly where it is... you know... Google's Blue Dot. I leave it to your imagination what can be done with a text interface and a processor.
With my processor in control, I can visit a diner when its really cold outside, put it in Park, leave the engine running even though the ignition lock is OFF, lock up, and eat, knowing even if a thief breaks the glass out of the door, gets in, and tries to drive off, the instant he does anything, the engine is going to die. Another thing is to lockout the starter circuit if the engine is running. I occasionally do stupid things and I want my processor to watch my back. With that Mack truck engine, I know you know exactly what I mean about cold diesels. Mine is quite soddish when cold fuel is injected. Quite poor fuel usage... I get a lot of soot. Yours is a lot bigger, and that situation is probably amplified as well.
I am just getting started on this thing... kinda where you are as well. Maybe I can touch base with you from time to time and exchange war stories on whats going on. I already know this thing is going to take me years to build.
I know this is a long post, but its posted on a dated story. I'll leave the post here so search engines can find it for anyone else interested in this kind of thing. This is probably something I should have posted in the Diesel Truck forums, like Oilburners.com ... but I have only lurked there so far until I get up to speed on what those guys are doing.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday May 18 2017, @03:23PM (2 children)
My favorite coolant problem was on my old 95 Tahoe. The heater core ran to a rubber hose to an aluminum hard line then to a quick connect that was made of zinc and screwed into the intake manifold which was made of aluminum. Galvanic corrosion ate that up. You used to hear about radiator hoses blowing. Everything in that coolant system broke save for the damn hoses. Replaced the radiator, water pump, the aforementioned zinc coupling, the heater core bypass valve, and the thermostat. Must have been the best radiator hoses ever built.
Good info on the fuel monitoring. The fuel monitoring certainly does sound tricky. Currently the truck has a mechanical pump which bolts to the side of the injection pump which also has the primer handle. The primer leaks a little so I think the pump is sucking air. After the engine fires, it idles smooth for a few seconds and then begins to hunt with the RPM dipping until it nearly stalls and then back up to idle. I have considered switching to an electric pump. But this is more a show truck and occasional weekend driver so stock is somewhat important.
As for the supercap charger, I was thinking of a half bridge into a choke and then off to the caps using a uc to watch the choke current and cell voltage and switch appropriately. I'd use the Atmel sam C21, plenty of analog stuff, 32bit arm, plus CAN. I have thought of a boost converter to possibly suck up whatever power is left in a dead battery but that's a little out of scope for me. I just want reliable starts and to reduce battery count from four to one or two. I have two battery boxes, both are nearly rusted out so I'd like to only need to buy one.
Everything would use simple micros tied to a pi with the pi display. It's a nearly open source HMI for under a $100 bucks. I could even use it for multimedia as well. Truck came with an old 8 track/AM/FM/CB radio that is really neat. Friend at work have me a bunch of old classic rock 8 tracks that I would pop in and listen to or play the radio. I kinda want to keep that. Thought of buying a small 4 channel amp, get some decent speakers and just hook the pi to that. Or a 3.5mm cord and just use my phone. I even thought it could also be a dash cam but the bandwidth of the pi IO is abysmal with no sata and just USB/SD. That or just use more pi's for different tasks.
The dash is all steel. Almost no plastic on that truck. Limits the amount of gauges so extra gauges I'd want like trans temp, pyrometer, rear diff temp, etc would all be on the pi display. Keep the dash original and go from there.
I like the sms interface idea. I thought of similar for location in case of theft. All I would do is text a command and the device would ping back the GPS coords every n seconds. Problem is that is security through obscurity and I'm not too keen on it. Anyone could see my GPS if they knew the number. Or I could hard code to only respond to my number. That or figure out a simple enough encryption scheme but that complicates everything. I'd certainly love to have a text based sms command interface. START, STOP, UNLOCK, LOCK, GPS, etc. would be neat to have.
It's funny how long this stuff takes. I've seen guys who own big shops for their business and they turn around a truck in just a few months. I saw one post where they took a Mack B tractor, completely tore it down, replaced the old Mack diesel with an 80's mechanical International DT466 with Allison from a school bus and built a gooseneck hauler body out of an old fire truck body. Custom seats and interior, the works. Think it took them 5 or 6 months. It's been 5 or 6 years for me and I'm now just really starting to get into it as money and time have been issues in the past.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday May 19 2017, @07:24AM (1 child)
Thanks. Now I don't feel so lousy for how long this thing is taking me.
I have been taking my time on this for the very same reasons. I do everything myself cause I flat do not have the money to hire it out, and even if I did, I have the limitation that I have to understand exactly what I am doing and what to do next, given what I know now. Things may change as I become more knowledgeable and I may discover better ways to do it.
I've had the van for about a year now - and have mostly studied all the wiring diagrams to get comfortable with digging into it. I have downloaded everything I could find on its E4OD transmission, and how to control it. I was thinking of a commercial aftermarket controller, ( Baumann Engineering Quick-4 box ), but the more I thought of it, I would just as soon "roll my own" so I can have exactly what I want.
I considered whether one or two quite powerful controllers ( raspberry PI, ARM, or ColdFire ( uCOS-III)) or many little processors. I chose the latter because I wanted to build this thing up in stages, so that the van would be operable even if I had no computer at all in it... just running the transmission manual mode from a H-type switch I salvaged from a trashed commercial video arcade game - and a couple of toggle switches for the coast and converter lockup clutches.
Those "propeller" chips from Parallax look particularly intriguing. Eight CPU cores in those things. They look ideal for handling a lot of my I/O stuff, where I can dedicate a CPU core for a specific task and not worry about interrupt latentcies. There are some things I want to explore, like knowing 106 teeth pass the engine VR sensor for every two revolutions... knowing this exact count, I want to time the passing of the teeth so I can correlate each cylinder's contribution to total engine speed, so any problems developing in a cylinder will show up as that cylinder not "pulling its weight" during its time to dump its energy to the crankshaft. During normal operation, I would see a bar chart on one of the HMI panels, and all eight bars should be the same height. An erratic bar would indicate to me if a particular cylinder was having problems.
There are so many little things I would love to try out on that van. But I don't want to sacrifice any reliability. So all my little toys will have to be queryable, but if they are not there, no big deal. The show goes on.
I figured I would probably have several I2C and probably two SPI busses ( thermocouples ) running, but no CAN bus. Mostly ignorance, I suppose. I'm kinda afraid of any single point of failure if anything shorted out. I want what's left to help me troubleshoot what went wrong. A lot of interface chips I want to use are I2C. You know, things like ADS7828 ADC chips. I will be running quite a few current sensors through 4051-type multiplexers into these, so I can verify that after I have switched a circuit ON, it will be drawing the correct amount of current. There are a few conditions of which solenoids I turn on and off in the transmission that have serious mechanical consequences if switched improperly, and I want to avoid that at all costs. If I am doing it with switches, I will use extra contacts on the switches and lockout relays to disallow the disastrous states, but for the computer, I want my interface reporting back that the called for solenoids are indeed receiving the current they were switched for.
These little Hall-Effect sensors [aliexpress.com] look really handy for sensing lines without affecting the reliability of the sensed circuit. Those are unusually accurate sensors - not made like most hall effect devices. I am itching to use them to monitor all the current draws on the van so I can quickly diagnose failed circuits. Or make damned sure all the main battery circuits have been properly shut down before I leave the vehicle.
God knows how many times we have arrived at a dead vehicle because something did not turn off properly. One of my computer's jobs will be to make damm sure everything is put to bed before giving me the all-clear that its OK to walk away.
Another thing I want to have is quite a few K-type thermocouples [aliexpress.com] placed around the exhaust ports, in the oil, in the coolant, and in the transmission. They are cheap, and I can multiplex as many as I want. I already have local 4 line x 20 character LCD displays on my stuff, so I can use their four data lines for addressing a thermocouple, as I never update the LCD while reading a thermocouple, and the LCD does not care what its data lines do when its control lines are static. Each of my modules have local debug LCD sockets so during troubleshooting, I can just plug an LCD in and see what the module has to say.
Kinda funny the story about heater core, aluminum, and zinc. One would sure have thought the auto industry would have understood galvanic corrosion by now. But I can understand. I see so much "business-class" crap out there it nauseates me. When I say "business-class", I mean building the least-effort product someone else can be persuaded to buy. May be a pile of crap, but its new shiny crap, and many people buy on appearance, not necessarily substance. It comes back to bite them every time and they still do not learn. I am just as guilty at falling for it as anyone else too, and get quite pissed at myself when I discover how they pulled the wool over me each time.
I hear you on the steel dash. I have one too. That is why I am using three smaller Nextions instead of a larger panel. They will be going where the gauges are now. One will have stuff like engine pressures and temperatures, the center one will have speedo, tach, odometer, and the third will have the fuel statistics. The computer will keep track of oil change schedules, or when I pull into a gas station, I'll key in how much fuel I put in ( xx.xxx gallons ) to top off ( Arduino C++ INT resolves to 65.535 gallons max tank size ) so the computer can do fine trims on the constants which estimate fuel usage, how many miles to runout, instantaneous and long term MPG, etc.
I hope to make it a fun little project. And I would like to use it as a "resume" for someone who may want to retain me to help them with anything like it. I guess one of my main concerns is will I live long enough to complete it. Its gonna take me years to do this right. I would release stuff now, but I keep changing it. I keep figuring out better ways of doing things. Even little things like how to multiplex many things into simple Arduinos without running out of I/O pins. And I have so much more to learn.
I haven't even started on all the cosmetics yet. I don't want to mess with the "pretty stuff" until I have all the infrastructure in place. Then I will worry about how to dress it all up prim and proper.
Bet you get a chuckle out of all those car repair insurance ads warning about the threat of the check-engine light. That is one thing I am so glad I don't have to worry about. I will have everything BUT a check engine light.
I know you know exactly what I am saying - you are in the same boat!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday May 19 2017, @02:40PM
Looks like you are solidifying a good plan. And I like the decision to move to a custom ECU for the transmission. I would consider 3rd party hardware only if it is open source. I want to know how it works and be able to fix it myself 5, 10 or maybe even 15 years down the road.
And good thinking on the hard wired interlocks. Any time I plan on building a machine upgrade here at work I always ensure there are actual safety relays used for interlocking things. Because no matter how good you think you are, you can make a mistake. An improperly sequenced valve or device can as you say be disastrous. I remember writing c code for a really neat PLC from CTC which sequenced the vacuum system on an old electron beam welder. It would work fine and then mis-cycle. Hmmmm, I went over my code again and again and it turns out I was overlooking the simplest of problems in a line of code for calculating vacuum pressure. Just a misplaced an operator which caused an overflow. After that correction it ran rock solid. Thankfully when I designed the relay system the PLC controlled, I interlocked the valve relays so the main valve for the diffusion pump could never open if the vent or roughing valves were open. That would introduce air into the hot diffusion pump which could burn up extremely expensive oil ($1000/Gallon). Didn't have that problem even though the controller code bugged out. I am also working on a motor-generator controller with a microcontroller but I am also adding on an external interlock circuit to ensure that if any rapid change in input occurs, the system will shut down. Right now I'm dealing with a 150kV power supply that is hard arcing due to runaway causing the voltage to go well above the 175kV maximum, possibly all the way to 300kV. The original controller was very well designed and simple (two op-amps and a power transistor stage) but it has no smarts when it comes to sudden feedback loss causing the output to take off until the overvoltage trips but by then the power supply is already going into over voltage and arcing which is damaging really expensive components ($11,000 200kV 0.1uF capacitor, and twelve $500 diode sticks.) An E-stop that is completely electromechanical which removes power and puts things into a safe off state is also a good idea depending on your system.
And as for multiple monitoring points, it was and still is common for many truckers to have 20 or even more gauges monitoring everything. Coolant temps, oil temps, pressures, transmission temp, differential temps, exhaust temps, and even voltages and current draw. They made money with their trucks and any small deviation in those gauges were reason enough to have a look at the problem area and check things before they got worse. Idiot lights are now the norm but they still add separate gauges to be proactive. Downtime is lost money.
Like I said before, don't worry about how long it will take you. I used to go to a truck show in Macungie PA every year, knew a bunch of guys there from a Mack forum and we would meet up. Few years back one guy asked me about my progress and I almost hated to say that it was near zero. They all shook their heads and one guy said "don't worry, most of us are in the same boat. It took me 8 years to get the money and time together before I even touch a single screw". Everyone chimed in and spoke of progress measured in years. I've known a few guys who had to give up and sell because of money problems.
One thing is for sure, it is quite easy to underestimate the amount of work needed. Once I bought the truck and started to work on a few minor things it quickly became apparent that a few summers of work was not going to be enough. It would take years. I just managed to remove the fifth wheel plate they previous owners installed. Probably weighed 800lbs and I had to lift it myself which required me to buy a new 2 ton engine hoist. More money. Though, it is pretty satisfying as you begin to make progress, even if it's taking the thing apart. Things like the old steel demount rims with 11R22.5 tires weigh nearly a hundred pounds each. Nothing is light or easy to maneuver. But with patience and the right tools I'll eventually get there.
And if that isn't bad enough, I also bought an old 4000 lb capacity forklift for scrap value a few years back that also needs a lot of work. I bought it to remove the engine (2500 lbs), transmission and axles. Forklift engine, a continental FY128 (I think), is so old it belongs in a museum and parts are as rare as hens teeth. Thankfully I am also doing work for forklift guys who are transitioning from fixing and buying/selling forklifts to small trash compactors. They are helping me find parts. I feel bad for them because they can't fix newer lifts as they need dealer only equipment. And they can't become dealers because there already exists a dealership network with the territory already carved up. So they are shut out of their own business thanks to proprietary bullshit and protectionism.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 18 2017, @07:06AM
Forgot to mention this, LordTaw... about your charger for the supercaps... you might want to consider winding your own output transformer so you can have six identical secondaries... one for each voltage tier of your six series'd supercapacitors?
My guess would be to go to a flyback topology and hammer away on the primary until you get the capacitors charged up. Your advantage would be that you can only transfer one "corefluxload" of energy per pulse. You pulse away until you've transferred enough energy to charge all the capacitors. The flyback topology is by nature self-equalizing as each secondary current flow is what is necessary to balance the voltage as set by its number of turns - which must be an integer. In the event of power transistor failure, the converter ceases to function, without ramming fault energy into the capacitor bank. You can also easily charge to 16.2 volts ( 2.7V per tier ) off the 13.8 volt vehicle bus voltage if you size your primary winding as such.
I am using a similar flyback topology to get the isolated power to run my controllers from vehicle power. Vehicle power can be nasty. By metering it through a magnetic core, I can take out stuff like alternator load dumps and inductive kickbacks from starter motors and A/C clutches. These kind of power surges take out semiconductors like bullets take out plate glass.
In this case, I would be tempted to get a huge ferrite core so I have lots of window space to put my secondary windings, just so I know nothing is cramped enough to short out.
Just because you *can* ram 2KW through a big core does not mean you have to. But I sure hate it when I get shorts in the windings because I tried to ram too much wire in a tiny window. It is a very typical thing for me to do is use cores way too big, just for the sake of running things way below their design limit. I would probably wind the primary with multiple strands of enameled wire, and six secondary windings "hexafilar?" of heavier gauge Teflon wire or similar... whatever I have confidence in that I won't have any winding-to-winding shorts, as a failure will certainly result in replacement of costly parts and possibly a fire.
I would not necessarily ram a lot of current through the primary... its not like you have to charge the supercapacitors immediately. My guess is that the charge time could easily go over several minutes. Then occasionally, your processor looks at the cell voltages to see if any are getting low and need charging. In that case, hammer away at the primary a few more times... the energy will go to the tier with the lowest voltage, as its diode will be the first to turn on. And report the weak tier so you can move some of the individual capacitors around and find the one that is leaking down.
Just my take on it. Good luck!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:38AM (5 children)
Ok... one more thing.... write your own software or have a group of us writing our own and we
don't have to put up with this shit! [trucktrend.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:16AM (4 children)
Seems DMCA will not prevent any vehicle modifications?
Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Vice President of Government Affairs Steve McDonald issued the following statement in regard to the organization’s stand on the DMCA and enthusiast rights:
“SEMA’s position is that the right to access vehicle systems and components in order to utilize, maintain, and upgrade vehicles stands regardless of an exemption from the DMCA. The law already contains a “safe harbor” to allow for lawful reverse engineering and interoperability. The association is actively engaged in the rulemaking process and is working to prevent any decision that would curtail the opportunity to modify vehicles within the law.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 18 2017, @10:12AM (3 children)
That's SEMA's stand on it... as is mine as well ... but not necessarily the legal interpretation if some "rightsholder" starts tossing DMCA into the fray.
A lot of farmers are having fits with interoperability of farm machinery.
In the old days, a grinding wheel and a welding torch made nearly everything interoperable.
This "customer lock-in" being enforced by laws passed by our Congress is proving quite a burden that want to buy one thing from vendor A and another from vendor B.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @10:21AM (2 children)
How will they systematically discover what a lone former does on his farm?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:05AM (1 child)
They don't.
But they can go after anyone who tries to help the farmers.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @12:16PM
Which is then hidden or based abroad..
Action and counteraction ;)