Thread

Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges

323 points · 336 comments · nonfamous

Scubabear68 · 1790257414 · focus · HN ↗
This is my fear on the car side, as smart features start leaking from isolated areas in automobiles into the larger CAN bus....
1. mingus88 · 1790259689 · focus · HN ↗
  I’ve been in a Rivian during two infotainment crashes. It’s scary but the car still drives. Everything not screen related worked, and you can just pull over like any other car breakdown.
  They take this type of bug very seriously but obviously any platform will have bugs. It’s the legacy automakers I worry about, since their software has always been outdated crap and this problem needs the best in test automation
  1. delecti · 1790261332 · focus · HN ↗
    Having worked in software at a legacy car company (Mercedes specifically), I wouldn't actually be too worried about most of them either (note: in this regard specifically, I could certainly criticize plenty of other things). There's a lot of institutional discipline keeping the stability and operation of the driving stuff separate from the screen stuff.
    bmurphy1976 · 1790262864 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not just the screen. Microchips and sloppy firmware are everywhere.
    My 2015 Jeep Cherokee had a freakout one day: the power steering stopped working mid-drive, on the highway. I was 50 minutes from my house, had to turn around and drive back home (an exhausting exercise given that modern cars are not built to function without power steering). I got to the dealer, parked in the lot, turned the car off, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on, everything worked fine.
    That never happened again, but once is enough to put somebody in a dangerous-to-life situation.
    It's not just the infotainment system we should be worrying about. Most modern cars are now distributed computer systems.
    JoeAltmaier · 1790263033 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes! Pretty much everything the driver touches is no longer directly controlling anything. THe brakes are anti-lock (electronic control can disconnect them). The steering depends on assist motors. The throttle is just a suggestion.
    Even my rear-view mirror is a camera, and currently it has failed (shows matrix style drippy blue lines instead of a picture.

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