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Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

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Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#301

Post by nix23 »

orbifold wrote: post #42
ElijahLynn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not a software company at the core. They need to be to pull this off.

Both Mercedes and Volkswagen have absolutely massive software divisions, easily 10k+ people. They pay really well for German standards and have access to a large talent pool of people that would like to live in Germany.

>They pay really well for German standards and have access to a large talent pool of people that would like to live in Germany.

But they don't pay well for IT standards, German standards (IT) are lower (sometimes a lot) then polish ones.

>large talent pool of people that would like to live in Germany.

From Hungary, Romania or Turkey? Because no one else in Europe would like to work in Germany (in the IT industry). A bit of reality salt would be better for the German IT-Industry.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#303

Post by miohtama »

nforgerit wrote: post #166

German Software Engineer here. I'd rather chop off my left pinky than working on any software product any German car manufacturer is developing: 1) Their management hierarchies only consist of MBA suits that think short term and treat their engineers like apes in a zoo. This frequently leads to engineers actually behaving like apes in a zoo. 2) German culture is deeply based on thinking in silos. They divide everythi…

It is not just Germany, but software development culture everywhere else that is not Silicon Valley tends to be like you describe. There has not been great Nokia software, great Samsung software, great Sony software. Only hardware. This is why challenger banks and banks app are so popular in Europe: they have a UX that works - something that old organisations constantly fail to produce.

Cars are just one piece in this greater cultural phenomenom. There is a reason why e.g. Android Auto is better, with all its flaws, than the competition. There is a reason why people like Tesla's software.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#304

Post by harry8 »

saagarjha wrote: post #278
harry8 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Someone hates advertising and especially with their car. Absolutely reasonable position to take. I ask them how far they go with that? Reasonable to go absolutely hardcore and get rid of /all/ of it. Reasonable to say that level of advertising isn't that annoying so not worth the effort. I ask which because I'm interested in the response. None of that looks particularly controversial to me and I'm not seeing a…

Do you not see a difference from a Mercedes logo on the hood and and McDonald’s ads blaring from the infotainment system?

Obviously they are different. You think they are beyond what I just painstakingly pointed out as one of degree and a degree that you are entitled to feel differently about each case?

How do you think your comment advances the discussion, just out of interest?

Fwiw I don't tune my radio to commercial FM. I do have badges on the outside of my car and I kinda wish I didn't but not enough (yet) to have done something about it. I don't wear clothes that turn me into a flipping nike/ralph lauren/chanel/gucci/whatever billboard either but I can see this puts me in some kind of strange minority but I still find wearing advertising without being paid really weird. Sadly badges on cars are a little harder to not buy or remove.

You? Where are you drawing your line?

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#305

Post by slrainka »

Dalewyn wrote: post #292
qrohlf wrote: post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

>couldn't always be solved by power cycling the vehicle. From experience, I've found that turning a car off is akin to putting a computer to sleep. If the state is fubar, no amount of turning the car on and off will fix it. The only proper way to "power cycle" a car is to momentarily disconnect the car battery (remember to turn the car off first) so all power to the computers are physically cut off and they /have/ to…

Disconnecting the battery can have other consequences. Easier to reset the fuse

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#306

Post by nanidin »

jesterson wrote: post #288
nanidin wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how deals are done in China. You want to expose your cloud service to Chinese users? You need to partner with a Chinese company that will effectively run the cloud infrastructure, possibly run the server software, and definitely have access to all of your IP and certificates. The real question for me is what does an ADAS system rely on the cloud for? Hopefully nothing in real time.

> This is how deals are done in China You seriously think deals are done differently in other countries if you are as big as Mercedes Benz?

Yes actually, I have experience running a cloud service where we had to deploy two environments: China and ROW (rest of world). AutoOEM of the same magnitude as Mercedes-Benz.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#307

Post by PeterStuer »

cameronh90 wrote: post #130
twroieuwro43 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to all the legends of "German quality/engineering" (of which there is certainly in certain industries) I've heard that German cars were shit during the 90s. Japan OTOH seems to be very aware of how these newfangled tech can screw your reputation.

Honestly, I feel like German cars have an undeserved reputation for quality. German cars are superficially well built, quite fast, and make satisfying thunks when you close the doors. However, they are fairly unreliable, sensitive, and when they do fail, cost a lot to repair. I'll take a Japanese car any day, however, Hyundai, Volvo, Skoda, Kia, Peugeot and Ford are also better engineered than most German cars nowada…

I've driven mostly BMW's and their build quality has been decent.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#308

Post by wnkrshm »

ryanianian wrote: post #53
svdr wrote: post #23

The use of touchscreens has made handling devices and machines a lot less pleasant. We will soon see a reverse movement, where physical buttons become more important again. So much more satisfying. Of course, this can still be combined with plenty of software.

I'm surprised the StreamDeck family of gizmos hasn't caught on as a popular aftermarket car mod. It's just little LEDs inside clear buttons. I'd love about 5 of them right on the center console that I could somehow program to do routines for me.

Those decks are a single screen with a mask and mechanical button overlay - you can argue that there is additional cost to a regular screen without buttons, so maybe it's additional cost they avoid.

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#309

Post by b0afc375b5 »

adornKey wrote: post #284
qrohlf wrote: post #5

I was recently an owner of a Merced-Benz commercial van, and the software was by far the worst part of that whole experience. It had obvious race-condition type bugs when it came to the user interface layer, but most frustrating was its tendency to succumb to some kind of memory leak on long drives where the entire head unit would just lock up and crash to a black screen after 6-7 hours of being turned on. Because th…

We had a young guy writing good software for us while he still was going to school. We still use it to get things done in production. Then he went to university. He came back for a summer job. He had the sudden urge to ditch everything he used to do and to use the newest unproven technology. Also he had a serious urge to install everything from Microsoft. Then he created a piece of slow software full of flaws and per…

Interesting story. Thanks for sharing.

Not trying to blame anyone here. Did no one guide him? Just by virtue of him being a young student, surely his unproductive proclivities were easily correctable? Was he averse to mentoring?

Re: Mercedes-Benz previews its operating system MB.OS

#310

Post by ocimbote »

throwaway61803 wrote: post #287

throwaway account - the cheapest supplier/contractor gets the contract. Always! - the salaries in engineering are among the lowest on the market (at least in Germany). The headcount increased from 200 to 800+ in just a couple of years but so did the churn rate and focusing on the salary when hiring, means a lot of talent is skipped from the start (candidates should be happy with 20% less salary given that they work a…

MBition maybe?
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