441–450 of 773 posts
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This is how I got CarPlay on the used BMW I bought. Gave some guy in Thailand my VIN and $60, he sent me firmware to install, and now I drive around with working CarPlay and the vague notion that I've maybe been p0wned in ways I don't fully understand.
When your car idles, it's contributing to his Folding@Home account rank
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Skip lagging isn't illegal, iirc a recent court case reaffirmed that. Airlines don't like it though so they may cancel you.
So if you buy a Tesla and the T&Cs prohibit you from hacking it/modding it, then you decide to hack away at it anyway, what happens if Tesla were to brick the online features of your vehicle and/or completely cancel you as a customer?
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That's no different to paying $1K for a CAD licence. People just need to come to terms with the fact that the line between HW and SW is becoming blurry. Obviously, I don't like up-paying for features I don't get to use. The price of the product must be the same, having benefited from mass production. With that being the case, I'm actually glad I have the option to save money now and upgrade later. The concept isn't a…
It's closer to using a CAD package and finding out you need to pay extra to save files. Which is a real thing that has actually happened. The functionality exists, the code already has been written, but it's disabled so as to extract more money. The arguments about cheaper manufacturing is pretty well pointless. If the cost of adding seat heaters is negligible, what justification is there for charging extra? You pay…
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It shouldn't be illegal to bypass the security of your own property. On the other hand, it shouldn't be illegal either for manufacturers to make security features that are impossible to bypass.
> it shouldn't be illegal either for manufacturers to make security features that are impossible to bypass No such thing as impossible to bypass, which is exactly why companies turn to the courts and police for enforcement instead.
Instead, we have bullshit like the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions that companies pushed so they could get the government to legally enforce their crappy business models.
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If the map can't talk to Tesla it'll use Google maps directly. I usually don't allow connections to Tesla on my rooted Model 3
How does this work with their charging network? Are you still able to use their chargers, or are you stuck with home charging & third parties?
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> From the perspective of a customer, what is the difference between a heated seat that doesn't work because it doesn't exist, and one that is locked out by software? In the former case, I didn't pay you money, so you didn't give me a good / service / whatever. That feels fair, because you need money to provide those things. In the latter case, I didn't pay you money, so you didn't flip a switch . That seems like a d…
> In the latter case, I didn't pay you money, so you didn't flip a switch. This is the case for all software . There is no physical exchange of goods, and nearly zero effort to distribute the bits.
a car is hardware, not software, even if it interacts with software
the fact that the switch is implemented via software is irrelevant to the fact that hardware is more analagous, e.g. a printer you want to use off-brand cartridges in, or a cell phone you want to root
I bought a kindle fire at a discount because it was ad-supported, then rooted it and removed all the adware+bloatware, and don't feel even a little bit bad, because all I was doing was using my hardware as I saw fit
sorry not sorry that this breaks amazon's business model (in reality it's so rare it doesn't), but my hardware, my property, my rules
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From the perspective of a customer, what is the difference between a heated seat that doesn't work because it doesn't exist, and one that is locked out by software? Assuming the customer isn't paying up front for that feature. Some people don't want to pay for heated seats. Turns out the manufacturer found it cheaper to just include the hardware anyway rather than differentiate on the production line. What's the big…
The wasted economy on lugging around the extra weight for a useless seat heater.
Good. People who buy things should own the things they buy.
IP has gone too far. We're seeing more and more instances of computers forced into perfectly good physical products for the express purpose of degrading their functionality unless a ransom is paid. Now instead of toggling a relay, you have to go through an entire software stack and license check to heat your seats.
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If the feature is built in to the car from the factory and disabled via software so they can charge more then you are already paying for the parts and lugging around the added weight in the vehicle thus costing you more in fuel. Software locking a hardware feature that is integrated is an awful practice. Telsa chose to do this presumably to only have to buy a single seat configuration and streamline installs so they…
Right. Instead of manufacturing a 50, 80, and 100 kWh battery pack, and having to go through the whole process of getting certifications and everything for each size, they just make 100 kWh packs all day long, and then software limit them to 50. Which means, in the case of an emergency, the company can bestow extra range on lower-end vehicles, which they did for Hurricane Irma. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/10/1628…