Sponsor's Message

In fact, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to find any major piece of electrical or electronic equipment that doesn't have at least one small computer lurking somewhere inside.

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, watches, cellphones, and even something as dull and boring as the humble washing machine all have at least one, and sometimes many, microprocessors inside them.

The effect of all this technology is to significantly increase the functionality and improve the performance of these devices -- until something goes wrong that is.

Take the case of Thailand's Minister of Finance for example.

His sophisticated, expensive and no doubt highly-polished BMW limo crashed yesterday and a sledgehammer had to be used to extricate him and his driver from the wreck.

Well that's actually not quite true.

It wasn't the limo that crashed, it was the onboard computer system that crashed -- leaving the vehicle completely immobilised and all the doors locked.

The rest of the story is here and goes to show exactly how vulnerable all this hi-tech can leave us when it goes wrong.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Electronics in cars... - Tidds Oh for that kind of... - Malcolm From Yesterday... Beyond 2000... - Alden Tech shows... - Daniel Have Your Say

It kind of leaves you wondering whether it's such a good idea to put such complex systems at the heart of something as potentially dangerous as a car doesn't it?

Sure, highly computerised "fly by wire" technologies have been used in some commercial aircraft like the Airbus for over a decade now -- but these systems have built in redundancy and a myriad of safeguards to cope with the failure of almost any single component.

If your VCR suddenly starts alternating between fast-forward and rewind, or your "smart" washing machine overflows onto the floor it's hardly a life-threatening situation but what if the computer controlling your two-tonne BMW 7-series has a spaz attack on the Autobahn at 250 KPH?

Are we perhaps moving just a little too quickly in some areas?

Sucked In By iLoo
You shouldn't believe everything you read on the Net -- as a whole heap of news publications discovered to their embarrassment this week.

Even leading newswires such as the Associated Press and Reuters were duped by a fake press release that claimed Microsoft had developed an Internet-ready toilet dubbed the iLoo.

Turns out that the press release was an unofficial work of fiction by someone in the UK arm of MSN's Internet operation.

"I used to be a cynic -- but now I'm not so sure."

If any Aardvark readers have an opinion on today's column or want to add something you're also invited to chip in and have your say.

Contacting Aardvark
As always, readers are invited to submit their comments on material covered in this column. If you'd like your comments published here then please be sure to use this form and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!