Wednesday, May 17, 2017

When It Comes To Cars, Forget Horsepower, We Want Megahertz!

Although this may sound odd coming from a computer nerd like me, I'll take driving my 45 year old muscle car with an AM radio over anything that has an infotainment system in it.

Like everything else, infotainment systems are computers with processors, operating systems, and applications, but you won't find much material out there that treats them as such. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung, and others hold big press conferences about their new hardware and software, touting ever-larger spec sheets, new features, and universally known sub-brands like iPhone, Surface, and Galaxy. But you'll almost never see car companies announce how much RAM is in their new car infotainment systems, though; most won't speak a word about specs or even say what software they're running.