

  (Source: Warner Brothers)

Could outer space be endangering Toyota's drivers?











Comments     Threshold


Prelude to attack?
By teflonbilly on 3/16/2010 4:40:15 PM , Rating: 2
Perhaps. I think Toyota should become the chief investor in a new Star Wars program to protect us from the obvious threats from space.

Why didn't we see this coming? Who is holding back the intel? Roswell guys? Area 51? Speak up! Our cars are going crazy, soon it will be our MP3 players, then we will be powerless!

In all seriousness, is this actually even remotely true? I have a hard time believing that "cosmic rays" could be causing this, since they are not having much effect on other areas. Are we going to start blaming computer crashes and exploding Iphone batteries on this now?

RE: Prelude to attack?
By JediJeb on 3/16/2010 5:01:13 PM , Rating: 3
It is one of the reasons Error Correcting Memory is used, because random cosmic rays can cause bits to flip in a memory stick in a computer. While it may not be that big of a problem while playing games or reading email, when doing high level number crunching like weather forecasting with a super computer one bad bit could promulgate into a very big error down the line.

For the electronic systems in cars, it guess it would depend on exactly which bit got flipped. Randomly hit the bit that would change Accelerator Stable to Accelerator Increase in the program for the cruise control and what might happen?

RE: Prelude to attack?
By Arc177 on 3/17/2010 10:33:22 AM , Rating: 2
You've just given the Al Gore Warming crowd a new excuse. Lol.
"Bit flips caused by cosmic rays induced errors in our computer climate simulations, ...umm yeah that's why we're wrong all the time, yep"

