I don't believe sending PAD can force-change the radio. It's just for vehicles with a screen for displaying album art or logos.
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Some Mazdas In Seattle Are STUCK on KUOW 94.9
- Thread starter SomeRadioGuy
- Start date
This was more of a lesson as to making sure we design technology without such flaws, anf that there is updates whenever we detect something wrong. This was just a lack of focus by whoever made the code. One day, we'll get it right, but for now, agreed that we shouldn't always rely on technology for everything.
🤣
What about Subaru drivers?! Lol.
Radio has been around 100+ years. RDS has been around for 30 years. HD Radio with PAD has been around for around 25 years.
Do tell what was the problem with what part of what code?
It was one incident with one brand of radio. Nobody died, nobody was injured.
Yes it has, but image extensions on HD weren't available right away. Even in the case where the technology has been around for a couple of decades, that would further my point that someone messed up a miniscule amount of code, and so no one noticed it until.... they did.
I don't know enough about the specifics, but clearly the Mazda radios crashed because it needed a 3 letter extension to the image. Those recievers are that vulnerable and picky that we have this 'stuck on KUOW' nonsense.
Thankfully so! The thing is, if we want so start calling IBOC old, than be prepared to find more things wrong with it as it continues to grow obsolete. Of course, DAB was getting so goofed up that they had to re-do it.
But one could argue that happens with any software-based application. How many years has MS Excel been around and in spite of under the hood security modifications, vulnerabilities are still discovered and exploited? That's part of technology evolution, whether it's banging two rocks together making a spark to light a fire, mechanical parts in a vehicle that just wear out, or firmware that reacts unexpectedly in a one-and-a-million random situation. When it comes to creating code; there's no way one could test each and every variable that may or may not occur, ever.
Years ago at a station where I was the Chief, middle of PM drive the main TX suddenly shut down. The software-based remote control immediately started the backup TX warming up, and after about a minute we were back up and running with no human intervention. Got called into the GM's office shortly after, where I was asked why I didn't anticipate the main TX might have failed in the middle of the day. I explained to the red in the face GM, that albeit unfortunate the main went down, the backup systems worked as designed. The station wasn't in a break at that time, so no make-goods were needed. Warm-up time was expected, as both transmitters used tubes. His blame toward me was that I should have anticipated whatever component in the main was getting near failure, and proactively replace the part. Ultimately I found the failure was a tiny tantalum capacitor on the controller card had shorted the 12VDC powering the card. To the GM's point, the expectation was I should have anticipated a ten year old capacitor on a circuit board could have failed during PM drive. In my view; placing the blame on software engineers for a random, trivial anomaly that may occur, is as misplaced as the GM's view in my story.
Since you and others seem inclined to point fingers of blame for this trivial incident; are you pointing at HD Radio in general? Or the manufacturer of the Mazda radio? (which I believe is Denso)
Newsflash: From the day we're born, we start becoming "obsolete". That includes the technology we humans develop.
Or at least it sure as hell gets harder to find RAM upgrades....
The above discussion is a perfect description of why there will never be self-driving vehicles. The best computer is nothing but a partially functioning human brain. Computers are best used to perform rote, repetitive tasks (or respond to rather simple inputs) which would otherwise cause a human to pull out his squirt gun.
Never is a mighty long time, son.
By the way, self-driving cars do not have to be perfect to take over. They just have to be better than humans. That is coming quite soon, probably in the next 20 years. I would probably trust a Tesla to drive me around (but not necessarily blindfolded, just hands free)
I'm remembering, decades ago, when a computer beat the world's best chess player. If a computer has enough "experience" data, and can interpret comparable situations, it can respond faster than a human. Particularly a distracted or impaired human. I'd rather have drunks driving an automatic Tesla than T-Boning me at an intersection.
Computer's advantages include speed, lack of fatigue, lack of emotion and ability to ignore distractions but they are far from perfect. While they can theoretically handle the less complex events of driving an automobile they still manage to mis-identify objects and run over people.
And, to have self-driving vehicles we'd have to shoot all the lawyers first.
The only thing more frightening than drunks driving an automatic Tesla T-Boning one at an intersection is of course, drunks driving automatic Teslas with radios stuck on KUOW. It's the very ultimate in distracted driving. Or at least you don't always look out your passenger side window and see the driver in the car next to you pounding with both fists on the driver side window and holding a sign saying PLEASE LET ME OUT, I'LL NEVER TOUCH ALCOHOL AGAIN! as the car maneuvers itself on the road....
Adjust for what? If you're a PPM-wearing participant and leave your radio on KUOW, then it's assumed the meter will pick it up and the station gets credit for the listening time. Doesn't matter whether the radio is stuck on that station, the panelist is still listening. Plus, after all, there's this thing called a volume control as a failsafe.
"Review Geek", a tech site, reports on the cause and effect of the Mazda software issue that bricked sound systems:
www.reviewgeek.com
An NPR Broadcast Permanently Bricked Mazda Radio Systems
On January 30th, several Mazda owners in Seattle found that their infotainment system had stopped working. Not only that, but their radios were stuck on a particular station—NPR’s KUOW 94.9. It turns out that the NPR station’s broadcast broke these infotainment systems, causing around $1,500 in...
www.reviewgeek.com
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