auto parts: January 2013

Designing interfaces from the outside in

User interfaces are a pet peeve of mine.

I’m one of those people whose VCR always blinked 12:00. Not because I couldn’t figure it out but because I resented that I had to.

Basically, I have neither the time nor the inclination to read manuals. If I’m paying good money for a consumer-facing product then it better not require an engineering degree to use it.

Not surprisingly, then, I think UI design is every bit as important as product; maybe even more so. Because if your user experience sucks, make no mistake; I will be walking and talking to your competitors.

It wasn’t until I entered the glamorous world of software development that I came to the following conclusion: Interfaces are complicated because development tools require an engineer (or similarly brilliant individual) to use them.

Of course this is a sweeping statement and I’ll gladly debate it but the point is this: Someone with unique skills and knowledge about user-centric design should be creating interfaces. Not someone who knows the product from the inside out.

I know in a traditional model this can create a lot of churn but companies like Crank Software have come up with a way to decouple the roles of embedded engineer and UI designer, allowing them to work in parallel while focusing on their individual core competencies.

I spoke to several members of the QNX concept development team when they were heavily embroiled in creating the latest technology concept car. It was obvious when talking to the engineers and the UI designers that Crank’s Storyboard made both jobs that much easier and the process a whole lot quicker. The end result, achieved in a very short time frame, speaks for itself.

This is great news for people like me who curse like sailors whenever using a remote, microwave, GPS, treadmill, camera, and so on. Indeed, I'm counting on teams like QNX and Crank to ensure the digital car is an enjoyable and intuitive experience. If not, I do know who I'm gonna call.

CARB Hubris

In classical literature, a character that show the flaw of hubris, extreme arrogance, often winds up being toppled.

California's Air Resource Board (CARB) has been showing hubris for years, as they have been pushing a zero emissions vehicle mandate. They were chastened several times, when their mandates were simply impossible to achieve, and they had to back off on electric car requirements.

In a recent interview published in the Detroit News, ARB chairwoman Mary Nichols stated that

By 2016 or 2017 — when tough requirements kick in — Nichols said: "By then everyone will be buying them."

Everyone? Really?

To date, electric cars have not exactly caught on, even in California. The best selling all-electric car, the Nissan Leaf, only managed to sell about 6,000 units in California in 2012. That's out of a market of about 1.5 million new cars! But ARB expects that in just 3 or 4 model years (one design cycle!) electric cars will be a mainstream product in California.

How is this going to happen? Batteries might get a bit cheaper, but no one thinks that we are going to get close to gasoline parity by 2016, that I have heard of.

Until electric cars are close enough in convenience and purchase price to gasoline cars, or until gasoline becomes much more expensive, electric cars are not going to be a common purchase, and I expect that CARB is going to have to eat crow, again.

The 10 qualities of highly effective hands-free systems

The first time I saw — and heard — a hands-free kit in action was in 1988. (Or was it 1989? Meh, same difference.) At the time, I was pretty impressed with the sound quality. Heck, I was impressed that hands-free conversations were even possible. You have to remember that mobile phones were still an expensive novelty — about $4000 in today’s US dollars. And good grief, they looked like this:

It’s almost a shock to see how far we’ve come since 1988. We’ve become conditioned to devices that cost far less, do far more, and fit into much smaller pockets. (Though, admittedly, the size trend for smartphones has shifted into reverse.) Likewise, we’ve become conditioned to hands-free systems whose sound quality would put that 1998 kit to shame. The sound might have been okay at the time, but because of the contrast effect, it wouldn’t pass muster today. Our ears have become too discerning.

Which brings me to a new white paper from Phil Hetherington and Andrew Mohan of the acoustics team at QNX Software Systems. Evaluating hands-free solutions from various suppliers can be a complex endeavor, for the simple fact that hands-free systems have become so sophisticated and complex. To help simplify the decision process, Phil and Andrew have boiled the problem down to 10 key factors:

Acoustic echo cancellation
Noise reduction and speech reconstruction
Multi-channel support
Automatic gain control
Equalization
Wind buffet suppression
Intelligibility enhancement
Noise dependent receive gain
Bandwidth extension
Wideband support

Ultimately, you must judge a hands-free solution by the quality of the useful sound it delivers. By focusing on these 10 essentials, you can make a much sounder judgment (pun fully intended).

Recently, Electronic Design published a version of this paper on their website. For a longer version, which includes a decision checklist, visit the QNX download center.

Meet the QNX concept team: True Nguyen, UX designer

We continue our spotlight on the QNX concept development team with True Nguyen, the team's user experience designer.

We interviewed True just prior to CES 2013, and she was hoping that people's impressions of the latest QNX technology concept car would be as fantastic as hers. True's love of cars stems back to her childhood, and that really comes out in the interview.

If you haven't had a chance to meet the other team members, you can read their stories here.

Next up, we'll interview Alexandre James to get his impressions of the Bentley and the buzz from CES 2013.

I ♥ Leatherman

I have an addiction. I can't stop buying Leatherman tools.

Somewhere, I have an original Leatherman PST, which came with a leather case with an brass snap button.

Then, every few years, when they came out with a new better tool, I had to have it. I now have about 6 of them stashed away in different places. One in my car, one at work in my drawer, another in my laptop bag.

My newest addition was a clearance priced ($20!!!) set from Home Depot: a Wingman and Style combo set. The Wingman has a liner-lock knife, spring action pliers, and a very nice feeling handle, but does skimp on scissors (no return spring). The Style does have spring return scissors, and fits very nicely in a pants pocket or on a keychain.

There are some great things about Leatherman, the company. They stubbornly keep making their tools in the U.S.A, in their Oregon plant. If you break one, they'll fix it or replace it no questions asked. I once got a new tool, for free, even though the reason for the breakage was that I had used the pliers to cut a piece of wire which was too hard, and damaged the pliers joint. Meanwhile, companies like Gerber have moved their production to China. Leatherman also makes a series of military specific tools, for uses such as weapon maintenance.

My only significant beef with Leatherman is that the owner of the company is known for supporting left-wing politicians, and some of the attendant causes such as gun control and environmentalism. However, I'm willing to overlook his politics based on having a good product, good service, and American manufacturing.

*Note: this is not a sponsored post, I really do like Leatherman. No consideration was given for this posting.

Zlaty Meyer at NAIAIS

A local journalist, who has a pretty good sense of humor, did a video dispatch from the North America International Auto Show in Detroit. It's worth watching.

Our best CES yet

Anecdotes and observations from the QNX booth at 2013 CES

As a wrap-up to last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, I would love to regale you with all the cool technologies and nifty gadgets that I saw. But over the course of the entire four days, I rarely left the 20’x40’ patch of white carpet that was the QNX booth — with brief exceptions, of course, for bodily maintenance. The booth was just too busy for me to get away. If you checked out the QNX booth webcam, you know what I'm talking about.

Paul Leroux and Nancy Young have already posted a lot of information and photos about the show and the new QNX concept car, which is based on a Bentley Continental GT. So let me provide my personal view of CES through assorted anecdotes or observations collected at the booth.

As you’d expect, the Bentley got a lot of attention. But our reference vehicle, based on a Jeep Wrangler, got more attention than I thought it would, even though this is the third time we’ve shown it in public. Many of the people interested in the Jeep just wanted to see what our QNX CAR application platform looked like “out of the box” without customization. And some were confessed Jeep or truck aficionados, without the “luxury brand lust” experienced by most.
People in the auto industry knew who we were without introduction. Non-automotive people didn’t know who we were until I mentioned that “we are a wholly owned subsidiary of Research In Motion,” at which point most of them said “Oh, you’re that QNX.” Seems that your average person has heard quite a bit about QNX in the context of BlackBerry, but has no idea that the same company is doing things in automotive — or in anything else, for that matter. I usually then spoke about our 30+ year legacy in life- and mission-critical systems. When people learned that an OS used for mission-critical systems will also power their next potential phone, their reaction was “wow—that’s really cool.”
Tanner Foust is a really nice young kid. (Actually, he’s not that much younger than me, but he sure looks young!) I didn’t know who he was when he was being filmed in the booth, surrounded by a throng of admirers. But since then, I’ve watched a lot of his YouTube videos and boy, can he drive! He's an accomplished race car driver, TV personality, and stuntman for lots of famous movies, but it’s nice to see he hasn’t let it go to his head.
We wanted to make sure that our concept car respected the Bentley brand. To do that, we ran our design sketches by the folks at Bentley and they occasionally suggested some tweaks. It was all our own work, however, and the Bentley folks never saw it before it hit the show floor. When they came to the booth, they were very happy with what they saw — enough so that they said “it looked like we did it.” That, to me, was the ultimate compliment.
Most frequent question: “Are you giving this away?” As it turns out, it’s something that people have said for every concept car we’ve done to date. Second most frequent question: “Can I drive it?” Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the answer to both is “No.”
I was a little surprised by the enthusiastic response to the car's video conferencing. Of course, it works only while the car is parked, and you only get audio while the car is in Drive. But the part that seemed to impress people the most is the audio: two channel stereo and a full 20Hz to 22KHz means that the call sounds so much better than your typical hands-free call. You could see the reaction when the our director of acoustics Phil Hetherington started talking — you don’t know what you’ve been missing until you hear it.
Bentley wanted us to add our video conferencing solution to the technology concept car. Because many Bentley vehicle owners aren’t necessarily the drivers, this feature makes a whole lot more sense for rear-seat systems than you might initially imagine.
I was really impressed by two members of the media: Brian Cooley of CNET and Craig Peterson of Clear Channel. Both could receive a five minute technology core dump, quickly digest it, and talk intelligently about it on video or live radio (respectively) with no stumbles, questions, or missteps. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both in action before, but their consummate professionalism is really quite amazing.
I and every other QNX’er was delighted that we didn’t win the CNET Best of CES award! Instead, our customer, Chevrolet, won it for their MyLink system, and we couldn’t have been happier. Two out of the three nominees were QNX-based systems (the Garmin K2 was the other), so our odds were good. I’d rather that we never win another Best of CES award if it meant that one of our customers could always win instead.
A number of people asked about the RIM booth and its absence. I explained that RIM was focusing on their launch at the end of January, and that since they wouldn’t have a new product to show the public, it didn’t make sense to be there. (It’s notable that Microsoft wasn’t there either, and Apple never is.) RIM was in Las Vegas in a hotel outside the convention center, giving media private previews of the upcoming phones that seemed to be extremely well received. And we had a few of our RIM compatriots helping us out at the QNX booth as well.

That’s all I’ve got to say about CES 2013 — our best show yet. See you next year!

SOLD - Honda EK 9 - Half Cut

SOLD To Local Customer
This Half Cut Model Is Honda EK9 - 2nd Gen , Engine B16B - Type R - Manual . Selling Together With All The Loose Parts Shown In The Photos

Selling As Is Where Is Basis

To View Engine Revving, Click Video Below :-

General View Of The Half Cut

General View Of The Speedometer

Mileage Reading :- 090413 Kilometers Or 56,180 Miles

Engine Tag Information

Chassis Number

General View Of The Engine Bay

Inner Part Of The Engine

Engine Number

Gearbox Bar Code

Steering Wheel - Mugen Power - Good Condition

Driver Side - Headlamp - Good Condition

Driver Side - Fender - Dented

Drive Side - Aftermarket Absorber - Brand:- OHLINS With Brake Caliper And Rotor

Driver Side - Fender - Dented

Fibreglass Bonnet - Good Condition

Passenger Side - Headlamp - Good Condition

Passenger Side - Fender - Dented

Passenger Side - Aftermarket Absorber - Brand:- OHLINS With Brake Caliper And Rotor

Passenger Side - Fender - Dented

Rear Kunckle With Brake Cables

Aftermarket Rear Absorbers - Brand :- OHLINS / Rear Strut Bar - Brand :- CUSCO

Tail Lamps - Good Condition

Roll Cage

Exhaust Pipe

Rear Bumper / Side Skirts - Good Condition

Petrol Tank With Fuel Pump Attached

Driver Side - Door With Side Mirror - Good Condition

Driver Side - Door Cover - Good Condition

Passenger Side - Door With Side Mirror - Good Condition

Passenger Side - Door Cover - Good Condition

Tailgate With Original Spoiler / Glass Intact

General View Of The Half Cut

SOLD - Evo 2 - Half Cut

SOLD To Local Customer
This Half Cut Body Is Evo 2 , The Engine Is Evo 3 - 4G63 Turbo - Manual ( 4WD ) - LSD , Selling Together With All The Parts Show In The Photo, The Rear Axle Centre Gear Is LSD

Selling As Is Where Is Basis

To View Engine Revving, Click Below Link :-