Hi BlackIce,

I read a sci-fi novel where toilets were used to detect health problems. That doesn't sound so far fetched anymore. Pee into the toilet, quick analysis and ding ding your doc gets called.

I am vaguely familiar with Qual Com and its reporting. The system even lets a trucker receive and send Fax’s. But this system actually manages the fuel intake into the manifold based on incline and speed as equated to your location.

I highly doubt ambulances with ever use a public navigation system. I authored a feasibility study of retrofitting snow plows (because one was lost in a blizzard in 1998) with such a system and along with that rollout- migration to rescue vehicles. The snow plow people had a greater need because they could not locate the plow and rescue the driver. There really wasn't anything that could be used at the time (2001) outside of a GPS receiver that would send coordinates back to the dispatcher and display it on a map. But that is not what I would call navigation. There really isn't a need. Maps are fairly static even in high growth areas. The dispatcher has access to all necessary information and in some cases the exact location of the vehicle. And roads don't wonder off their route, they are fairly static and won't change during the duration of the vehicles trip. I could see a need if they were dispatched to cities 1000 miles as a normal operating procedure. What I worked out for that system was not public. That would be like putting an unprotected wi-fi link on the main 911 servers.

As for the 747, I said modern. That thing is old and to my recollection was never designed to use a computer. The old one's were all dials, and then later retrofitted to take advantage of advancing technology, like the radar that scans the space in front of the craft and will automatically either raise or lower the altitude (depending on direction) to avoid midair collisions. Or the computer systems designed to detect and mitigate wind shear, the mechanism for a lot of crashes). But it can fly on nothing more than a jet engine and hydraulics to manipulate airflow. There were less crashes because they were an exponential number of less flights. Actually I think it's the other way around, I remember planes crashing all the time in the 70s. Not so much these days, except those small private planes seem to drop like flies, but the aren't in the same league. In addition many countries didn't even have airports yet and we can't control what goes on in Korea or Chili etc. Only the planes that come into our air space have to meet safety requirements.


I agree with you that those caught messing around with systems that could cause public safety concern could be treat more harsh than someone accessing your web cam.

//Edit hate to tell you Spazz, that 87 caprice classic has a computer in it, that if failed, would not let you turn the key and step on the gas. Cars don't need to communicate to a PDA, but people in the car use communication conduits housed in the car. They aren't the same systems. Until the day comes when the car drives itself and needs info on the nearest gas station.