Intel Atom chips to show up in BMW and Mercedes media systems

[BigWarpGuy]

Intel Atom chip in BMW and Mercedes.

An Intel Atom chip in a Smart Fortwo? A smarter Smart car?

[Godfather]

Next up, a Bill Gates Edition..........

[BigWarpGuy]

Would you really want to an operating system - Windows - that is known for crashing being in ones car?

[Woody14619]

Originally Posted by BigWarpGuy

Would you really want to an operating system - Windows - that is known for crashing being in ones car?

Atom processors are know mainly for being using in Netbooks (those really light-weight solid-state machines) and embedded devices. While XP (and Windows 7) can run on the Atom, most Atom based netbooks and devices tend to run some variant of Linux or a proprietary unix-esque system.

For something in a car, I'd highly doubt any form of Windows would be used. Most manufacturers want to have a system that's sealed, or at least not open enough for the "common user" to come in and meddle with it. (Thus the Linux/custom solutions.) Windows (even when locked down) is still quite compromisable, since it's such a common item. Plus the licensing fees for Windows would add quite a chunk to the cost of the device.