Computers for Cars

Image via Wikipedia

The computer is ubiquitous these days. In the past, you can only find these monsters inside universities, laboratories and in the military. Now, everybody seems to have one. Even cars. Yep, your car has a microchip that controls fuel injection, braking and stability control, among other things. It is now even possible to interface your laptop computer with your car.

This is a nice thing because you could then use a lot of useful applications in your laptop to perform adjustments and troubleshooting routines. You could also perform a variety of measurements. For instance, you can measure your engine’s horsepower and your car’s brake horse power ala The Fast and The Furious. Of course, it won’t be the same as using a real dynamometer but at least you will have a pretty good estimate. A dynamometer measures force, torque or power. These metrics are very important to mechanics and car enthusiast. With these metrics, you can fine tune a car to work optimally and efficiently.

Since computers are improving all the time, courtesy of Moore’s Law, do not be surprised if the computer in your car becomes more powerful than it is now. In the future, it may even be able to interface with your GPS or radar scanner such that when it detects a car in front of you, it slows its speed down or at least prompts you to. Just hope that the computer won’t hang, though.