KITT is ready to hack your car's computer

Remember how Michael Knight's KITT could take control of other cars in Knight Rider by jamming their brakes with a 'Microlock'. Technology has now surpassed that.

CNET reports that a group of university researchers has managed to 'hack' a car, locking the brakes, the engine and the windows remotely. They were also able to change the speedometer display, turn on the radio and sound the horn.

So watch out if a 1982 Trans-Am pulls alongside you...

The way of the car salesman

I’ve just been to look at a new car – well, not a new car*, a second-hand car – and I was particularly struck by 'the way of the car salesman'. Having searched online and found a car, I turned up at the car showroom… only to find a car that looked very similar to the one I’d seen on the web but costing £500 more. When I mentioned it to the car salesman, he said – without the bat of an eyelid – "we put those prices online to make the cars look more attractive".

"Hang on", I thought, "what about people walking past" – and then I realised that many people probably don’t just ‘walk past’ anymore but browse online first.

Even so, it seemed a strange assumption that someone would look online, find a dearer price at the showroom and wouldn’t think “this is a car salesman being deceptive before I’ve even started talking about purchase prices and part-exchange values”.

An odd technique… and what’s probably just as odd is that I didn’t dislike the salesman for admitting it!




* despite the temptation of the scrappage allowance; a word that's been in the dictionary since 1949