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Comment by flangola7 | Hacker News Reader

Your steering wheel and pedals are digital too. Airliner controls have been digital for decades. Factories have life or death safety systems that count on silicon and a software stack to respond quickly and without error.

Apple can make it possible if they wanted too.

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Steering is analog. One of reasons why by-wire steering control did not succeed is user feedback, it was tried and failed. Brake pedal is analog too, just assisted and override-able. Gas pedal had been all digital for some time.

Also, it’s true that Airbus sidestick is fully electronic, but there’s a nuance in engine control being in the center on airplanes. Until automated, engine control on airliners was a task of a flight engineer, like it still is on ocean going ships. So fully digitalized engine control is a replacement to the FE, not necessarily an automation of what originally was a pilot’s task. Which means, I think, pushing a vehicle forward was never necessarily the responsibility of a pilot or a driver, though controlling where not to go is.

>Steering is analog.

This is changing rapidly. eg:

https://www.infinitiusa.com/infiniti-news/technology/direct-...

That was the failed attempt I was referring to, literally a decade ago. Toyota is doing a retry with bZ4X/Lexus RZ, and those three are the only known cars to have passed prototype stages with (front wheel)Steer-By-Wire.

These are all very different from the “HUD goes dark and my meat brain panics, causing me to get into an accident” scenario that GP is talking about.

There are multiple system running on silicon that have been made to not go dark in normal mode of operation. Some examples could be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety-critical_system

I believe cars' steering are analog because it would too expensive to achieve the required level of reliability.

Planes are crazy expensive anyway,so fly-by-wire can be afforded.

If 1T Apple are such magic tech wizards then why couldn't they make AirPower work?

Which is probably the point of the R1 and the real-time subsystem.

Yeah this is the most interesting bit in a way.

Wearing the quest in pass though mode is kinda cool for a bit, but the lag makes it horrible to use for any more than checking where a wall is.

If they really have made this feel instant that’s a massive deal on its own.

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