Mazda replaces car keys with USB drive...

Designed for "net-savvy youngsters", Mazda's new concept hatchback, Sassou,
ditches the traditional cylinder lock key system in favor of USB flash
drives. In addition to starting the engine, the flash drives can be used to
transfer driving directions for long trips along with the latest songs for
the day to the Sassou's internal hard drive.

http://www.everythingusb.com/mazda_sassou.html

"BE" > wrote in message
news
> Designed for "net-savvy youngsters", Mazda's new concept hatchback,
Sassou,
> ditches the traditional cylinder lock key system in favor of USB flash
> drives. In addition to starting the engine, the flash drives can be used
to
> transfer driving directions for long trips along with the latest songs for
> the day to the Sassou's internal hard drive.
>
> http://www.everythingusb.com/mazda_sassou.html
>
>
Flash drives can also have their contents modified, copied, deleted,
formatted, or infected by a computer virus... this USB drive instead of keys
is not a good idea.

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:32:01 -0700, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
> wrote:

>"BE" > wrote in message
>news
>> Designed for "net-savvy youngsters", Mazda's new concept hatchback,
>Sassou,
>> ditches the traditional cylinder lock key system in favor of USB flash
>> drives. In addition to starting the engine, the flash drives can be used
>to
>> transfer driving directions for long trips along with the latest songs for
>> the day to the Sassou's internal hard drive.
>>
>> http://www.everythingusb.com/mazda_sassou.html
>>
>>
>Flash drives can also have their contents modified, copied, deleted,
>formatted, or infected by a computer virus... this USB drive instead of keys
>is not a good idea.

That's a concept car. It will never actually see production.

Although USB flash drives can be surprisingly tough. I accidentally
left my SanDisk in my pants pocket on wash day; it survived a trip
through the washer and the dryer and still works just fine.

On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 21:44:49 -0700, Scott en Aztlán
> was understood to have stated the
following:

>
>That's a concept car. It will never actually see production.
>
>Although USB flash drives can be surprisingly tough. I accidentally
>left my SanDisk in my pants pocket on wash day; it survived a trip
>through the washer and the dryer and still works just fine.

They can also be surprisingly fragile; I've had one go belly-up, as
has a friend of mine. Kind of a ****er when the only copy of a piece
of data is on a dead thumbdrive.

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:32:01 -0700, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr."
> was understood to have stated the
following:

>Flash drives can also have their contents modified, copied, deleted,
>formatted, or infected by a computer virus... this USB drive instead of keys
>is not a good idea.

SecureDigital cards have read only portions, and SD cards can be used
with a JumpDrive. I'm sure the technology can be extended to carry the
information required to start the vehicle in the read-only portion of
the memory.

In article >,
"David W. Poole, Jr." > wrote:

> On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 21:44:49 -0700, Scott en Aztlán
> > was understood to have stated the
> following:
>
> >
> >That's a concept car. It will never actually see production.
> >
> >Although USB flash drives can be surprisingly tough. I accidentally
> >left my SanDisk in my pants pocket on wash day; it survived a trip
> >through the washer and the dryer and still works just fine.
>
> They can also be surprisingly fragile; I've had one go belly-up, as
> has a friend of mine. Kind of a ****er when the only copy of a piece
> of data is on a dead thumbdrive.

Than again, only a fool would leave the only copy of data on a flash
drive, at least not until the data can be copied elsewhere.

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 20:51:18 -0400, Shawn Hirn > was
understood to have stated the following:

>> They can also be surprisingly fragile; I've had one go belly-up, as
>> has a friend of mine. Kind of a ****er when the only copy of a piece
>> of data is on a dead thumbdrive.
>
>Than again, only a fool would leave the only copy of data on a flash
>drive, at least not until the data can be copied elsewhere.

Agreed, and in 25 years of computing the only time I've lost any
"non-recoverable" data (and most of it was backed up, particularly all
the important stuff) was in the early 90's when Michelangelo hit.

In the case of my deceased thumb drive, the "only copy of data" which
I was referring to was a copy of some training videos a coworker had
given me, which I had hoped to view at home over the weekend.
Unfortunately the drive died on a Friday night, and I certainly wasn't
about to trek back to work to get the data, and I certainly wouldn't
carry TWO thumb drives around for redundancy.