BlackBerry Debuts New QNX Version Which Partitions Critical and Other Car Systems (Jun 7, 2017)

BlackBerry’s QNX division already makes the operating systems that power many cars today, and it’s just announced a new version of its OS for cars titled QNX Hypervisor 2.0. The key selling point of the new version is that it better partitions the safety-critical and non-safety-critical elements of the OS and the services they support in order to both prevent localized glitches from crippling the whole car and also insulate safety-critical functions from hacks that penetrate, say, the infotainment system. The implication of both of those, of course, is that there could be glitches or hacks that would penetrate certain systems, which seems a realistic if not a heartening concession. But as Android and other operating systems make their way into cars, being able to separate functions relating to driving tasks from those that merely deal with infotainment and other elements of the in-car experience is going to be increasingly important, and BlackBerry/QNX is emphasizing that element. I also wonder if it means QNX will be more able to operate as part of a hybrid operating system environment within cars, where infotainment features might be powered by the new version of Android for center consoles while driving features are still powered by QNX.

via Axios


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