I'm looking around at the Beta 12b kernel code out of boredom, and have come across some notes from the people at empeg that suggest features for the future.

One is in empeg_power.c. There is notes talking about the use of the power pic keeping track of the powerup counter in the car. Basicially, if it's the first time it's powered up in the car, it could ask for a PIN. After that, it won't ask for a PIN again until removed and put back into the car. This has some other unique uses as well. Just thought I'd point that out to any developers who wern't aware of it. The power state seems to be more complex, also giving programs other uses as well. It now also has information on the first boot in car, the state of the accessory line, the status of the cell phone mute, and light sense.

In empeg_display.c, theres some notes about making the display non-cachable, so that any process and the kernel see the same things. This could potentially be used for a program to overlay something on the display. Odd thing is that the code below the comment about this is commented out. (I am seeing both // and /* */ to comment things out in the code, do a few people at empeg use one way, and the others the other method?) Am I right in understanding the non-caching display method is currently disabled, and is there any plan to reimplement this soon?

Also, it looks like the startup code looks for the "empg" ID tag to display user graphics. So, any program that is made to customise and turn off the customized graphics simply has to modify the ID tag.

In the Beta 12b notes, Mike talked about the page where user logos are stored being able to hold 8k before running into other code. User logos only take 4k (2k for AC, 2k for DC), so that leaves 4k for other uses. What about using the spare 4 k for PIN logo data. Also, on PIN's, all the code and numbers should be stored in the kernel flash space somewhere, so that simply replacing the drives will not get around the security.

Anyhow, it definitly looks like some neat features and posibilities are in the works.