Computers and Cars

Over the weekend I experienced some techinical difficulties with my car. The simple answer was the alternator was bad, but the car cut off because the car's computer did not get enough power to keep telling the engine how to idle at a stop light. The computer in the car not only counts the mileage and calculates miles per gallon with some extremely weird algorithm, it reads all the sensors on the car and adjust things such as the radiator fan being on, how high to idle the car as it sits and detection of wheelspin and turning on brakes. Some people say the cars computers do too much, when it comes to actually applying brakes to certain wheels to prevent wheelspin or lockup. Modern cars are a far cry from forty years ago when most everything was done mechanically. This advance in technology has made mechanics more of a diagnostic reader then pure mechanic of years past. Cars will tell any problems or errors that are going on with it sensors and help take out the guess work when a car doesnt want to start up. This morning I had to get a $150 key made because the transponder in the key tells the cars computer that it is ok to start up. Finger print technology used to open cars is already out, what will be the next? Perhaps using advanced biometrics to program cars to their owners. No need for a key if the car recognizes the driver by some combination of scans. I wonder what will be done 40 years from now.