Forward With Ford - Technologically Genius

Forward with Ford - part 1

Forward with Ford - part 2

I drive a 2002 Dodge Ram van with an extended cab. Think airport shuttle. Long, long airport shuttle. In fact, once when I went to the airport to pick up my mom, a woman standing on the side waved to me. When I rolled down the window, she said, "Is this the shuttle to the Marriot?" When I said no, she then asked, "Well, can you give me a ride anyway?"

True story.

Like just about any long airport van, it's big on cargo space but short on amenities. I have satellite radio - but only that, and only because I added it myself. Other than that, it's a pretty bare bones vehicle.

I've been a fan of the Ford Sync program for a year or two, ever since I was first exposed. I love technology, love my phone and the ability to integrate the two seems pretty awesome to me.

Here is a really great overview of the Sync program - this video is about 4 minutes long.

 

Let's start with some statistics:

- 2008 really begins technology with the advent of the iPhone

- Touch activation is the newest in the technology menu, to be followed by voice activation. The newest upcoming will be movement activation, as an example - kinect. It's not a leap to imagine in being integrated into cars. This concept actually makes me a little leery - what if you made a movement that the car misinterpreted and you caused a crash?

- Ford is working on integrating phone apps into cars. Sync is the Ford program that is designed to do it all with voice recognition. One of the best examples I saw of this is the Nuance System, with Dragon Speech Recognition. Do you have an iPhone? Download the FREE app - it will literally change your life. You never have to type anything - you speak and it records, converts to text and with a touch, you can update your twitter, facebook, blog, send a text or email. I've used it a zillion times in the past five days and it's my absolute favorite.  The difficulty with much voice recognition is the reality that there are about 32 different accents in the United states. The more you use the voice recognition the more it recognizes yours.  One recognizable area of difficulty is diction, and Ford says that they are working to clear up diction difficulties.

The Ford vehicles offer an open platform. Cool. Right? Well, that depends on if you know what an open platform is. And I did not. So.

What is an open platform?

From Wikipedia: In software and web-based architectures, an Open platform describes a software system which is based on open standards such as published and fully documented external programming interfaces that allow using the software to function in other ways than the original programmer intended, without requiring modification of the source code. Using these interfaces, typically known as an application programming interface (API), a 3rd party could integrate with the platform to add functionality. In my understanding, it's a set of hardware and software that enables you to make changes to the vehicle. You can use any phone - not just an iPhone or droid. There is no giant hard drive in the car. It's instead about connectivity of the devices that you have rather than transferring it all for ease of use. Additional updated Material can be downloaded from USB, the cloud, or a phone app.

The Sync program might remind you of OnStar, offered in many GM cars. What makes Sync better than Onstar? Onstar is essentially a built in cellphone. It is useful but becomes obsolete as soon as you have a phone or have upgraded your phone. In addition, it won't integrate your music or texing.

Long term goal: you say what you want and the car does it. Although I wonder if it will ever come to the point where you speak the direction you'd like to turn, and your car follows. That is really a scary concept to me.

I'm a huge fan of Pandora radio. I LOVE it. And I'm not alone - 50 million people listen to pandora at least once a month. Sync will now integrate a Pandora station to be played. If you have Pandora on your phone, you can't speak to the pandora app -UNTIL you get into a Ford car equipped with Sync. This is something I'd really love. Never again do you have to suffer through listening to a song you don't like because you don't have a music player - you just create a station with your favorites.

The ultimate goal of the Ford Sync for the car is to minimize distraction to the driver. A driver using the Sync can find a song in just over 4 seconds, while a driver using a thumbwheel to look for a song takes more than 20 - so this technology makes sense.

I would dearly love to drive a car with the Sync program. It does everything I want.

 

Comments

[addy]

Ok but can I learn how to use it? I have the attention span of a gnat!

[Kevyn Hagemann]

Great insight on this Ford Sync program. I can see why you're such a fan. It looks very easy to use. I was laughing hard at your shuttle misadventure in the airport, because the same thing happen to me when I drove my SUV to JFK. People think I'm an airport taxi since my car is color yellow. Yeah I'm not proud of it.

[BernieR]

se puede decir, esta excepciГіn:) de las reglas
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BernieR

[Supra Footwear]

I'm going home tonight to take a pick, i'm very excited about this (clearly you see how sad and crazy i am about shoes.) Will post the picture

[Brittanie Holderness]

Thanks for sharing this! :) It looks very easy to use. This technology makes sense for a driver like me, since I always have a hard time choosing songs while driving, and music is important to me because it helps me keep awake during my long drive home from work.