News
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Ford Updates its MyFord Touch Interface: Easier to Use, Faster and Less Distracting
Ford today announced a major upgrade to its MyFord Touch user interface that allows drivers to control virtually all aspects of their cars infotainment system with the help of voice commands, a touchscreen and dedicated buttons on the dashboard. The earlier MyFord Touch system, which was available on a number of 2011 and 2012 model year cars, has a reputation for being overly complex and slow. The update the company announced today greatly simplifies the user experience and also offers a major performance boost, resulting in faster screen redraws and a more fluid user interface. Ford also enhanced compatibility with Bluetooth smartphones (which now offers iPad support as well), improved the voice recognition experience and upgraded the turn-by-turn navigation system.
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Toyota and Ford Agree to Jointly Develop Standards for Next-Gen Automotive Telematics
This morning, Ford and Toyota announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow the two companies to work together on building a new [...]
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Google and Ford Team Up to Make Your Next Car Smarter
At Google’s I/O developer conference today, Ford announced a new research project that will use Google’s prediction API to help drivers save gas and drive more efficiently. [...]
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U.S. Transportation Secretary: “There’s Absolutely No Reason for Any Person to Download Their Facebook Into the Car”
Cars are becoming increasingly connected and there can be little doubt that this opens drivers up to all kinds of new distractions. Some new cars can now check your Facebook account and read updates out aloud. Others connect you to your personalized music stations on Pandora or let you browse through your locally stored music collection through one of the many little screens that now grace many cars instead of the traditional analog dials. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, however, thinks that all of these electronics are just too distracting and, according to the Wall Street Journal, is pressuring car manufacturers to minimize “gadgetry in new cars.” Indeed, LaHood told the Wall Street Journal that “there’s absolutely no reason for any person to download their Facebook into the car. It’s not necessary.”
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Using WiFi to Create Smarter, Safer Cars and Intersections
A few weeks ago, I wrote that your next car might just have its own IP address. Besides talking to the Internet, though, there is also a lot of utility in using short-range networks that can link multiple cars together into a single, ad-hoc network and alert drivers of potential hazards. Today, Ford announced a new initiative that will rely on short-range WiFi signals to enable cars to create local networks to exchange data about their positions and speeds to avoid accidents.
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Trends
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In-Car CD Players: Another Soon-To-Be Obsolete Technology
I still remember plugging my portable CD player into a cassette adapter so I could listen to my music in the car. Today, in-car cassette players are [...]
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Why Your Next Car Will Have an IP Address
One trend that has become very clear at this year’s CES is that the Internet is slowly making its way into our cars. Of course, you can already browse the Net and play music from Pandora through your smartphone, but the next generation of cars – and especially electric cars – are making the Internet an integral part of the car’s feature set.
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