Just days before NAIAS 2015, Ford Motor Company used CES 2015 to announce improvements to its current technology and initiatives for future advancements.
Focusing on the most immediate first, Ford offered demos of its new SYNC 3, the communications and entertainment system offering improved speed and ease of use with enhanced response to driver commands.
SYNC 3’s more conversational speech recognition technology makes voice interactions easier and ore instinctive. For example, the system now recognizes more casual category and business names. For example, the demo highlights a restaurant like, say, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Nobody calls the joint that. As humans do with most names, we opt for the easiest and quickest terms to refer to whatever we want. So, SYNC 3 now recognizes and adjusts to shorter place names like P.F. Chang’s. It’s all a sign of voice recognition tech improving and inching ever closer to conversational language with AI.
In addition to improved voice interaction, SYNC 3 changes its menu system with a more smartphone-centric touch screen design with new graphics. Ford went away from the four category zones of its old menu, opting for a screen that always displays its core menu regardless of what activity the menu engages. So, users can always go anywhere they want to go from the same menu without having to hit the “back” button.
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While SYNC 3 is ready to go, Ford also used CES 2015 to announce a vast program of technology experiments and research projects. The Ford Smart Mobility program (in the words of Ford) will “use innovation to take it to the next level in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience and big data.”
So, Ford will mount 25 mobility experiments around the world to test transportation and “smart city” concepts. With eight in North America, nine in Europe and Africa, seven in Asia and one in South America, these experiments are designed to anticipate what customers might want and need in what Ford calls a “transportation ecosystem.”
The 25 experiments fall under four global “megatrends,” including explosive population growth, an expanding middle class, air quality with public health concerns and changing customer attitudes and priorities. Fourteen of the 25 experiments are Ford-led research projects, and 11 are part of the company’s Innovate Mobility Challenge Series. The experiments include:
- Big Data Drive: Dearborn, Michigan
- Fleet Insights: United States
- Data Driven Insurance: London
- Remote Repositioning: Atlanta
- City Driving On-Demand: London
- Dynamic Social Shuttle: New York, London
- Car Swap: Dearborn, Michigan
- Ford Carsharing: Germany
- Share-Car: Bangalore, India
- Rapid Recharge & Share: Atlanta
- Data Driven Healthcare: The Gambia, West Africa
- Parking Spotter: Atlanta
- Info Cycle: Palo Alto, California
- Painless Parking: London
Ford brought in global innovators and developers to work on these projects in North America and South America, Portugal, Africa, India, China, England and Australia.
Practical examples of what these projects might lead to finding open parking spaces on city streets, pinning down better ways to navigate busy traffic zones or using navigation to help drivers find medical care or other essential services in remote areas.
