Knight Rider For Your iPod - We Can Now Talk To Our Cars!
01.31.07 - 03:43pm
We always knew that someday we would all have a car like Knight Rider and Sync takes us one step closer to the real thing.
Sync is a new automotive electronics system from Ford and Microsoft. What it does is allow the driver to speak to the car to make a phone call, listen to a text message - read aloud by the car, or find a music track from your iPod or MP3 player and play it without having to fumble through the click wheel (a definite asset while driving).
Announced at CES and the North American International Auto Show, Sync links Bluetooth mobile phones, kindred wireless and USB-based devices into the cars audio system. It offers a USB 2.0 port for control and charging of digital devices including the iPod, Zune, MP3 players and storage devices such as flash drives. One can access Sync either by speaking to it or through steering wheel controls.
Sync also talks in French and Spanish as well a English. It has the power to read and write text messages, call up tracks of music player by artist, title and genre information, as well as caller-specific ring tones.
Gary Jablonski, manager of Infotainment Systems at Ford says “What it really is, is a computer in the car.”
Pricing has not yet been decided although it has been suggested that the price will be around $500 to $700. There will be no monthly charges and upgrades will be able to be added to the system as they become available.
Sync will be out this fall in the Ford Focus, Fusion, Five Hundred, Edge, Freestyle, Explorer and Sport Trac; Mercury Milan, Montego and Mountaineer; and Lincoln MKX and MKZ. Sync will be offered in Ford’s full range of vehicles for 2009.
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