Europe welcomes Ford SYNC with MyFord Touch

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Posted By Barb Edson
General Manager, Marketing and Business Development

Recently, I joined our partners at Ford for the European launch of Ford SYNC with MyFord Touch at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

At IFA Ford announced that this version of Ford SYNC—which includes a touchscreen interface—will be coming to Europe in 2013 in the Ford Focus Electric.

While I was at the conference I participated in a roundtable discussion with Ford and a few other industry experts to discuss the future of the connected car. The connected car focuses on how the vehicle experience can be enhanced when you integrate internet connectivity, data, and new user interface technologies like speech and touch.

The subject of the connected car is especially near and dear to us in Windows Embedded – and not only because Ford SYNC is built on the Windows Embedded Automotive software platform. When we talk about intelligent systems as the evolution of the embedded device market, it’s exciting to see how this is affecting the automotive industry.

For example, with internet connectivity so widespread, with cloud computing providing the potential for vast data storage and analysis, and with hardware and user interface technologies expanding the potential for devices to capture and analyze data – we see intelligent systems applied to the connected car via a platform which combines three key elements:

  1. Flexible: The vehicle can work with any device a driver or passenger brings into the vehicle.
  2. Intelligent: The vehicle can connect the car’s needs (such as data and vehicle health reports) with the occupant’s needs (such as navigation or pollen count).
  3. Upgradeable: The vehicle will be capable of adding new experiences and technologies to the existing physical device.

Ford SYNC is a great example of what intelligent systems can bring to the car experience, allowing you to access the devices and services that fuel your life—all by utilizing the power of your own voice. When you think about in-car technology, the sky is the limit especially when you apply even more robust cloud services.

Check out this video for a closer look at one possible scenario I’ve been thinking about.