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Inside Ford's New Silicon Valley Lab
An anonymous reader writes Engadget takes a look at Ford's new Research and Innovation Center located in Palo Alto. The company hopes to use the new facility to speed the development of projects such as autonomous cars and better natural voice recognition. From the article: "This isn't Ford's first dance with the Valley — it actually started its courtship several years ago when it opened its inaugural Silicon Valley office in 2012. The new center, however, is a much bigger effort, with someone new at the helm. That person is Dragos Maciuca, a former Apple engineer with significant experience in consumer electronics, semiconductors, aerospace and automotive tech. Ford also hopes to build a team of 125 professionals under Maciuca, which would make the company one of the largest dedicated automotive research teams in the Valley."
Fix it again, Tim
Ford's voice recognition in the MyFord Touch sucks more than a porn star.
The last video in TFA is about the Ford's HMI testbed, which is used to try out different cockpit configurations. During that video they show the driver selecting something on the touch screen panel in the center console. During this event you can clearly see the driver take his eyes off the road in order to watch what his fingers are doing.
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"That person is Dragos Maciuca. He opened up his wings...huge, beautiful, white feathers everywhere. He then took to the sky. He would save Ford. He would save the world."
They really show where those modern cockpits go wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA2eYUefjQs#t=30
Are they so blind that they put this fragment in a promotion video?
Physical buttons please!
Or a huge screen (like Tesla) so you less likely to miss the soft button while not looking at the screen.
Still physical buttons for temperature and radio volume and channel should stay.
Well this is potentially great news assuming they can do better than mytouch.
But on the infotainment side, android auto/carplay are going to destroy anything that the automakers can produce on their own. In fact, if automakers could work directly with Google or Apple they'd be much better off than trying to come up with something home grown.
Let's get our approximates right!
A couple = ~2
A few = ~3
Several = ~7
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Maybe they can figure out why my C-Max makes a loud tone out the speakers when the engine is at exactly 2380 RPM. This car has an Active Noise Cancellation processor with several microphones and it is going berserk. Some Fusions get the same oscillation.
Apparently Ford decided it was cheaper to put in a DSP than to add sound insulation.
Germany is currently behind in driving automation, but by their gov. creating a lane between 2 cities in which only partial and fully automated cars car drive, well, they will move this up QUICKLY.
If Tesla and Google want to retain their lead and Ford wants to join them, then they should encourage California to create some lanes that are 50 miles or long on road that are heavily traveled by commuters. In addition, CA would be wise to let these companies use some of their cars for experiments.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, and the Microsoft Sync on my F-150 doesn't very often.
For once, this troll is on topic. It demonstrates why voice recognition needs to improve. After all, it's hard to wreck a nice beach.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Actually, auto makers are tending to do the opposite, actually using speakers and installing other systems to make the engine noises LOUDER. ;)
I don't read AC A human right
Almost made 1st. Keep trying!