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Ford has tapped the University of Michigan to help bring cloud computing and social networking to Sync, the company's wildly successful in-car connectivity and communications-and-entertainment system. The goal is to figure out what's next.
The project, dubbed American Journey 2.0, provides students with unfettered access to a developmental operating system. It invites them to develop and test programs Ford says will enhance the driving experience for everyone in the car. The company calls the program "a developmental shift for Ford" that brings a touch of Silicon Valley to Detroit while tapping the same audience that has made Sync a success.
"Already with Sync we have proven that we can access information in the cloud," said Venkatesh Prasad, head of the company's infotronics team in Research & Advanced Engineering. "This research gives us the opportunity to harness the power of student innovation to explore beyond those capabilities and develop what's next. We want the students to get creative and develop ways to responsibly connect the car to communicate and share with the outside world."
Sync, which Ford developed with Microsoft, is the leading in-car communications-and-entertainment system, and it makes sense for the automaker to invite students to build upon the system. Twenty-something buyers -- the so-called Millennials -- have propelled much of the system's success and made it a big seller for Ford.
Microsoft's "Millennials in Automotive Survey 2009" found 77 percent of respondents use social networking sites, 50 percent subscribe to more than one site, and 64 percent visit them daily. What's more, millennials will make up 28 percent of the driving population next year, a nine-point increase from 2004. That's one reason Ford has tapped the power of social networking to sell the Fiesta and the Fusion. Ford thinks those same twenty-somethings can improve Sync by bringing web data and social networks like Twitter and Facebook to your dashboard.
"What excites me about this project is that it gives our students the opportunity to unleash their creativity using cutting-edge technologies that connect the vehicle and the cloud," said Dr. Jason Flinn, an associate professor at the University of Michigan.
The project is split into two phases. The first, which started earlier this month, is a six-week beta test of a prototype software platform. Computer and electrical engineering students are running a variety of applications in an attempt to break codes and crash the system.
"We are doing a complete shakedown of the development platform," said Dr. Brian Noble, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UM. "It's frustrating because the features and functions don't work the way we think they're supposed to, and it's awesome because we are working on the bleeding edge."
That group's findings will shape the project's second phase, the development of an in-vehicle connectivity platform that will be built during a second-semester course on embedded telematics. It will involve 25 to 30 students from multiple disciplines. They will work in small teams to develop the platform and build on its connectivity capabilities with new applications.
When they're done, a panel of judges from Ford, the University of Michigan, Microsoft, Maker Faire and others will pick the winning application set. The winning team will install the programs in a Ford Fiesta for American Journey 2.0, a road trip to show off the car at next year's Maker Faire, the world's largest DIY convention.
Photo: Mark Fields, Ford executive VP and president of the Americas, demonstrates Sync at the Detroit auto show in 2007.
Courtesy Ford
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