Tuesday 3 April 2012

Road - English spoken?


As someone who struggles to understand what is being said on ‘The Only Way is Essex’ I’m a bit concerned that Essex headquartered Ford Motor Company GB is about to introduce its SYNC in-car connectivity system to the new B-Max before rolling it out across the Focus and Kuga ranges followed by other models in turn.

Already in use in over 4 million vehicles in the USA, Ford’s SYNC system can read aloud incoming messages while allowing drivers to send a text reply by voice from a predetermined list of responses. So that prompts the question, is Ford going to use that awfy polite and posh SatNav lady, or are they going to get one of their own Essex lovelies to do the business?

Ahead of this, Ford commissioned a survey regarding British phone/texting habits.  Apparently, one in three UK drivers admit they have read texts while driving. Despite this, drivers agreed overwhelmingly that reading texts on the move was dangerous. Ninety-five per cent of drivers thought that texting affected driver ability and safety.

The text-to-speech feature on SYNC retrieves messages using a simple voice command from Bluetooth-connected compatible smartphones. And then of course there is the added problem, will the SYNC system understand a broadly spoken Weegie command? 

Wherza burds? Erra burds owererr!

No comments:

Post a Comment