Want to tweet with Ford's Sync? There's an app for that.
(Credit: CNET)Editors' note: Ford has clarified that its open platform is still in the prealpha testing stages. The article has been updated to reflect this information.
When Ford and Microsoft opened up their joint Sync platform for its own applications and updates, we wondered when the day would come that third-party developers would be given a crack at the in-vehicle infomatics interface. Well, that day may be on the horizon. Ford announced that it is testing an open-source platform to could be used in the future to develop applications that make use of Sync to connect to social networks in the cloud.
Ford's representatives said the system is built on a Robotics Studio platform by Microsoft that has been layered with an open-source cloud-computing platform developed by Ford that will allow rich--and hopefully seamless--interactions with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
So what's the point? How can social network interactions be useful and safe in 2,000-plus pounds of steel moving at 70mph? Ford's Venkatesh Prasad, group and technical leader of vehicle design and infotainment, posed the following scenarios:
The Ford Fiesta will be the test vehicle used in the University of Michigan's Ford open platform competition.
(Credit: Ford)Imagine you're on a cross-country road trip and you decide to stop in a new city for something to eat. Now, you don't know this new city very well, so you ask Sync to grab some dining and sightseeing suggestions. The application could then fire out a tweet, update your Facebook status, or query Yelp on your behalf and when the responses roll in, it could format them in an easy to understand way, for example as a custom points-of-interest menu.
Another possible application is a Green Car Challenge, where you compete with your friends to see who can average the highest fuel economy while suggesting the greenest driving routes to one another.
This all sounds pretty cool on paper; we'll have to wait a bit longer to know exactly how effective these apps will actually be. We expect that it will really depend on the size, make up, and responsiveness of your social network. I shudder to think of all of the Twitter-bots that currently follow me supplying any sort of advice.
The first test of Ford's open-application SDK will be in conjunction with a competition at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Students will compete to develop the best Sync application that makes use of the cloud. The winning team will have their app installed in Ford's first test mule, a Ford Fiesta, and will take a road trip from Ann Arbor to San Francisco to participate in the 2010 San Mateo Maker's Faire.
Ford currently has no road map for when we can expect to see the Sync open platform in production vehicles, as it is still in the prealpha testing phases.
See? The black hardly shifts from this angle...
(Credit: Josh P. Miller/CNET)You gotta love a good Super Patterned Vertical Alignment (S-PVA)-based display, don't you? Well, you're obviously not required to love them, but with their deep blacks, good viewing angles, and, for the most part, accurate colors, they certainly make it difficult to dislike them.
Case in point: the NEC MultiSync P221W is a 22-inch, $390 S-PVA display that includes the aforementioned perks of most S-PVAs.
A monitor needs to have more than just great performance, however, to justify its price. Extra features and connection options can work wonders toward a monitor's overall worth. With Dell recently lowering the price of its feature-rich, 24-inch UltraSharp 2408WFP to $450, can the 22-inch NEC be expected to compete?
Check out the review to find out. Also, be sure to take a look at more monitor reviews with new ones added every week.
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The photoshopped screen in this picture betrays its true nature. The real screen is glossy--real glossy.
(Credit: Josh P. Miller/CNET)The LED revolution has truly begun. In the last month or so, we've reviewed three LED-based LCD computer monitors, and we expect that they won't be the last.
Last week, we looked at the LG Flatron W2386L. It's an LED-based monitor that, while offering great game performance and a thin design, could not compare performancewise to the current LED king, the Samsung SyncMaster XL2370.
This week, we reviewed the AOC V22 LED monitor. Unlike many recent monitors, this one has a 16:10 aspect ratio instead of 16:9, Also, it has an extremely glossy screen--like "I can pick food out of my teeth looking at this thing" glossy.
More monitor reviews can be found here.
Hey, Apple: If a Zune can sync over Wi-Fi, why can't an iPhone? I mean, it's the 21st century. Why do I still have to fish out my sync cable every time I want to copy photos to my PC?
That's a question for another day. In the meantime, there's WiFiPhoto, which, true to its name, wirelessly transfers snapshots from your iPhone to your computer. Any computer: Windows, Mac, Linux, etc., so long as it's connected to a Wi-Fi network.
To my knowledge, the only other app that comes close is Eye-Fi--but that limits you to 25 uploads per month (unless you have an Eye-Fi card) and requires a (rather annoying) desktop utility.
With WiFiPhoto, you just select the photos you want to copy (from your Camera Roll or photo library), then fire up the browser on your PC. Enter the IP address shown in the app and presto: You get a Zip file containing the selected images.
Obviously it would be nice if the app could copy photos straight to a particular folder, but that's the price of a utility-free solution. Here there's nothing to install on your system, just fast and easy photo transfers.
You can see WiFiPhoto in action in the above video. If you like what you see, the app will run you just 99 cents. Definitely worth the money, in my opinion, at least until Apple paves the way for Wi-Fi syncing. Which the Zune has had for a couple years now. Just saying.
I reviewed the Samsung SyncMaster XL2370 a few weeks back. (BTW, that monitor is slated to be released at Best Buy on October 12, if you're interested.) Since then, it seems the floodgates have been blown wide open when it comes to LED-backlit monitors.
Thursday, we posted a review of the LG W2486L, an LED monitor that has a similarly minimalist design to the XL2370--albeit with a not-quite-as-sleepy sensibility. Also, I just got the AOC V22 (a 22-inch 16:10 LED monitor) in and will soon be receiving a couple LED BenQ monitors.
So yeah, it's likely that over the next couple of months you'll be seeing more LED monitor reviews than you probably ever realized you needed to see.
Also, check out some close-up shots of the W2386L to see how its thinness compares with the XL2370 by clicking on the pics below. As always, all of our latest monitor reviewscan be found here.
Google made two significant enhancements to Google.com on mobile phones Wednesday.
The first, history sync, now makes it possible to carry over a record of your search queries when you switch between mobile and desktop versions of Google.com. Dubbed "Personalized Suggest," Google will now remember your searches and will add them into the list of search suggestions you see as you type into the search bar. The new feature saves you from browsing through your history to repeat a query.
Of course, you do have to be logged in to Google for this to work, and you've got to have Web History switched on. Enable it on a phone by selecting "save searches" in the Settings menu on Google.com. At launch, the feature is only available in the U.S. on Android, iPhone, and Palm WebOS phones.
Google Local on mobile.
(Credit: Google)The second addition today similarly gets the mobile and desktop versions of Google.com talking to one another. Google has redesigned local search to make finding places of interest while on the mobile Google site much more finger-friendly. Click or tap "Local" on the mobile browser and you'll see a Start screen with categories you can browse to find restaurants and other businesses nearby, similar to what you can do on Google Maps. You'll need to have the My Location feature enabled.
There's also a category for viewing the points of interest that you starred as favorites on a Google Map. Starring essentially bookmarks the location's Google Place page. Bookmarking isn't anything new, but the browsable layout is relatively new to Google, which generally favors bare links to graphical enhancements. This treatment has the mobile Google site looking like a mobile hot-spot-finding app you might find in an on-phone app store. We have to say, it's a nice change.
The rejiggered Local Search kicks off in the U.S. and China, with support for more regions in the works.
Updated 5:45 p.m. PDT with more details about e-mail push.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
Some of you who have been restlessly awaiting the arrival of Google's official Gmail push solution for mobile phones can relax now. On Tuesday, Google expanded the over-the-air syncing capabilities in its Google Sync service to include Google's e-mail--but only for the iPhone and iPod Touch (version 3.0), and for Windows Mobile phones.
Google Sync began as a beta service to sync Google calendar items and contacts to iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Series 60 phones. Owners of iPhones, iPod Touches, and Windows Mobile phones can now set it up to include Gmail messages as well.
The phones will receive Google Sync messages through their native e-mail, calendar, and address book apps. Depending on your settings, your phone could vibrate and/or chime to let you know that a new message has come in. Note that Google Sync will not push visual notification boxes to iPhone and iPod Touch interfaces. For that, you'll need third party apps like GPush for iPhone. Instead, it pushes e-mail from the server to the phone, rather than pulls in a list of e-mail messages, a request that the phone's e-mail client makes of the server. Push e-mail is often preferred over "pulled" e-mail for its real-time updates and its lower toll on battery life.
BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian Series 60 users won't have access to pushed Gmail yet, but they can still sync calendar and contact events to the phone's built-in address book and calendar.
To get started, visit m.google.com/sync from your desktop or mobile browser. The step-by-step setup process is best navigated from your computer, and will require you to ultimately configure your phone to sync over the Microsoft Exchange Server.
Related story: Gmail push on iPhone? Meet GPush
Hey! I can see those TV connections on your back. You're not fooling anyone!
(Credit: Josh P. Miller/CNET)What's the difference between an HDTV and a computer monitor? Well, let's see. HDTVs are for the most part made for watching movies and HD broadcasts, and playing video games. Monitors are made for everyday computer operations, productivity tasks, computer games, and to a lesser extent movies. Also, monitors are generally smaller than your average HDTV, and HDTVs usually have more in the way of connection options.
So where does this leave my latest two monitor reviews? The LG Flatron M237WD and the Samsung SyncMaster P2370HD are both monitors with many features only TVs usually have, including multiple connection options--HDMI, Component, and Composite, as well as VGA and DVI--and even remote controls.
If you're interested in a monitor for watching Blu-ray movies, playing video games, and catching your favorite HDTV shows, check out the reviews of both the Samsung and LG to see how well they're able pass in both the TV and monitor worlds.
Also, don't forget to check for the latest monitors reviews from CNET.
This is a remote. This is my hand on a remote. Any questions?
(Credit: Eric Franklin/CNET)Glass necks are nothing new. Well, nothing new when you consider they're been featured in no less than two Samsung monitors: the XL2370 and P2370.
Glass necks look pretty cool, especially the way Samsung uses them, but they seem out of place with the P2370HD. While the other 2370 models are slim and sleek, the P2370HD is a fair bit bulkier. It would be like trying to fit Lou Ferrigno in Christian Bale's Batman costume from the "The Dark Knight." It just looks wrong.
Check out the shots to see what else does and doesn't work with the P2370HD and expect a full review here next week.
Check out our full review of the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
(Credit: Josh P. Miller/CNET)
Spoiler alert: We gave the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid our Editors' Choice award. Although to be fair, after seeing its doppelganger, the 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid, win the award previously, you had to have known the less expensive Fusion was something of a shoo-in.
However, our experience with the Fusion Hybrid wasn't an exact repeat of our time with the Milan. For starters, our tester was not equipped with the hard drive-based navigation system, which let us get a taste of the Sync flavor without the cheat sheet touch screen.
How did the screenless Sync experience stack up? Check the full review of the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid to find out.
