Mobile Telemedicine:Ford Sync...Can the Car be the New Telemedicine Platform?

Developed with Microsoft, Ford Sync offers a new level of communications and entertainment convenience. Sync lets users control and personalize their electronic devices in their vehicle. This technology will be available in twelve 2008 model year Ford, Lincoln and Mercury beginning Fall 2007, including Focus, Fusion, Edge, and Explorer. Check out www.syncmyride.com. Incorporating Bluetooth wireless connection technology as its foundation, Sync can connect cellular phones to the vehicle. The user's personal features (such as phone book and ring tones) are automatically downloaded. Sync offers a unique industry-leading text-to-speech function that will translate incoming text messages to speech and read them over the vehicle's audio system. Sync will translate abbreviation like "LOL" into "Laughing Out Loud," and it offers 20 pre-determined responses that can be customized via web downloads. Sync is also the only automotive application that offers full hands-free, voice-activated command and control over portable music players and storage devices, including Zune and iPod.