One of the oldest brands challenges the technological companies of the twenty-first century. A huge Corporation with almost hundreds of real Assembly plants around the world, as it seems to have found a way to resist the compact, flexible mobile and Internet startups. Moreover, on their field — in the field of applications for smartphones. How is changing the traditional business in the digital age — in the program Вести.net.
Ford seems to have found something to counter the invasion of tech companies in the automotive industry. The automaker have voiced their fears — they say, soon the car will be just the accessory for a smartphone, and control the industry will be those who control app stores for smart car interface. That is, Apple and Google. In response, the company tried to develop some of their own, an alternative platform that would compete with Carplay and Android Auto.
The result was the application, which has received the name Ford Pass. Ford, using over a century of experience of interaction with customers-drivers, provided with such functions, which, according to the company, really helpful for the motorist. However, not only for the motorist — the app can be downloaded by any mobile user on iOS or Android.
“A year and a half ago, we launched 25 pilot programs: solutions in the field of Parking and car-sharing to multimodal solutions, which for the first user included transferring from car to train, bus and even Bicycle. We tried to understand what is in demand, what decisions have the most prospects. Of these 25 programs 20 we have completed. They have been rethought and turned into a few integrated solutions,” says Vice President and COO Ford of Europe barb, Samagic.
This project is a “Ford” is not limited to: under its own SYNC interface Ford actually wants to unite all of the brands instead of Apple or Google. And Pass — the first step in this direction. Car-sharing, remote search, booking and payment of Parking — that’s not all. There are a couple of projects in the field of big data, the task of which is to find the same proper application of a self-governing automobiles. In Ford believe that the drones will be able to solve the problem of congestion, which in the near future, confident in the company, certainly with a new power will cover all the major cities of the planet. The idea for Ford is to link all the cars without drivers in a single intelligent transport structure, which would, even in heavy traffic, optimize traffic in Metropolitan areas.
“We are focused on big cities. What we see now is not the solution. Private transport is moved from the outskirts of the city. I was in Moscow — traffic jams on the way from the airport to the city centre brought me to despair. And about the same in London. This is not a solution to the problem of mobility. A possible solution is in the network of Autonomous vehicles that communicate and circling around the city,” continues barb, Samagic.
If you combine this with Ford’s idea of car-sharing, ideally in large cities, generally there will be no public transport, no private cars. Unmanned vehicles will be common and will be automatically run through the city, picking up people on demand. This, of course, utopia: drivers-people in the foreseeable future still on the roads will remain and apparently will not interfere with the algorithms of traffic.
***
Facebook bought the Belarusian company that created the increasingly popular app Masquerade. This is a program that allows you to take selfie photos or videos with a superimposed “masks” — animated picture, which accurately replicate the facial expressions of the host. In fact, the famous Masquerade obliged with American TV presenter Jimmy Kimmel, which, a few days before the ceremony, “Oscar”, demonstrated the app on his radio show, “wearing a” mask Leonardo Di Caprio. After that, the audience a small startup has exploded to 16 million users and the program itself in a few days entered the top 3 App Store.
Now the Masquerade audience is the entire Facebook audience. Both companies have confirmed the purchase. The transaction amount is not known, but it is known that the entire development team Masquerade will relocate from Minsk to London, and the functionality of the application will soon be included in the Facebook video player. By the way, a few days ago there were rumors that Masquerade can be sold to Apple for something over $ 100 million. As can be seen, the leakage was slightly inaccurate.
http://www.vestifinance.ru/articles/68363
