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All Entries Tagged With: "SYNC"
Should Enterprises Be Wary of Cloud Computing?
Ovum, a tech analyst consulting firm, is recommending that enterprises take a cautious approach to Cloud Computing, citing outages from Amazon and Google, as well as management challenges, as examples.
“Enterprises are right to be cautious about relying on such consumer/SME-oriented suppliers for anything resembling a mission critical application or service,” said research firm Ovum in a report.
“A spate of service outages on the Amazon and Google platforms has increased enterprise caution about the reliability of consumer-market-oriented cloud providers.”
Personally, I see Cloud Computing taking a few hits on the chin next year as firms take a wait-and-see on what Web 2.0 firms will make it. Trusting data to a company that might not see the end of 1st quarter 2009, is enough reason to hold on to that precious data and keeping it local.
Windows Live Sync Available
We broke the news several weeks ago about Windows Live Sync replacing Foldershare, and the transition has officially begun. Download the new Windows Live Sync here. Continue reading
Nuance Speech Recognition Technology Powers Microsoft SYNC
I had a lot of fun testing out Ford’s Escape Hybrid and their Microsoft SYNC technology. As I expressed in my posts and demoed in my videos, my kids and I had some struggles with the speech recognition aspect, though.
During my evaluation, I was surprised to find out that Nuance ( the company behind Dragon Naturally Speaking) powered the speech recognition engine in Sync. Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to chat with them about a few of my challenges, as well as learn about some things they are working on: Continue reading
Windows Live Sync to Replace Foldershare
Cue up The Police.
Microsoft just sent out an email advising all Live Foldershare users that a new product will be announced in December called Windows Live Sync. It will replace Foldershare and will include the following enhancements:
- More folders and files—sync up to 20 folders with 20,000 files each.
- Integration with Windows Live ID—no more extra sign-in stuff to remember.
- Integration with the Recycle Bin—no more separate Trash folder to fiddle with.
- Unicode support—sync files in other languages
Sounds interesting, but I’m wondering why they just didn’t move it all over to Live Mesh. Oh well, it’s Windows Live, remember? Can anyone say Windows Live Skydrive? I used to be a hard-core Foldershare user. Once I got a taste of Live Mesh and SugarSync, though, I’ve never looked back. Here’s the rest of the email that Foldershare users should read carefully:
Why This Medical Student Likes Windows Live Mesh So Much
Windows Live Mesh is one of those products whose reach will be felt for a long time to come, especially as Microsoft begins to roll out sync features that tie in their applications (think OneNote, etc).
DaveTN, a respiratory therapist about to enter graduate school, has penned a great article on why he likes Live Mesh so much and the value that seamless sync and access to the files via web brings him as a student constantly on the move.
As a student in the process of finishing my undergrad in healthcare and planning to enter graduate school next fall (Physician Assistant) and working full time during the process, I look for any technological means to give me a (legal/legitimate) edge. Add to the fact that I love technology – which is evident by the fact that I own three tablets, a UMPC, and a desktop as well as a home server – I try to use them in any way possible to make my life and education easier.
But, keeping my information up to date on all of them was a bit of a daunting process.
GBM Shortcut: Day 7 With the Ford Escape, My Kids Offer Up a Review
In this final installment of my look at the Ford Escape and SYNC, my kids offer up their take on the car.
Click through to the Read More link to see the video and be sure to check out the previous coverage:
GBM Shortcut: Day 6 – The Ford Escape, SYNC…. and Mood Lighting
I caught my neighbors trying out the mood lighting in the Ford Escape………
Click through to the Read More link to see the video and be sure to check out the previous coverage:
Day 5 With Ford Escape Hybrid and SYNC: The Phone
In day 5 of my adventures with the Ford Escape Hybrid and SYNC, I give Warner a call and we talk about the weather, gas prices, engines, and generally just have a good time. Video after the Read More…
How Does Ford SYNC Work?
Check out this great video demo that shows how Ford SYNC works. It is very well done and quite entertaining. Click through to the Read More to see the video.
Day 4 With Ford Escape Hybrid and SYNC
Day 4 with the Ford Escape found me taking my son to a doctor appt. Trying to plan ahead, I stored the doctor’s contact info on my phone so it would be immediately available to me on the SYNC. I had hoped to use that address book info as part of the GPS navigation, but the address book in the GPS and the address book on the phone are not linked together - bummer. So, I then tried using voice navigation to try and get me there, but ran in to recognition problems with the street number. I probably went through four different iterations trying to use voice reco. At one point, the GPS forgot what city I was in, so I had to start all over again. By this time, I was already halfway to the doctors office and gave up. The user interface system in the GPS definitely needs some work as I was also having trouble figuring out how to manually type in the address I wanted to get to.
On the way home, the voice recognition worked quite well. My son launched some music, and I tried GPS one more time by saying “DESTINATION HOME” and it mapped out our route home without any issues. Then, I called my wife by saying ” PHONE CALL KATHI BUSHWAY HOME” - and I got her on the phone to tell her how the appointment went. The music immediately stopped playing when I started the phone call and resume when the call was ended. All of that was done by pressing just one button to activate the voice feature.
I’ll have some more video this weekend, so stay tuned.
See my previous coverage on the Ford Escape and SYNC here:
GBM Shortcut: Day 3 With Ford Escape and SYNC – Voice Recognition Pt 2
In day 3 with the Ford Escape, our family heads out to Starbucks and experiments with voice recognition and SYNC. Our results? Check it out for yourself!
Be sure to follow my other coverage on the Ford Escape and SYNC:
GBM Podcast #64: Going Mobile with the Ford Escape Hybrid and Sync
Rob is one lucky mobile warrior. He’s getting the opportunity to check out a new Ford Escape Hybrid featuring Microsoft’s Sync technology. Essentially you hop in the car and sync up your mobile gadgets and you’re on your way. In this podcast we get a chance to hear some of the features and some of Rob’s early impressions of how well Sync works. Rob and Warner also take a spin through some of their ealry impressions of the pre-beta version of Windows 7 and are both surprised at how stable this very early build is.
Day 2 With Ford Escape Hybrid – Voice Recognition
My day 2 adventures with the Ford Escape Hybrid and SYNC found me experimenting with the voice recognition features – launching music, calling people, etc. I was quite pleased to learn that I didn’t have to set up any voice tags for my phone book because that would have been a big pain. Voice tags in SYNC are used to set up Destination points within the GPS. For example, assign a voice tag for Home, and you say DESTINATION Home for the GPS to map out the route to go home.
Switching to Voice mode is quite simple – just press the voice button on the steering wheel and then get going – make a phone call, launch music, etc. It is a nice feature that should help keep the driver as hands-free as possible. My results, however, were quite mixed. I tried multiple times to call my wife, Kathi, but the system kept recognizing it as someone else’s name. I had similar problems with “PLAY ARTIST Audio Adrenaline” – it kept telling me that it couldn’t recognize the command. However, it had no problem with “PLAY ARTIST Michael Card”. If I found myself speaking too quickly, the system would come back with a not recognized command error. I probably had to repeat the voice commands two to three times at least 50% of the time before it finally got it right. I’m going to keep experimenting with voice recognition, but I’ll probably end up using the touch controls instead.
I’ll capture the experience on video tomorrow, so you can see how it works for yourself.
Read up on my previous coverage here:
Day 1 With Ford Escape Hybrid and SYNC
There is nothing like the smell of a new car to get your blood going in the morning - couple that with some good tunes + coffee, and you can certainly count yourself blessed.
I headed out to work this morning in the Ford Escape and captured this video to show how easy it was to listen to music on an iPod Touch, as well as music I purchased from Amazon and had stored on a USB stick. After shooting this video, I tried pairing up my Windows 7 and Windows XP Tablet PCs, but could not get SYNC and the Windows Tablet PCs to talk to each other. Would have been nice, though, and is certainly something Microsoft and Ford should take a look at. You can learn more about SYNC and the devices it supports at SyncMyRide.com
I’ll post up video tomorrow with up close shots of the SYNC interface and the process of initially setting up an MP3 player. Outside of what you see here, though, there is not much different other than some audio prompts and about a 20 second wait while SYNC indexes the music found on the MP3 player.
Be sure to watch my initial walk-through and my girls reactions to the Escape.
GBM Shortcut: The Ford Escape Hybrid Arrives
Ford just delivered the Escape Hybrid for me to review, and my girls are already planning everything they want me to do with it. Here is a quick 4-minute look at the car and technology I’ll be testing out for the next week.