2014 Ford Fusion Se on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Amazon looking to bring Kindle to your next car?

Maybe so. The online retailer and digital media monolith recently announced the Amazon Cloud Player, an application for Ford Sync that allows users to stream media from their Amazon Cloud account directly to a Ford vehicle. This foray into automotive technology got the minds at Gigaom.com thinking about what could be next for Amazon. As Kevin Fitchard writes, the logical step is to make audio versions of your Kindle library selections available in your car. As he points out, Amazon has already laid the groundwork for such a move.
Amazon pulled the sheets back on Whispersync for Voice last year. The tech pairs ebooks with an Audible book for a small extra fee, allowing users to either read along with a narrator or switch between audio and text versions on command. Fitchard says it wouldn't be some great leap to apply the same principles to a car, where voice recognition software would allow users to pause or select chapters without ever taking their eyes off of the road.
It all sounds just fine to us, but Amazon hasn't said a thing about such a move. Still, we wouldn't be surprised to see the company come down this road in the near future just the same.

Jay Leno is far beyond driven in his 1971 Pantera

Perhaps it's fitting that the band Pantera is known for its heavy metal music, because the DeTomaso Pantera is the automotive equivalent of a metal album. It's short, aggressive and makes a mean sound. It doesn't mess around either, with a Ford 351-cubic-inch (5.75-liter) V8 sending mountains of torque to the rear wheels. This week, Jay Leno takes us on a detailed tour of his '71 to show why it rocks.
There's a regular format to Jay Leno's Garage. It starts with Jay and maybe a guest taking a look at the car and talking about its history, and then they take it out on the open road. However, this video is practically a Pantera buyer's guide. Jay is adamant from the start that the last thing anyone should own is a stock example. To remedy this, he and his guest, the editor of the Pantera Club magazine, take viewers to school about some of the ways to turn them into even better performance machines.
No matter what you do to it, though, the Pantera requires that the driver adapt to it, not the other way around. For example, Jay isn't a big guy by most standards, but he has to cram himself into the cockpit with his shoes off and shirt partially unbuttoned just to go for a drive. Still, once out on the road, it all makes sense with that rumbling V8 and those Italian supercar looks. Scroll down to watch and learn a lot more about this uncompromising '70s performance car.

MyFord Touch getting buttons and knobs back to counter criticisms

Ford deserves credit for being a front-runner in offering advanced infotainment technology with its Sync and MyFord Touch systems, but continued consumer complaints over its confusing touchscreen interface and capacitive controls has made the automaker relent. The Wall Street Journal reports that physical buttons and knobs for controlling tuning and volume will be coming back to Ford vehicles equipped with the controversial infotainment system.
The 2013 F-150 with MyFord Touch gives us a glimpse of what the new layout with buttons and knobs might look like, as Ford says a similar balance of touch screen capability and buttons/knobs are what's being planned for future models. And, while capacitive controls have no fans in the halls of Autoblog, many of Ford's models with MyFord Touch do have a large physical knob for adjusting volume with integrated buttons for tuning and advancing tracks, though most of those are models with the optional upgraded Sony Audio system. Lincoln models with MyLincoln Touch, however, feature only capacitive controls for all stereo and climate functions.
Despite receiving enough complaints to throw buttons and knobs back into the mix (a move that reminds us of BMW's iDrive trajectory, among others), Ford reports that Sync and MyFord Touch have still been sold on 79 percent of its 2013 model year vehicles, a number it claims is double the rate that Honda and Toyota are getting for their infotainment systems. Ford also states that owners who do opt for the duo of technologies are more satisfied with overall vehicle quality than those who don't have it.