Under the hood, modern cars are packed with computers. But in the passenger cabin, they remain analog islands in a digital world. For some, this may be a blessed relief. But others want to bring their digital music and digital messaging into the place where they spend hours every week. Unfortunately, that's still too clumsy a process.
Yes, more cars are making it easy to connect wirelessly with Bluetooth-equipped cellphones so drivers can make hands-free phone calls -- but not hands-free text messaging. And that results in the dangerous practice of texting while behind the wheel.
And, yes, you can pipe the sound from your portable music player into the car's speakers. But you usually have to control the song selection and skipping by handling the player itself, and that's another dangerous distraction.
Some car makers solve this music problem with integration kits that transfer control of the music player to the dashboard or steering-wheel controls and display song information on a dashboard screen. But this option is most common in luxury cars and is typically designed only for Apple's iPods.
Now, Ford Motor, working with Microsoft, has come up with a system that's a big step forward in integrating cellphones and portable music players into cars. It's highly versatile and works with numerous devices on a wide range of Ford models.
I've been testing the $395 option, called SYNC, with multiple cellphones and music players. It's quite good and indicates that the digitally backward auto industry finally may be getting it.
SYNC combines the often separate cellphone and music-player functions into one unified interface that can be controlled by a voice-recognition system that works well. You can command it by voice to play a single song out of thousands on your iPod or other music player. With some phones, it will even read your incoming cellphone text messages to you, and properly pronounce text-message shortcuts such as LOL (Laughing Out Loud.)
Ford isn't limiting this system to luxury cars. It's available on a dozen models -- including the company's least-expensive car, the Ford Focus. I tested SYNC on a Focus.
SYNC simultaneously handles multiple cellphones and music players from a variety of companies. It imports and remembers the address books and song information for up to 12 phones and four players, so that as you connect and reconnect a remembered device, wired or wirelessly, it is ready to go. It doesn't have a hard disk and doesn't store your music.
Unlike other approaches, the Ford system doesn't require a special cable or proprietary connector. It uses a standard USB port and the cable that came with your player. SYNC will even play music directly from a USB thumb drive. There's also an audio-in jack for players that don't support USB, or which require both.
SYNC can even stream music wirelessly, over Bluetooth, from the cellphones that support this feature. However, due to limitations in Bluetooth, it doesn't transfer song selection controls, or the song information display, to the dashboard in this scenario. The same limitation applies if your player can be connected only with the audio-in jack.
I tested SYNC with two music players and four cellphones and the system handled them all effortlessly. I used a year-old iPod and a new Samsung P2 as my test music players, and SYNC quickly transferred their song information and allowed me to select playlists, artists, albums, genres and individual songs by voice command.
I tried the cellphone functions with an Apple iPhone, a Motorola RAZR, a RIM BlackBerry and a new HTC Shadow phone and, again, all worked properly. While phone calls and address-book imports were handled easily on all the phones, some of SYNC's advanced functions, like the reading of text messages and the streaming of music, aren't widely supported on all phones. For example, only the RAZR worked with the text-message feature.
The iPhone test was especially interesting because it is both a Bluetooth-equipped phone and a full-fledged iPod. The SYNC treated it as both, simultaneously.
I found the voice-command system surprisingly reliable. In four days of testing, I encountered only a few instances in which my commands were misunderstood.
SYNC has some limitations. While it can read text messages on compatible phones, Ford didn't build in the ability to dictate and send text messages. You can send only canned messages, like 'Be there in 20 minutes.'
But there are a lot of advanced features -- too many to list here. And Ford plans to add others, which owners will be able to install at home. Detailed information on the system is available at syncmyride.com.
Alas, I did discover one glitch. Twice during my testing, SYNC mistakenly declared that a music player had been unplugged when it hadn't been. The system recovered with a little fiddling, but Ford needs to fix this.
Still, SYNC is a very well done method for integrating digital devices into a car, and in a model that most people can afford.
Walter S. Mossberg
这个电子时代，汽车引擎盖下面早就装上电脑了，但车里却仍是采用模拟技术的化外之地。对一部分人来说，这或许并无大碍，反而可以使他们从数字世界中暂时脱身；但也有一些人希望，在这个他们平均每周要呆上好几个小时的地方，能享受到数字音乐或信息服务。不幸的是，直到目前这还不是一件很容易的事。
的确，有越来越多的车可以通过配备蓝牙的手机与外界实现无线连接，驾车人不需腾出手就能打电话，但要想接收短信就不方便了。这也导致开车时因忙于发短信而使自己处于发生交通事故的高危环境。
还有，你虽然可以将便携式随身听连到车里的扬声器上听音乐，但通常你还得自己操作随身听来选曲子，这也是会让你分神的危险动作。
现在，有一些汽车制造商解决了在车上听音乐的问题，他们制作了一个集成装置，它能把音乐播放器的控制功能转移到仪表盘或方向盘上，并将曲目信息显示在仪表盘显示屏上。不过，这样的配置只在高档车上比较常见，而且，通常也都是针对iPod设计的。
现在，情况终于有了新进展。福特公司(Ford Motor)与微软(Microsoft)合作推出了一套集成系统，将手机和音乐随身听接入汽车。这套系统的最大进步是它适用于多款福特车型、能进行多种操作，且能连接多种设备。
我用不同的手机和随身听测试了一套395美元的SYNC系统。效果很不错。看来，在数字技术方面一向落后的汽车业最终有可能因此改变面貌。
SYNC将手机和随身听功能合成在一个界面上，然后通过一个功能强大的语音识别系统进行控制。你可以“口头”命令它从你的iPod或其他牌子的播放器中数千首歌曲里挑出一首播放出来。对某些型号的手机，这个系统甚至还能把你接到的短信念出来，而且连LOL（意为“大笑”）等缩写都能正确读出来。
这个系统福特并不打算只在豪华车上推广。现在，有十几个型号的车都能装，包括一些中等价位的车，比如福克斯(Focus)。我就是在福克斯上测试SYNC的。
SYNC能同时应对多只不同品牌的手机和随身听。它最多能将12只手机的地址簿和4只随身听的音乐曲目信息输入系统并记录下来，然后，当你将记录过的设备连接上去时（不论是在有线状态还是无线状态），就可以工作了。该系统没有硬盘，因此不存储音乐。
福特这套系统跟其他方式还有一个不同之处是，它不需要专用的连线或外设。它采用标准的USB接口，你的随身听原来的连接线就可以。SYNC甚至能直接播放U盘里面的音乐。对不支持USB的随身听，它还有一个音频输入插孔。
SYNV甚至能通过蓝牙用无线方式从某些型号的手机里播放音乐。不过，由于蓝牙本身的限制，它不能将控制曲目选择的功能转移到仪表盘上。另外，如果你是通过音频输入插孔连接随身听的，那么也存在同样的问题。
我用两只随身听和4只手机测试了SYNC，结果非常方便。两只随身听一个是用了一年的iPod，另一个是新的三星P2。连接到SYNC后，系统迅速将曲目信息转了过去，然后就让我用语音挑选演奏家、作曲家、专辑、男女歌手、具体曲目等项目。
我还用苹果iPhone、摩托罗拉RAZR、RIM的BlackBerry和HTC的新款Shadow测试了手机功能，效果都很好。虽然这四款手机的呼叫和地址簿输入都很容易操作，不过，像播放短信和无线播放音乐等高级功能就不是都能用了。比如，只有RAZR支持这种短信功能。
测试iPhone的时候特别有趣，因为它既有蓝牙，也有功能齐备的iPod，SYNC于是将它同时作为两个设备来处理了。
我发现，语音指令系统出乎意料地可靠，在4天的测试时间里，我只遇到几次指令被听错的情况。
SYNC也有一定的局限性。虽然它对某些手机能读出短信，但福特并没有将口输短信和发短信的功能设置到系统里。你只能发送一些预录的信息，比如“车20分钟后到”等等。
但SYNC还是有很多高级功能，恕我不在这里一一列举了。福特计划增加其他一些功能，车主可以自己在家里安装。有关该系统的具体信息可在syncmyride.com上看到。
不过呢，嘿嘿，我也发现了一个小毛病。在测试过程中，SYNC有两次提醒说随身听没接上，但实际已经接上了。摆弄几下之后算是正常了，不过福特需要解决这个问题。
虽然有这点小问题，SYNC在将数字设备与汽车对接方面做的还是非常出色的，而且，它的费用大多数人也都能承担。
Walter S. Mossberg
（编者按：本文作者Walter S. Mossberg是《华尔街日报》科技栏目Personal Technology，Mossberg's Mailbox等栏目的专栏作家。这些栏目主要介绍一些最新的消费类科技产品和解决方案，并解答读者提出的问题。）
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