Gadgetory

just a few years ago people would look at their smartphone and think why can't the tech in my car be more like this and then all of a sudden it was now cars have to be nearly as digital connected and fast evolving as mobile devices without becoming death traps of distraction in this episode of cnet conversations we meet the chief technology officer at Ford Paul Mascarenas who has the cutting edge of this major automaker on his plate at a very tech forward time have you ever seen more innovation than right now just more and more and more innovation again this trend is the consumer world now extending into the vehicle environment but us having to do it in a way they're seamless and way that's very sure if that's safe Mascarenas became CTO of Ford in January 2011 right around the time Ford SYNC got the ability to integrate third-party apps by pandora and stitcher that's also the point in automotive history where a lot of folks begin wondering aloud where an app-based car leads us in terms of distraction the answer to that question begins in Fords vehicle simulator vertex this is like aerospace technology right this is like something that NASA would use voice this person it's a flashing light yeah that's exactly what it it it's a very very real driving experience you can see here the view from a driver's seat in terms of the street scene we've been using this for about 10 years now to simulate all aspects of the driving experience and if you think about the you know driver distraction in the broadest sense is everything from the headline-grabbing texting while driving phone calls while driving there's a lot more going on let's get in vertex I feel this is quite an experience let's go right if I'm well I guess I'm first of a slaughterfest all right so what do you do in a simulator like this what are you learning from me doing this well the first thing is just the driving experience itself so we can experiment with lots of different setups in the vehicle whether seating positions steering wheel configurations the type of displays that we have in the car we also see in front of you Brian there's some cameras up Yeah right in front of me here we can actually use to monitor your face particularly your eyes and detect whether you're dry drowsy or whether you're distracted because those wouldn't lie those cameras will know what I'm really doing and my eyes are really knowing they know whether you're looking at me they know whether you're looking down I know whether you're focusing on the road ahead being our own yeah now it's getting interesting now I'm getting traffic here's an area where you might start to sort to measure my workload right exactly some more things are happening now I got a lot of traffic around me all of a sudden we might choose for example to say hey I can't receive a telephone call or we might write new radial or you might stop changing chapters on premium if i recall correctly with the evos concept you're looking to a future of starting to measure even more biometric or biological inputs is that right it is and one of the things that we have in there the evos as a concept is a heart rate monitoring sing we can use that information to shut down displays to shut down telephone features and really just help you concentrate on on the driving it's a whole new world that we're going into and a couple of bumps in the road yeah it's a mission it's absolutely amazing how immersive mishits michigan paintin this is right i can tell what state where that's how accurate it is for Paul Mascarenas evolving and improving the automobile is part of a career-long engagement with the high tech side of cars what got you into this business in the first place I'm getting the cars I love cars I've always loved cars I I join food right out of college in the UK yeah I've worked my whole career in vehicle development there's just so much going on out there whether it's safety technologies whether its connectivity communications and so on how you stitch all of those things together in a vehicle and provide this different and kind of wonderful user experience has just been fantastic how can it be anything other than an exciting business to be in now not long ago a CTO at a major car company might have been somewhat out of the spotlight while the focus was more on styling or horsepower even rebates but today a CTO like Paul Mascarenas finds himself very much at the center of the action anywhere but the middle of the road you