What could your car, home and football possibly have in common? If there’s a football fan at your house, you have one answer. But, there is another answer. All three have changed enormously in recent years because of technology. Advanced features and increased safety are just two of the positive results of technology advances. Here’s how your car, home and even the NFL use today’s technologies.
Your Car
According to Alex Perdikis, Koons of Silver Spring general manager, the newest Ford Sync platform, Sync 3, is heads and shoulders above the previous versions. Set to install in all Ford models by the end of 2016, the newest Sync supports a wide range of applications that include hands-free connectivity for safer operation and an intuitive interface. Listening to music, making calls and navigation has never been so much fun.
Technology has made cars safer than ever. The latest trends in safety include blind spot monitoring, lane-keep assistance, driver-assist cameras and park-assist. Crash prevention is at the core of many of today’s safety technologies. As with most innovations throughout the years, including safety belts, features first appear in luxury cars and filter down to standard models soon after.
Future innovations include connected cars. The advantage of connected vehicles is connectivity systems have the ability to alert drivers to problems beyond their vision. For example, most chain reaction accidents could be avoided with connected cars. For example, if your car is the fifth in line, a connected car could alert you immediately when the first car unexpectedly brakes, giving you time to react.
Your Home
Safety and comfort drive technology at home. Smoke alarms and carbon monoxide monitors are standard in most homes now, but technology has made your home even safer, more comfortable and increased its energy efficiency.
Programmable thermostats allow you to set a program that automatically turns the heat up or down at different times during the day. Program a cooler temperature during the day while you work and set the thermostat to turn the heat up a few minutes before you get home. Today’s programmable thermostats do even more than that, however.
If you’re like most people, you have one room that stays colder than the rest of the house. The newest programmable thermostats include wireless sensors that, when placed in the cold room, automatically sense the temperature and up the heat when needed. That means that every room in your house is just the right temperature.
NFL Football
So, what’s all this have to do with football? The NFL is a game of age-old traditions. In 2014, however, NFL football made a major shift away from a sideline that was once filled with paper charts and photographs delivered on a clothesline from above. Instead, players and coaches see pictures immediately on tablets without having to wait. The Surface tablets, custom-made by Microsoft for the NFL, are waterproof and designed to withstand temperatures from 120 degrees above zero to 45 degrees below. That still may not be enough to survive Green Bay in December, however.