Ford strikes gold at Edison awards

Ford engineers have taken home a number of prizes from this year's Edison Best New Product Awards in New York City.  The car company received golden gongs for MyFord Touch and MyKey systems as well as the design for rear inflatable seat belts.

Having already reached the finals for this year's awards, the folks at Ford were pretty confident they would do well on the night.

Three of Ford's latest industry-exclusive technologies -- rear inflatable seat belts, MyFord Touch and MyKey -- took gold at the internationally known 2011 Edison Best New Product Awards gala in New York last month.

Joining the Ford family of 2011 Edison Award Gold winners was a Silver award for SYNC AppLink.

"We are pleased that our latest consumer technologies have been recognized as Edison Award winners, a testament to our skilled and motivated teams that are passionate about and committed to developing industry-first innovations our customers want and value," said Derrick Kuzak, group vice president, Ford Global Product Development.

MyFord Touch utilises voice commands to control many of the in-car interfaces today largely controlled by knobs.  These include audio, climate control, navigation and phone systems. 

Similarly SYNC AppLink is the Ford branded free software application that gives users of SYNC smartphone apps smarter and importantly safer control.  In the U.S SYNC-enabled apps include the Pandora internet radio, Stitcher news radio and OpenBeak for Twitter.

The MyKey system allows parents to allay some of the fears of letting their offspring onto the roads, effectively giving parental control to aspects such as vehicle speed and audio system volume levels. Cleverly, the system will mute the teens' much prized car audio system if front seat occupants do not buckle seatbelts.

Rear inflatable seatbelts (pictured) are pretty much what they sound like.  Inflatable belts spread the impact forces of a collision across five times more of the chest than conventional seatbelts.  The effect is less pressure on the chest and greater control of head and neck motion during a crash.

The distinguished awards program symbolises the persistence and excellence personified by Thomas Alva Edison, inspiring America's drive to remain in the forefront of innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the global economy.

This year's winners were chosen by around 2,000 members of the not-for-profit Marketing Executives Networking Group, an organization comprising America's top marketing professionals and academics. The comprehensive peer-review process judged nominees on marketplace innovation, marketplace success, technological innovation, market structure innovation, societal impact and design innovation.

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