Ford is going to let you listen to your "tweets" and Internet music and news stations while behind the wheel, as the company expands what it calls "in-car connectivity."
Ford executives outlined a number of the new features, which are activated by voice or touch commands to minimize driver distraction, in a keynote speech at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The new Internet services, which require a mobile phone with a Bluetooth connection, are a Twitter application built by developer OpenBeak, Pandora music radio and Stitcher, a personalized newscast service.
Ford also also announced it was in "active talks" with Google about bringing unspecified "devices and services" from the Internet giant to its cars and had forged a partnership with online mapping website MapQuest.
The new technologies being rolled out are systems known as Sync, developed with Microsoft, which also gives traffic reports, navigation information and even provides a "health report" on the state of the car. Ford introduced Sync two years ago and president and chief executive Alan Mulally said the company now has more than one million Sync-equipped cars on the road.
Mulally added that the new features will eventually "have a place in every Ford vehicle and not just our luxury models."
Addressing the obvious safety concerns, Derrick Kuzak, Ford's global product development chief, said making the Sync interfaces "simple and intuitive" was critical so drivers can keep their eyes on the road. "That's why our technology solution enables hands-free voice controls," Kuzak said. "They have to minimize driver distraction. We even block things like touchscreen destination entries when the vehicle is at speed."
Kuzak said Ford's solutions would help cut down on people fiddling with their cellphones while driving -- a contributing factor in many accidents. "That's the whole point of Sync technology -- to minimize the distraction of in-car use of mobile devices you love by connecting and controlling them by voice," Kuzak said. "Our vision for Sync is that customers can connect to friends and family, to their favorite entertainment devices and to all of the data stored in the cloud using voice commands, touch controls and colorful LCD graphics," he added.
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