Starting today, Ford will be rolling out the Ford Developer Program which will let developers anywhere specialize their apps for use with Ford's Sync functionality using Ford AppLink. And it's all license and royalty free.

Ford recently overhauled their car dashboards to make car interfaces less sucky and more like cellphones. They focused on better usability and teamed up with design firm Ideo to create a consistent UI for all their cars.

The first generation of Ford's voice-activated car control system, Sync, recognized some 100 commands. The new version, beefed up with tech from voice-recognition company Nuance, recognizes over 10,000. Basically, your new Ford just became a way better listener.

In MyFord-equipped cars, a "Do Not Disturb" button lets you block incoming calls and texts while driving. And since so many states are banning texting and calling while driving these days, it'll save you from the inevitable fines.

The announcement came earlier this month, but today's the first day that GM's OnStar eNav feature is fully operational. If you've got an OnStar-enabled GM vehicle (model year 2006 or more recent), you can search for a destination on Google Maps and have it sent directly to your car. Just like Ford Sync! And hopefully…

While other car manufacturers already have inbuilt Google Maps support, Ford's going to be the first to go it away for free—in Sync-equipped cars, that is. It'll become available late June, for all 2010 - 2011 car models.

Plugging in your electric car willy-nilly strains utility companies and costs you money. Ford's new vehicles will use Microsoft's Hohm, a cloud-based application for managing energy consumption, to make sure you're being smart about charging your electric car.

We've seen several HD radios with iTunes tagging before, but this is the first time we've seen it pre-installed in a car, ready to drive off the show room floor.

Today over in Redmond, Ford CEO Alan Mulally handed Steve Ballmer the keys to a light blue metallic Ford Fusion Hybrid not coincidentally rigged up with Microsoft's Sync system. Unfortunately, at that moment, I was too far off to hear what they were saying. Any guesses?