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.

Owners of 2010 and 2011 Ford Sync-capable whips can now send direction and traffic info to their cars from their Androids and iPhones with Ford's free Sync Destinations app. Hey, it's better than fiddling with the car's GPS controls. [Sync]

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?

Hughes Telematics stopped by to show us and our buddies at Jalopnik the in-car connected tech they're pitching to OEMs, which was actually pretty great. But it did include this perfect piece of generational misunderstanding.

Want to be able to say "John Mayer" behind the wheel and have the Pandora app on your phone queue up a station of similarly smooth jams automatic-like? That's where Ford Sync is going.

Ford and Microsoft's Sync is already pretty great—and the new generation Sync that S-Balm's revealing at this very moment at his keynote is better—turn-by-turn voice direction and more, cooed by Sync's lovely Samantha.

Here at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Steve Ballmer has kicked off his speech wearing Bill Gates' old shoes. Was TechCrunch right about the speech's contents? Update: Here's video of the keynote:

Hyundai and Microsoft have just agreed for the latter to develop software for the former's cars, shoving in a "music and information system" by the year 2010. No details yet, but from the sound of things it seems like Microsoft's taking advantage of their experience with the Ford Sync system and making voice-control…