Hand’s On: Ford Sync’s New Voice-Controlled Turn-By-Turn Directions

Ford Sync 3.0′s lovely Samantha robo-voice can now soothingly guide you to any destination you tell her, incorporating real-time traffic updates to help plan your trip. This is how it works.

As you can see, it’s pretty easy; the system calls up your paired Bluetooth phone and transmits all the data the sytem needs over the voice channel. Destinations are spoken aloud and read by the system; our demo was using prepared presets, so we couldn’t give the voice recognition a full shakedown, but after Sync knows where you’re going, the process seems incredibly smooth.

Soon, Sync will be able to use your phone’s data plan and get its fingers in any mobile apps programmed with support for Sync’s open control API, but for now, this is a pretty appealing addition that lets you ditch a dedicated NAV. It will be in every car Ford makes by 2011.