Ford and Microsoft have made a major announcement at the Detroit Auto Show with the premiere of a new Bluetooth enabled in-car entertainment device, 'Sync', that will work with your digital music player or phone in an effort to integrate communications and entertainment devices with Ford vehicles. As the video above shows Sync is designed to provide voice activated access to Bluetooth enabled devices whether you happen to be speeding down the freeway or stuck in urban traffic.

It's a nice idea that neatly integrates with Microsoft's wireless ambitions for it's recently released Zune digital music player, though the folks at Redmond better hope that Sync generates a bit more interest than Zune, otherwise it may share the recent fortunes of the rest of the US car industry. It will certainly be interesting to see how the Sync fares on the open road - there's a clear use for such a device, but whether Ford and MS can provide sufficient integration with the various brands of phones and digital music devices on the market will need a thorough road testing.

[Via our friends at Autoblog who are covering lots of other interesting announcements from the Detroit Auto Show here]